A Long List of Names

When we think of the Christmas story our minds go to the angels, wise men, shepherds, and mangers, but that’s not really the start of the Christmas story. The start of the story is found in Matthew 1:1. Matthew 1:1-16 is a long list of names. It’s a genealogy of the earthly family of Jesus. It starts with Abraham and goes all the way to Mary and Joseph. We almost always skip over this list of people. We want to get to the parts of the story that we all think of and have read and heard since we were kids. The problem is when we do that we miss some really important things and people in the genealogy.

This list found in Matthew shows one important thing, Jesus is in the line of David. This means more than we realize. It was prophesized throughout the Old Testament that Messiah would be a descendant of David, and this list has David in it. It shows that Jesus can be traced directly back to David. Anyone claiming to be the Messiah would have to be from the House of David, and Jesus fulfills this. Any Jewish person reading the Book of Matthew would be drawn to this immediately. It’s also important for us to understand and see that Jesus matches up with everything said about the Messiah in the Old Testament. His lineage tells us He is who He said He is.

Another interesting thing are the people on the list. It’s not a group of people without problems. It’s a list of people that often had huge moral failings. We don’t know the background and life of every person on the list, but the ones we do have some colorful life stories, to say the least. Abraham couldn’t wait on God to fulfill His promise so he slept with his wife’s servant to have a child. Jacob lied and cheated to the point he destroyed his family. David committed adultery and had a man murdered. Solomon committed polygamy to the point He was pulled away from God. Manasseh was a king in the Old Testament, and he was one of the most wicked people in the Bible. Rahab was a gentile prostitute. Bathsheba committed adultery with David. All of these people made the list.

This shows us something important, and that is that God can still use us even when we fall far away from who He wants us to be. We aren’t thrown away by God because we sin. His grace is still able to overcome our own fallen nature and sinfulness. He often uses us in spite of ourselves, but this doesn’t mean we just accept this and go on sinning. We see these great men and women from Jesus’s genealogy that failed in great ways repent and change in so many cases. David sought forgiveness of his sin and turned back to the Lord. Solomon realized what he had done, and he said at the end of his life that it was all about the fear of and obedience to God.

God’s grace shines through his genealogy. He used flawed men and women to bring Jesus to us. He can still do great things through us. This doesn’t show how good we can be but how great our loving and gracious God can be. This list in Matthew 1 shows us Jesus was who He said He was, and it teaches us that God desires to work with and through fallen people. Wherever you may be, whatever you may be dealing with God can save, restore, and use any of us. He is truly great.