December 25 - The Messiah

December 25 – The Messiah (Matthew 1:1-17)

The first seventeen verses of the Gospel of Matthew were problematic for me when I was young.  Why in the world would I care about the genealogy of Jesus?  Obviously someone did, since it was placed predominantly at the beginning of the first of the books in the New Testament.  It seemed boring and unimaginative for the introduction to a story that would change the world.

This was one of the first passages I had to survey for my Inductive Bible study course on Matthew and I have not yet spent the time that I desire to spend learning about the people in this lineage.  Now I find myself enchanted with this genealogy.

Luke’s genealogy traces Jesus back to Adam, but Matthew has a different emphasis.  He wants his readers to recognize that Jesus is very much a Jew. He begins with Abraham and the first thing we should understand is that Jesus is a product of the Covenant God made with Abraham.  Fourteen generations later (Matthew 1:6b), King David is named.  This is the renewal of the Covenant found in 2 Samuel 7.  God declares that He himself will establish a house for David and that His offspring will establish the kingdom.  In 2 Samuel 7:16, God tells David that his house and his kingdom will endure forever.

The third set of fourteen generations begins with the exile and ends with the birth of Jesus, who is called Christ – Messiah.

This genealogy begins with the Covenant and ends with the Messiah.  Its groupings emphasize high points in Israel’s history, reminding them that the Messiah has been prophesied and has been promised to the people of Israel.  They are reminded of great moments in their history with the reign of David and Solomon and they are reminded of very low moments with memories of the exile to Babylon.

Three different times, Matthew tells his readers that he is writing of Jesus … the Messiah.  He says it in Matthew 1:1, “A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham.”  He says it again in Matthew 1:16 at the end of the record, “…Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.”  He writes it one more time to finish the passage in Matthew 1:17, “Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ.”

Any time we find a word, thought or idea repeated, there is a reason.  Matthew repeated the message of the Messiah so that his readers would know that the man, Jesus was born to be the Messiah, the one who would save Israel and through them, the world.

Jesus is the Messiah.  Jesus is born!