Knots in the Family Tree, Part 1

     I want to use Matthew's genealogy in Matthew 1 for the next several posts during this Advent season.  I think most of are aware that Matthew includes four women in the genealogy - but not just four women, four unusual women. They are Tamar (verse 3), Rahab (verse 5), Ruth (verse 5), and Bathsheba (verse 6). Now one would think he would want to place some of the more respected matriarchs like Sarah or Rebekah (though they had their problems, too) in this list. Instead, Matthew chooses, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, these four, who are unusual for two reasons: (1)each has some type of scandal attached to them, and (2) (for our purposes) each one has either a Gentile origin or a Gentile connection. This, in itself, would have been shocking for his Jewish readers, who thrived on a racially pure lineage, such as those re-established in Ezra and Nehemiah. Yet Matthew seems to take pains to emphasize the mixed nature of Jesus' lineage on purpose. But
remember, this was God's plan from the very beginning, a multi-ethnic, multi-national people of God (Ephesians 3). It's also the Spirit's purpose through Matthew, since He begins with a genealogy that includes persons from other nations, and then ends the gospel with the call of Jesus for His church to "go and make disciples of all nations." (Matthew 28:19)
     One more important note before we go on. I heard Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile make this point several years ago, and it has stuck with me. Matthew begins the family line of Jesus with Abraham. A good Jew, right? Wrong. He came out of Ur of the Chaldees, which became Babylon, and is today, Iraq. So, in Anyabwile's words, "the first Jew was a Gentile!" Think about it. The Jews did not become a people until they came out of Egypt together.
     So let's take a look at Tamar. We find her story in Genesis 38. She was a Canaanite. Judah had broken away from his brothers to marry a Canaanite woman (yes, Judah, the one from whom Christ came!). This entire episode is one based in lies and deceit, and as is often the case, Scripture uses a play on words to emphasize it, because the town where this woman bore Judah his third son was named Kezib (or Chezib), which is related to the Hebrew verb, "to tell a lie." Judah chose Tamar (which means "date palm," suggesting a fine figure) for his son. But after the first two sons had died at the hand of God for their sins without Tamar ever conceiving, Judah had promised his third son to her when he had grown to adulthood, a promise Judah did not deliver on. Apparently, Judah chose to place the responsibility for his sons' deaths on Tamar, rather than on God, because he had come to see her as "bad luck." He had shown his true intention when he sent her back to her father's house.
     The sordid story continued as Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute to entice her father-in-law to sleep with her so she could bear a child for the family line. Judah had deceived her, so it was payback time. When it was discovered that Tamar was pregnant, Judah decided to have her burned to death, until he discovered that she was pregnant by him. Then he showed some measure of repentance. Like his grandfather before him, Judah became the father of twin boys.
     That's where the story ends. Yet Matthew places her in the family tree of Jesus Christ. And not only her, but one of her sons, born of deception, Perez.
     There are several lessons here. One is that we are not safe when we separate ourselves from the community, which is what Judah did. We think sometimes, as believers, that we can get along in the world very well without the church. Judah serves as a warning to us that we cannot. There is always the temptation to live like our neighbors instead of as the people of God.
     And let's note the continued reaping received from deception. Jacob had used a garment to deceive his father, Isaac, and Judah and his brothers had used Joseph's garment to deceive their father into believing his beloved son was dead. Now Tamar used a garment to deceive Judah (Genesis 38:14).
     But over and above this all, the lesson is one of grace. Yes, God disapproves of our sin, and sometimes we pay the highest price for it (like Tamar's first two husbands). Yet despite their imperfections, God used these folks to accomplish his purposes, including the provision of a family line for the Messiah, the One who would come to "save His people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21). God truly takes the weak things of this world to shame the wise (1 Corinthians 1:27). I stand as Exhibit A. I like these words of Victor Hamilton:
     "Each of these four women had a highly irregular and potentially scandalous marital union. Nevertheless, these unions were, by God's providence, links in the chain to the Messiah. Accordingly, each of them prepares the way for Mary, whose marital situation is also peculiar, given the fact that she is pregnant but has not yet had sexual relations with her betrothed husband, Joseph. Thus the inclusion of the likes of Tamar in this family tree on one hand foreshadows the circumstances of the birth of Christ, and on the other hand blunts any attack on Mary. God had worked His will in the midst of whispers of scandal." (The Book of Genesis, Chapters 18-50, p.455-456)
     Yet again, for our purposes, let us not forget that Tamar was also a Canaanite, not only a Gentile, but a person belonging to a nation of particularly wicked Gentiles. Yet here she is in the family tree. Let's thank God this Advent season for the One who came into the world from the Father, "full of grace and truth." (John 1:14). And let's keep on dreaming of that church that is made up of all nations and looks a lot like the church that is, even now, in heaven.