The Genealogy of Jesus reveals the God who is love, leaves His heavenly dwelling and reaches out to embrace wayward humanity, offering salvation to all who believe. Genealogies generally determine an individual’s identity and show the social structure, status, and privileges of office, revealing character descriptions.
Jesus’ birth when the mighty Roman Empire ruled over Israel shows God’s sovereignty and that God’s purposes, not those of Roman rulers, are being worked out in human history. God is the ultimate ruler, and no power can frustrate God’s purposes. It’s unimportant how big and powerful the community of Christ is; rather, what empowers us is that God is all-powerful, and we are God’s people called to share God’s love with all—working for the common good.
God supervises human history, and God’s purposes run through the promise God gave Abraham that all nations will be blessed through him. And even when God’s purposes are not always faithfully expressed by humans, they are not hindered, and all sorts of humans, faithful and wicked, famous and unknown, firstborn and insignificant, female and male, Jews and Gentiles, are caught up in the purposes of God.
Matthew enlightens us about Jesus’ mission, which, in its most basic form, is “to save people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Amazingly, Jesus was born of a virgin, wherein Divinity forever united humanity, an awesome reality. Salvation is by God’s grace offered to all in Christ Jesus.
The four female figures, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba, share with the Virgin Mary; this ruptures the tradition of only citing male forebearers and offers a reading site of resistance against dominant male ideology. Do the names of these blessed women from the New Testament allowed to resound during worship service? The story of Jesus’ origin — Abraham fathered Isaac, and Jesse begot David the king.