More Genealogical Fun

I often stop whatever I'm doing in my daily times in Scripture in order to spend intentional time in the Christmas story at this time of year. Several years ago I was spending Christmas in Matthew and came across another glorious genealogy that the Lord used to speak to me.

Matthew is all about making sure his Jewish readers understand the link from Jesus to the historical roots of Israel and the promised Messiah. And so he starts his story in Matt. 1 with a long genealogy from Abraham to Jesus. Not exactly a riveting, attention-grabbing intro. But look at how Matthew summarizes this huge list of names:

17Thus 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.

Abraham. David. Babylon. Christ. To quote the old Sesame Street song, one of these things is not like the other. Or to put it another way, Babylon has some preciously significant company.

Babylonian captivity is a dark period of time in Israel's history. It's like the family member you don't talk about at the reunions or those awkward junior high pictures that you hope no one ever sees. And yet here it is, prominently on display as an anchor point leading up to Messiah.

We spend much of our lives avoiding, downplaying, or trying to forget Babylon. But here we see that the God of the Redemptive Story redeems Babylon. He loves to write our Babylon's into his story. In fact, if we will let him, he will take our Babylon's and make it such that we are not only not ashamed of them, we might even be willing to give it a place of prominence, for all the world to see, as evidence of the power and glory of God.

As for me, I'm still learning to trust in that, which is why the junior high pictures are staying safely tucked away.