Our text for today is part of the “genealogy” of Jesus taken from Matthew 1. One can trace the bloodline from Joseph all the way back to Abraham. That’s amazing! What’s also very cool is that we can look at some of the names and recall their stories. Stories of people we have looked on with admiration, but I’d like to highlight one person.
In Joshua 2, the story goes that after Joshua started leading the children of Israel, he sent spies into the promised land to survey it. The spies came upon the house of Rahab and she accommodated them. Not only did she take them in, but she hid them when the authorities came to inquire about the spies. She had heard of the great things that God had done and believed that “He is the God in heaven above, and in the earth beneath.” Because of Rahab’s kindness and faith, the lives of her and her family were spared. Rahab is mentioned in the “Hall of Faith” (Hebrews 11:31) as being a woman of faith.
Apart from all these things, I would say the neatest thing is that she is in Jesus’ earthly “family tree”. Imagine that! To be Jesus’ great (x29) grandmother.
But Rahab was a harlot. A way of life deemed by many as punishable by death. A profession of shame. Yet, a woman thought to be "used goods" was chosen to be the ancestor of the King of kings.
Why do I bring this up? For two reasons:
1) As humans, we tend to embellish things to meet the expectations of others. Whether it’s a résumé, a social profile or our very appearance, we like to make-things-up to be the best they can or better than they are. If anybody deserves to have the best of everything, it’s God, but yet He uses the “least” of us. From Abraham down, for those we know the stories of, there are ways that we know they all failed. Abraham tried to fulfill the promise by his wife's handmaid. Jacob tricked various members of his family. Solomon had many women and worshipped their gods. Judah, of whom Jesus is known as the "Lion of the tribe of Judah”, had a child by his daughter-in-law after he mistook her for a prostitute.
In spite of all this, God still saw it fit for the Messiah to come out of their lineage. I’m sure that if we were to plot Jesus’ “bloodline” for ourselves, we’d probably pick one of Joseph’s children as His tribe and let Obed be born of Deborah, but God doesn’t do it that way. He takes the things that others reject and look down upon, and He uses them for His glory. He redeems the broken. God could have His pick of anyone, but yet He came for the poor, weak, blind, destitute, scorned, thief, ridiculed, prisoner and the oppressed.
We might look at others or ourselves and think “there is nothing worth offering.”, “They or I must be hidden away” or “We need someone better looking, more qualified or even of virgin quality.” We should never ever live lives that take for granted the blessed forgiveness that we have in Christ, but, even if we slip up or are imperfect, it doesn’t mean that God can’t use us.
2) God can take anything and turn it for His glory. When we are receiving a message from the Lord, we tend to look at the messenger or the tool to verify the validity of the message. While it is a good practice to examine things properly (Matthew 7:15-20), we shouldn't just dismiss things because they don't present themselves as what we'd expect. We shouldn't let shallow perceptions deter us, but let the Holy Spirit guide us in our discernment.
For God will take a raven to provide bread, use a donkey to preserve life, turn a day of mourning into a festival of remembrance, cause His Temple to be built in a land that was once inhabited by pagans, use a manger as a cradle, take an adulterous murderer to be the renowned king of Israel and take a persecutor of His people to be one of the greatest preachers of His word.
Everyone is flawed, but everyone is important to the work of salvation as well. God chooses who He will and His will is accomplished. The success of the Divine Plan cannot be hindered by our appearance of inadequacy. The question is, are we open to the working of God, or will we deprive ourselves of God’s goodness, because we refuse to open our eyes to His redemptive will? Don’t let another year pass by before you make a decision to walk in the will of God.
