Fergy called this week.  Found out he’s been working on his family tree.  He said he was searching for himself and wondered if I’d seen him?  He thought maybe all his ancestors were in a witness protection program! But I thought maybe they’d been used for firewood! Fergy’s been ancestrally challenged ever since he got into the gene pool when the lifeguard wasn't watching.   
    Genealogy has become big business.  Researchers can charge $50 an hour.  Some Chinese people have traced their lineage back a thousand years.    
The interest in family history isn’t new. The ancient Greeks hoped to find a god or goddess in their family tree to boost their social status.  The Romans wanted to prove they had noble ancestry so they could lord it over the commoners.
Genealogy also has an important place in the Bible.  If you’re interested, there’s a woman who offers a two-day seminar or you can buy her two books for $30 plus $6 for shipping and handling.
Matthew begins his gospel with Jesus’ genealogy and after we study it, you’re going to conclude that this former tax collector was a genius.
Matthew 1:1-17.  What did Matthew hope to accomplish by beginning with a genealogy?
      1 A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham:

    Most scholars agree that when Matthew wrote his gospel, he had a Jewish as opposed to Gentile audience in mind.  So the words the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham might be like telling us someone was the son of Billy Graham, the son of George Washington; or the son of Bill Gates, the son of Albert Einstein.
    This genealogical fury all began with Abraham:
Unique promise: Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, “This is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants. The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God (Genesis 17:3-8).” God also told him: “And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you (Genesis 12:3).” 

    All those promises were to be ultimately fulfilled through the Messiah.
2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob,

These were the patriarchs and God renewed the covenant with each of them. One of their descendants would be the Messiah.  Every Jewish person lived for the day when the Messiah would come.  They all looked forward to the Messiah with great, great, great, great expectation.
 Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers

These were the guys who sold Joseph to slave traders who took him to Egypt where he became second in command to Pharaoh.  Then all his brothers had to come to Egypt because of a great famine and their ancestors stayed there, became slaves.  400 years later Moses arrived.
3 Judah the father of Perez and Zerah,
whose mother was Tamar,
These two guys were twins and this is about all we know about them:
As she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand; so the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his wrist and said,  “This one came out first.”  But when he drew back his hand, his brother came out, and she said,  “So this is how you have broken out!” And he was named Perez.  Then his brother, who had the scarlet thread on his wrist, came out and he was given the name Zerah (Genesis 38:28-30).

      Before they were born Jesus’ lineage was in jeopardy.  Judah had married a Canaanite woman and she bore three sons.  Great, but the oldest two died after hooking up with another Canaanite, Tamar. She is the first woman listed in Jesus’ genealogy and she stands out because women were never named and she was a Canaanite.  Judah didn’t want to marry his third son to this black widow.  So Tamar pretended to be a prostitute and slept with Judah who was her father-in-law and she gave birth to their son, Perez.
Perez the father of Hezron,
Four generations moved to Egypt during the famine:
1. Jacob
2. Judah, Joseph and the other 10 brothers
1. Perez
2. Hezron. He would have been the youngest.

Hezron the father of Ram,

Ram is Semitic.  It makes me wonder if one of his parents were Egyptian. (Pure Conjecture.) Some generations are probably omitted. Son of could mean grandson of or great great grandson of.)
4 Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, 

Amminadab and Nashon were on the scene at the time of Moses.  Amminadab was Aaron’s father-in-law.  His brother-in-law, Nashon, was the general in charge of the tribe of Judah.  Nepotism?  As they traveled through the wilderness, he was the point man.  His tribe went first.  He was probably one of those who grumbled about the manna and the quail.  His generation died in the wilderness.
Nahshon the father of Salmon, 5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,

Salmon was part of the generation that invaded the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua.  Before they attacked Jericho, Joshua sent two spies who took up refuge with a prostitute named Rahab. Instead of betraying them to the King of Jericho she hid them on her roof.  When the wall of Jericho came tumbling down Joshua spared her life because of her heroism.
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,

Ruth was not Jewish.  She was from Moab, which was on Israel’s black list because they refused to let the Moses buy water when they were traveling through the dessert. Deuteronomy 23:3 No Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, even down to the tenth generation. 

Obed the father of Jesse, 6 and Jesse the father of King David.

At this point Matthew’s Jewish audience would have breathed a sigh of relief. Enough of incest, Canaanites, prostitutes and Moabites!  David was the Goliath slayer, the Hero King, the writer of the Psalms they used in worship.  God had promised that David’s royal line would last forever.  From his lineage would come the great Savior Messiah.  Hold your head high!
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife, 

Oops! It would have been nice if Matthew had overlooked this incident.  David had lusted after Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, from his palace, sent for her, committed adultery.  Then when he learned she was pregnant, she brought her husband home from the battlefield so he could sleep with her and cover up David’s sin.  But when Uriah refused to do that because his men were still at war, David arranged to have him killed.
That’s bad enough but Uriah was someone significant to David.  He was one of David’s mighty men and there were only three dozen of them.  It gets worse, Bathsheba’s father was also one of David’s mighty men. And her grandfather, Ahithophel, was David’s counselor.
To recap, along with David, Bathsheba was an adulteress who had married a Hittite - not a Jew.
7 Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa,  8 Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram, Jehoram the father of Uzziah,  9 Uzziah the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,  10 Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, Amon the father of Josiah,  11 and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.

    From David to Jeconiah, they were all kings.  Some were godly men.  Others were scoundrels. After Zerubbable not much is know about the rest.
12 After the exile to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, 13 Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, Abiud the father of Eliakim, Eliakim the father of Azor, 14 Azor the father of Zadok, Zadok the father of Akim, Akim the father of Eliud,  15 Eliud the father of Eleazar, Eleazar the father of Matthan, Matthan the father of Jacob,  16 and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

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.

So what did Matthew hope to accomplish by beginning with a genealogy?
First, he wanted to show that Jesus was the legitimate heir to David’s throne.  The Jews had long used genealogies to show purity of lineage and birthright.  By arranging the names in three sets of fourteen, Matthew underscored Jesus’ Davididic claim as 14 is the number for David. D V D: D=4 and V=6.
At the time of Jesus birth, Herod would have been King.  Unlike Jesus, Herod had his court scribe, Nicholas of Damascus, fabricate a new genealogy to enhance his pedigree.  And to keep anyone from investigating the fraud, he had the genealogical records burned.
New York City’s Redeemer Presbyterian Pastor, Timothy Keller, gave a great sermon titled, Uriah’s Wife.  And he made three fascinating points about Matthew’s genealogy that I want to briefly summarize them in closing.
Point One: Truth Becomes Fact
Point Two: Promise Becomes Reality
Point Three: Grace Becomes Shocking

 Truth Becomes Fact
The genealogy doesn’t begin with: Once upon at time or In a Galaxy far far away.  It begins with: A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.  Matthew wants us to know that what he writes is grounded in history.  It’s rooted in time and place.  Keller says that legends like King Arthur and Robin Hood and epics like Ulysses are important because they contain truth.  For example: Beauty and the Beast isn’t fact but we are moved because no matter how badly sins have scarred us there is a self-sacrificing love that frees us.  No matter how overwhelming evil is, good will triumph.  Love will conquer all. 
These stories resonate with what we believe in and long for. Unfortunately real life isn’t like these stories.  People get sick and die.  But Jesus comes with miraculous powers just like all the other legends.  He too has enemies and is betrayed and killed.  But in Jesus truth becomes fact.  He conquers death. “Jesus’ story is not one more story pointing to these underlying truths but Jesus story is the truth to which all these other stories point.”  Jesus Christ is born.

 Promise Becomes Reality
God promised that all the nations of the world would be blessed through Abraham. In her song, Mary said that God had remembered his servant Abraham – but it took centuries.
God always fulfills his promises never in the time or way we expect.  Even when God seems to be completely gone, he is working.  He says, “You can trust me.  You don’t have to take things into your own hands.”
Abraham had trouble waiting for God’s time and God’s way.  He and Sara had to children so he slept with his wife’s maid and had a son.  That was a disaster that continues to this day.
Jesus’ genealogy tells us to be patient.

 Grace Became Shocking
A genealogy was like a resume.  People didn’t want blemishes on their genealogy just like we wouldn’t want failures listed on our resumes.  So they didn’t list their ancestral embarrassments.
1. There are women in Jesus’ genealogy because women did have any status but in Jesus genealogy there are five.
2. There are also racial outsiders.
3. There are also moral outsiders. Rahab was a prostitute. Tamar committed incest. Bathsheba adultery.

Jesus was descendent of a child of incest, of a child of adultery. In each of these cases these ancestors would have been excluded from the presence of the Lord through the laws of Moses and from the assembly of God’s people.
Even the best guy in the genealogy, David, did much worse than all the women. Even David can’t be in the family of God based on merit.
But Jesus brings them right into his family and includes them. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done, Jesus wants you because he died for us.  He is not ashamed to call us his family.  So because of his grace he brings us all to the dinner table, prostitutes, adulterers, kings, poor carpenters and teen girls who get pregnant before they are married.
Matthew lists a bunch of names and we feel loved and awe struck.  That’s ingenious.

Lord God Almighty, omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent, we humbly come to worship you for we are made of dust.  You are the Father from whom your whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name.  We pray that out of yo9ur glorious riches you may strengthen us with power through your Spirit in our inner beings, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith.  Ad we pray that we, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ad to know this love that surpasses knowledge, - that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Creator of all, we praise you that Christ’s coming to earth, his miracles, his life, death and resurrection are not myth, not legend, not fiction, not fairy tale, but historical fact. 
We pray for the world, friends and family in need of is love and for the person next to us.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurable more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generation, for ever and ever!  And together we pray the pray he taught his disciples.

I think my favorite hero is Superman or one of the hobbits like Bilbo Baggins.  Who’s your favorite superhero?
    Why do you like your superhero?  I like mine because when there’s a terrible problem and it seems like no one can solve it, the super hero uses his special powers.  He beats up the bad guys and throws them in dungeon and he saves the town.
    There’s just one problem with superheroes.  You know what that is.  They aren’t real.  They’re imaginary.  They’re fiction.  They’re just make believe.
    Jesus has even more special powers than superheroes.  Remember he’s omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. And best of all: He’s alive. He’s truth not fiction.  He seems like he’s too good to be true, but he’s not.  He’s for real.
    For your treat today, we’ve got another super hero: Batman Fruit Roll-Ups.