Black Sheep and Crooked Branches

So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations. (Matthew 1:17 ESV). Some of you have heard me talk about my family tree. It is “colorful” to say the least. There are some black sheep and crooked branches in it to be sure. The more research we do, the more we find other interesting things about some of the individuals who grew up in Sicily and Italy long before my grandparents immigrated to this country. The wonderful truth about the Bible is it’s tenacity to tell the whole truth. We see this in Matthew’s genealogy. At first glance it reads like a page in the telephone directory. There are a lot of names and some may be thought if as nice people, but most of them don’t really mean anything to us. This is surely the least read part of the Christmas story. Children don’t recite it in the Sunday school Christmas program; it’s never sung in any carols. A biblical genealogy is like your appendix, there’s no denying it’s there, but it’s hard to say what it’s good for. That couldn’t be further from the truth. When we look closely at some of the names we see it is like most of our families. It’s varied with wicked and godly people, men and women, and Jews and gentiles. There is no racial purity or moral superiority in God’s family tree. Wherever people may have gotten their desire to keep their families or communities “uncontaminated” by those who are different, they didn’t get it from God. If you study these names in detail, it's almost as if God has pulled together a rogue's gallery. I've already said that we don't know about every person on this list. But of the ones we know about, nearly all of them had notable moral failures on their spiritual resumes. For instance, Abraham lied about his wife Sarah. Isaac did the same thing. Jacob was a cheater, Judah a fornicator. David was an adulterer and Solomon was a polygamist. Manasseh was the most evil king Israel ever had. And on and on we could go. This is not a list of plaster saints. Some weren't saints at all. The best of these men had flaws and some were so flawed that it is impossible to see their good points. This is such a clear revelation of the grace of God. Think about that. Most of these men were very great sinners. It should be a great encouragement to us that God doesn’t use just famous people to accomplish his purpose. Whoever we are, when we are willing, God will accept us. God will make something out of our life. After all, isn’t that why Jesus came into our world? The Christmas story is the story of Jesus coming so that regardless of whether we have black sheep or crooked branches in our family; or even if we are those black sheep or crooked branches, Jesus can forgive and use us to bring life to others through His work of grace.