The Christmas story is much larger than a Messiah for the Jewish people. It is that. But it is mind bendingly inclusive of so many more people than the Jewish nation and good people.
There are several people of non-Jewish desent in the lineage of Jesus. There are also a lot of Israelites who had serious character flaws. This fact invites me to see that God does not discriminate and is full of grace and mercy. Besides, if God waited for perfect people there would be no friend or followers.
Join me as I pull a few threads of history together. Check the links to get the fuller story on each vignette.
Way back in Genesis 3:15 God promises the Messiah as a solution to the problem of pride, selfishness and overall separation from our Creator. A few chapters later in Genesis 15 God prophesied, promised and made an eternal covenant with Abraham. It was a BIG promise that he had to wait for.
Abraham was old and His wife Sarah was barren and well beyond child barring age. But God promised she would have a son, by Abraham, and their descendants would outnumber the stars. “And he believed the LORD….” However, Abraham, in his impatience, tried to fulfill the covenant with God outside of the promise of God. (this was not his only fault!) It took a while, but when Abraham was 100 years old God gave him and Sarah their son Issac as promised.
Tamar, a Canaanite and Judah’s daughter-law had to trick Judah to sleep with her to get her son. You can read her story here. Her son is in the direct lineage of King David and Jesus. In the end, Judah called Tamar more righteous than he was himself.
Ruth from Moab, after the death of her husband, chose to follow her Jewish mother-in-law back to Isreal. She followed Naomi saying, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” (Ruth 1:16) Through a series of righteous choices to follow the God of the Jews she ends up as King David’s great-grandmother.
Rahab a prostitute, hid the Israelites who came to spy on Jericho. She escaped with the spies before they destroyed the city. For that, she is honored in the list of heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11 and is in also in David & Jesus’ genealogy. Not a typical “holy” person.
Then there are other Patriarchs who were not exactly holy. Jacob cheated his older twin out of his birthright and his blessing. His name even means “deceiver.” Even King David who God calls a man after His own heart, was a murderer and adulter.
Many others who preceded Mary, who gave birth to Jesus, were not Jewish or of good character, but God…. His promise and His covenant had to be fulfilled because the God of all cannot deny himself. “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Numbers 23:19)
1 Thessalonians 5:24 says: “He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” God has always had a plan and it was not only for good people or for one people group. The reason he had the plan is because everyone is eternally lost without it. The Christmas Story is about Jesus the Messiah who is for Everyone.
Abba, Thank You for Your promises and your will and ability to fulfill them. Thank you for showing again and again that no one is beyond your reach and touch. Amen
