Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Jesus came from rascals, for rascals

"The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham..."
Matthew 1:1
 
I was thinking about the significance of this reading, the lineage of Jesus from Abraham--forty-two generations--and a few things jumped out at me.  First, the lineage is Jesus' line through St. Joseph, which is so interesting since Joseph was just your basic guy.  He wasn't without sin, as we believe Mary was, so he was a run-of-the-mill, just plain Joe.  And he and his lineage gave birth to the Savior?  What if Joseph hadn't listened to his dreams regarding taking Mary as his wife? (tomorrows Gospel) There were some big "ifs" in the salvation story, since God relied on these folks mentioned in Matthew's lineage reading.  A couple of these people were born under questionable circumstances...Solomon, for example, was David's love child with Bathsheba.  Yikes!  And this is the lineage of the Savior?  And why not?  People are people and only Mary was particularly well-behaved.  Jesus came from and worked among people who were faulty, some even scandalous.  Jesus' whole life was surprising:  his ministry of miracles, healing and the company he kept were all shocking.  So, it is reasonable that his lineage contains some eye-brow raisers, isn't it?  And what does that mean for us on a Tuesday, mid-December?  It means that nobody is perfect.  It mean that we are to love and care for everyone, imperfections and all, because Jesus came from a line of rascals and associated with rascals in ministry.  After all, we are rascals, too, and aren't we glad Jesus associates with us?  Love, heidi

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