The Genealogy of Jesus

I invite you to turn with me to the Gospel of Matthew, and we’ll read from 1:1. Matthew 1:1:

“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

“Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king.

“And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

“And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.

“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.

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.”

Amen.

We pray:

Father, we have sung our prayer that you will speak through your Word. We realize that what we long for now is a direct encounter with you, the living God, by the Holy Spirit, through your Word. So to this end we humbly pray. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Grand Scheme of Things

Well, as you can see, we’re looking this morning at one of the most neglected passages not only in Matthew but also in the entire New Testament if not in the entire Bible. And I sensed even as I read it that a number of you were going, “I can’t believe he’s actually reading this,” because it is rarely read, and it is seldom preached. It’s rarely read, I think, because it is jolly hard to read it. And I think those of you who have to read in public will have felt great sympathy for me as I labored my way through it.

But I think some of you were also conscious last Sunday evening, when we looked at the angel’s encounter with Joseph, which begins in Matthew 1:18: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way”—it occurred to me last week; I said, “You know, why do I always start at the eighteenth verse?” And I looked back up at the first seventeen, and then I said, “Hmm. That’s why I usually start at the eighteenth verse.” But then it has just unsettled me all week, to the point where, although I have managed to neglect the first seventeen verses of Matthew for thirty-three Christmases, I am breaking my duck right now, and we’re going to tackle it.

Why does Matthew begin his Gospel with a big, long list? After all, John begins in a quite wonderful way: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.”[1] It’s back in eternity, and it’s lyrical. Luke begins, “I have made a careful investigation of these things. I’ve written an orderly account in order that you might know with certainty the things that you have been taught.”[2] Mark gets right at the business. He loves going “immediately.” It’s a recurring word in the Greek. “[This is] the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”[3] You turn to Matthew: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Come on, Matthew!

But you see, he’s doing the same as what the other Gospel writers are doing. And that is that each of them is making clear that you cannot understand the arrival of Jesus unless you understand it in light of the big picture that the Bible provides—unless, if you like, you see it in the grand scheme of things.

When I wrote that down in my notes earlier in the week—“the grand scheme of things”—it made me think of a one-woman play that featured Lily Tomlin some years ago on Broadway. They took it on the road. I never saw it, but I read the script of the play. And in one of the scenes, one of the characters that Tomlin plays is a lady who comes out onto an empty stage and explains that she’s worried about everything. And she just says, “I worry about this. I worry about that.” And then she says, “I worry about my place in the grand scheme of things.” And then she pauses, and she says, “I worry that there is no grand scheme of things.”[4]

You cannot understand the arrival of Jesus unless you understand it in light of the big picture that the Bible provides.

Now, when we read the Bible, it is possible to read the Bible and consider Jesus in a way that is inspiring, helpful, true, and yet to do it in such a way that it is atomized, that it is divorced from all that actually explains to us why it is that he is made known to us in that way, so much so that when we encounter Jesus, there are questions that ought to automatically come to mind—for example, the question that Pilate posed when he was confronted by Jesus. He posed a number of questions, remember? He said, “What is truth?”[5] But that’s not the one about which I’m thinking. Rather, you remember Pilate’s wife had warned him about Jesus. She said, “You know, I’d be real careful with that man.”[6] And bewildered as he is by his encounter with Jesus, at one point he looks at him and he says, “Where are you from?”[7] “Where are you from?”

Now, Matthew actually answers that question. And he does so in the first seventeen verses of the chapter. And what he’s saying is this: Jesus doesn’t just spring from nowhere. Jesus is not an innovator. You can actually trace the family tree of Jesus, and you can trace it all the way back to Abraham. And what he does is he gives us a list that is not uncommon when you read the Bible. The Jewish mind was such that they kept lists. They stored them very carefully. They were important to them. Because the list not only provided them with a sense of history, but the list also explained the identity of the nature of Israel itself, but also the identity of the individuals within the people of God.

Now, we live in a fairly rootless culture when it comes to that, and the very increasing rootlessness of it, I think, is in part giving rise to what is an increased interest in ancestry. And if you pay attention at all, you will notice that websites like Ancestry.com are frequently advertising both in social media and in normal print and television media, and they’re appealing to the mindset that says, “I don’t really know where I come from. I don’t really know who I am.” Because, you see, we tend to identify ourselves in terms of what we’ve been able to achieve or where we live or whatever it might be, but in actual fact, who we really are has to do with where we’ve come from.

Now, you know this. I don’t want to be unkind to you, but I’ve found that most Americans want to come from Scotland. I’m just saying. And it may be a little jingoistic, but I’ve found that. And not only do they say that they come from Scotland, but they tell me that they have a castle in Scotland. Right? Now, I know. I’ve been to Scotland. And there aren’t enough castles to cover all the people from the castles. And so I used to challenge it. I used to say, “Oh, no, no.” Now I say, “Oh, that’s wonderful. I must go and visit your castle sometime.” But I’m longing for somebody to come up to me and say, “My name is Mr. McLaughlin, and I come from a long line of sheep stealers from the borders,” you know. Say, “Now here’s an honest man,” you know? No castle for this guy! His identity is entirely wrapped up in his lineage. He knows where he’s from.

In fact, in Glasgow, we have a saying. When somebody is being particularly precocious in conversation—either in business or in sport or whatever else it is—and we are familiar with the humble roots from which this individual has emerged, the dismissive retort to somebody who gets on his high horse is, “Hey, remember, I knew your faither.” “I knew your faither.” In other words, “I know where you come from. Hey, don’t play that game with me. I know who you are.”

Now, you see, for the Jew, it was vitally important, if the Jew was going to be convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, that Matthew, in writing his Gospel, explains to the Jewish mind where this Messiah comes from. Because the Jew understood the lineage that would produce the Messiah. And it is that which gives rise to what Matthew does here.

A Wonderful Symmetry

And there is a wonderful symmetry about what he does. You will notice that verse 17 provides a summary statement: “So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen, David to the exile in Babylon fourteen, from the exile in Babylon to the Lord Jesus Christ fourteen.”

Now, you read that, and you say, “Well, this is a little slick, isn’t it? I mean, was it really just fourteen, fourteen, fourteen? It’s very tidy.” Well, that should alert you to the fact that what Matthew is doing here is not providing us with a comprehensive list but rather a selective list. In fact, if you go into the data, you will find that there are certain generations that he has left out purposefully, because he has an objective here in order to make a very straightforward and important point. He is telling the fact that… By his selective pattern, if you like, he is underscoring his specific purpose. All right? Selective pattern, specific purpose. That’s the way my mind works.

Matthew is telling the amazing story of God’s faithfulness to bless all the nations on the earth. All right? That God has made a promise from the beginning that he will bless all the nations of the earth. And the value of the long list is in recognizing the place of these individuals not by analyzing them as individuals themselves but their place in the unfolding plan, which culminates in the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.

It’s a reminder to us—and we need to keep this before us all the time when we’re studying the Bible—that we should never try to understand the New Testament apart from the Old Testament and that our understanding of the Old Testament is impossible without the fulfillment that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. One of our good friends, Alec Motyer, who died earlier this year, used to always say, “You know, that white page in between Malachi and Matthew is a real problem.” He said, “You should tear that out of your Bible, because you need a whole Bible to make a whole Christian.”

And that point comes across clearly as Matthew provides us with, if you like, three markers from Israel’s history in order to underscore his purpose—or, if you like, three critical events, or two important people and one critical event. You can put it together any way you want. Here they are: number one, Abraham and the promise that was made to him; number two, David and the promise that was made to him; number three, the exile and the chaos that ensued at that time. We could go into it in great detail. Let me encourage you by letting you know that I won’t. But let’s just make sure we understand this huge promise that was made to Abraham.

“Abraham was the father of Isaac.” If you turn with me to Genesis chapter 12, I can point this out to you. I’ll just give you a couple of references. If it’s not easy for you, then don’t worry. I’ll tell you where they are. You can make a note of them and check in your Bible and see if they’re there when you get home.

Incidentally, in Genesis chapter 11, you have the scattering that comes after the attempt on the part of humanity to unite themselves in the worship of themselves. And in chapter 11, you have the scattering of the proud in the imagination of their hearts. They’re going to create a “United Nations,” and God says, “No, you’re not,” and he scatters them. And it is out of the scattering in chapter 11 that the unfolding of the gathering appears in chapter 12.

How does it appear? With a person—with God’s electing of Abraham to a task. “Now the Lord said to Abram”—12:1—“‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation …. And in you’”—jumping down to the end of verse 3—“‘all the families of the earth [will] be blessed.’” You have the promise reinforced in chapter 18: “Shall I hide from Abraham what I[’m] about to do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?”[8] Okay. So, that’s the promise. It’s a huge promise, and it raises the question: How is this going to happen? Because as you read on in Genesis, you say, “It hasn’t happened yet.” You go into Exodus; it’s not there. You keep going. A huge promise: How’s it going to happen?

Then, secondly, the second marker is down at the end of verse 6: “And David was the father of Solomon.” Second Samuel. I can never remember if Samuel’s before or after Kings. It’s before. Judges, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel; 2 Samuel 7:16: “And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me.” And as you read down there, you realize that the promise of God is made clearly to David and to his descendants. “When your days are fulfilled”—7:12—“and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who will come from your [own] body, and I will establish his kingdom.” And as you read on, you have this juxtaposition between the immediate fulfillment in Solomon and the ultimate fulfillment in great David’s greater Son. Have to leave you to do that on your own, but this is the next marker in the in the genealogy. Marker number one: Abraham, the recipient of a great promise. Marker number two: David and the one who will reign on a throne forever.

Now, we ought not to be surprised by the fact that when you read the rest of the Old Testament, you come up against these notions, and you have the hints of them—for example, in Psalm 2, which bears the heading “The Reign of the Lord’s Anointed,” you have verse 8: “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.” And you find yourself saying, “Well, who is this person who is going to have the nations as his heritage? Who is this person who will possess the ends of the earth, who will have a kingdom that extends throughout the totality of the entire universe?”

The psalmist comes to it with frequency—in Psalm 72, for example, which begins, “Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to the royal son!” Well, who is this “royal son”? “May he have dominion from sea to sea …! May all kings fall down before him, [and] all nations serve him!”[9] So there’s going to be a king before whom all the kings of the world bow down to. Have you ever seen such a king? I mean, Queen Victoria had quite a reign. The British Empire was pretty extensive. She’s long gone. No one’s bowing down there.

Psalm 72:17:

May his name endure forever,
 his fame continue as long as the sun!
May people be blessed in him,
 [and] all nations call him blessed!

It sounds like Mary, doesn’t it? “From now on all [nations, all people,] will call me blessed.”[10] They call him blessed. And you read that, and you say, “Well, how’s this going to work?” There’s a huge promise made to Abraham; I don’t see the fulfillment of it. There’s a huge and significant statement made regarding a kingship, and I don’t see that either.

Third marker is the low point in Israel’s history. Verse 12: “And after the deportation to Babylon…” What is this deportation to Babylon? Well, it is the exile, the dreadful captivity. God’s people scorned and rebelled against God’s law. God provided them with a warning. He said to them again and again, “If you do this, we’re good. If you don’t, things are not solid.” That’s my paraphrase.

Deuteronomy—and I’ll give you just this one passage from here for your follow-up study, because you’re going to have to follow-up; you can’t remember this. Deuteronomy 28:58. This is God’s word to his people:

If you[’re] not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God, then the Lord will bring on you and your offspring extraordinary afflictions, afflictions severe and lasting, and sicknesses grievous and lasting. And he will bring upon you again all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. Every sickness also and every affliction that is not recorded in the book of this law, the Lord will bring upon you, until you are destroyed. Whereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, you shall be left few in number, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God.

Now, read the history of the people. What happened to them? They were overrun, they were dragged away into exile, and they were decimated. You have the picture both described in Daniel, you’ve got it in the context of the return of the exiles later on in Ezra and Nehemiah, and you have it also in, for example, the poetry of Psalm 137: “By the rivers of Babylon”—this is where they were taken—“by the rivers of Babylon we sat [down] and wept when we remembered Zion.”[11] “When we remembered Jerusalem. When we remembered all that God had promised would be ours if we would only do what he told us to do. But we thought that he wouldn’t do what he said he was going to do. We didn’t believe he would judge us. We didn’t believe there would be a judgment.”

Let me pause and just say something: nobody believes there’s going to be a judgment, either, today. The Bible is really clear: “It is appointed unto [man] once to die, [and] after this the judgment.”[12] Paul preaches to the Athenians, to the intelligentsia, and he doesn’t soft-soap it for them. He says to them, “God has set a day when he will judge the world. He has appointed a day when he will judge the world, and he has given proof of this by raising his Son, Jesus, from the dead.”[13] You say, “Well, that is horrible news!” That is horrible news. But it is the horrible news that makes sense of the good news: “For unto us a child is born,” and “unto us a son is given,”[14] and this son will bear the punishment that sinners deserve in order that we will not face the judgment in Christ. But the people said, “Ah, it won’t happen!” And it happened. And their captors came and said to them, “Why don’t you sing songs?” And they said, “We can’t sing. We hung our harps up on the willow trees. How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”[15]

God’s plans include events that we would never design and include people that we would by nature exclude.

And you read that, and you say, “If God is going to preserve his royal line, it isn’t going to be on account of his people’s righteousness. It is going to be in spite of his people’s sinfulness.” Do you get that? He doesn’t fulfill his promises through them because of their righteousness. He fulfills his promises through them in spite of their sinfulness, pointing forward to all that is to come.

Grace for Unexpected People

Now, we’d have to delve way too deeply in these names to unearth all the historical data. You’ll be glad to know we’re not even going to make an attempt at it. But you don’t have to delve too deeply into the list to realize that it contains people that we wouldn’t put in the list who have experiences that we wouldn’t want to have. You don’t have to delve deeply to realize that. And all of the commentators, whatever else they commentate on, point out the fact that there is significance in the presence of five women in this list.

Why? Because genealogies always were male dominated. Women had no place in the Jewish mind except their place. The Jewish male thanked God every morning that he was not born a woman and he wasn’t born a gentile.[16] Therefore, for Matthew, who was a Jew, to make sure that he includes in his genealogy not just women but these women is significant. And when you read the Bible and you read a list like this, you ought to be saying to yourself, “Now, as I go through this, is there anything that stands out to me? Is there anything that I need to come back and consider?” And one of the things that you would say is “We’ve got to give some attention to the fact that we have these women.”

And when we consider who these women are, we realize that the exception is notable not simply because of their gender but because of their lifestyle. Ruth was a Moabitess. She was a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel.[17] “Oh, you mean… You mean God includes strangers in his family? Oh, I have to think about that.” And let’s face it: we’ve all got characters in our family tree that we don’t really want to talk about. And you wouldn’t want to talk about Tamar if she was your great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, would you? Why? Well, it doesn’t say there, but you go back, Google Tamar, and you’ll get it all. Tamar deceived her father-in-law by dressing up as a prostitute and produced twins by him. Hmm! Rahab was a flat-out Canaanite prostitute. Ruth, as I’ve said, was a Moabitess. And Bathsheba appears without her name appearing in the second half of verse 6—“And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah”—thereby making the point. What point? That King David stole Bathsheba from her husband Uriah. Their first child died. Their second one was Solomon. And her adultery led to the murder of her own husband. Wow! What a sorry, messed-up family tree! What a sorry spectacle! What a triumph of grace!

If Jesus had such individuals as his forebears, we ought not to be surprised that he has such individuals as his followers. But we’ll come to that in just a minute. Because Matthew is actually getting ready to introduce us to the one who was “a friend of … sinners.”[18] Matthew is introducing us to the one who did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.[19] Matthew is encouraging us to realize that God’s purposes are fulfilled in ways that we would never imagine and that God’s plans include events that we would never design and include people that we would by nature exclude. So the excluded are included. Only God does this!

Now, he’s faithful, then, to his promise to bless the nations. Let’s just go back along the markers.

Marker number one: a promise to Abraham. He’s going to bless all the nations. How’s he going to bless all the nations? The answer is in the coming of Jesus. But you see, you don’t get to verse 18 without the first seventeen verses. “Now the birth of Jesus … [was] in this way.” Why is this so significant? Because he is the one, in his coming, who will bless the nations. In fact, Matthew ends in light of this prospect of the promise to Abraham in the first chapter. How does it end? “All authority … [is] given [unto] me,” says Jesus.[20] “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all the nations of the world.”[21] So he says, “It all began with Abraham, with a big promise, and here is the answer: it is in the coming of the Lord Jesus, it is in the going of the apostles, it is in the enabling of the Holy Spirit, and it is in the preaching of the gospel.”

The same is true concerning the kingdom. “Where’s this kingdom going to come from? How will this king be? We don’t have a throne in Jerusalem. We’ve got nothing going. Why are we going to do this?” Well, how does the kingdom come? Jesus is introduced by Matthew as the King. He’s the King! And what kind of king is this? Well, he’s a different kind of king. He wears a crown of thorns. He rides on a donkey. He doesn’t live in a palace. The kingdom comes in the person of Jesus. The kingdom then makes progress through the proclaiming of the gospel. And after that, and only after that, does it come openly and universally.

And what of the third aspect—the longing of the exiles?

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here.[22]

Generations came and went saying, “How will this thing get fixed? We used to be great. We had a big temple. We had everything going. And look at us now. We can’t even put a chorus together and sing it. Our enemies think we’re rubbish. We used to have a big crowd; now there’s hardly anybody comes. There’s nobody here anymore. All our hopes and all our fears—where will they be met?” Again a carol: “The hopes and fears of all the years are met” in the Lord Jesus.[23]

And when he comes, he doesn’t come with pomp and glory. No! A carpenter from Nazareth! They went up to Bethlehem “because he was of the house and lineage of David.”[24] You’ve read that a hundred times, haven’t you? You said, “I wonder what that’s in there for? Who really cares?” Matthew cares, and you should care. And every Jewish person should care to take this Old Testament and read it and realize that this actually does point to Christ, that he really is the Messiah, that he is the one that has come to redeem his people Israel, that he is a glory for his people, and he is a light to the gentiles.[25] That’s what Matthew is saying.

But in just a slip of a girl, “how silently, how silently [this] wondrous gift is given”[26]—given to Mary! “Who am I that my Lord would look upon me? That what is conceived in my womb…” What is this?

Five Points to Ponder

Well, you see, God is fulfilling his purposes—and I must complete my talk. And as I look at the clock and look at you and look at my notes, I have a lot more than you can handle. So I’m going to go into summary mode. I’m going to give you, like, maybe five points to ponder when you’re on your own, ’cause some of you are looking quite pondersome, and it should be easy for you to get there. Here they are. They’re not in any order of importance.

Number one: God’s dealings are with actual people, not with ideal people. God’s dealings are with actual people, not with ideal people. Some of you are coming into this Christmas season, and you’ve still got it really wrong in your head: that God will include good people, and he will reject all the bad people. The fact of the matter is the Bible says we’re all bad people. Some are badder than others. We’re all equally stuck before God. And good and bad, in the world’s perspective, both need a Savior. And God deals with actual people, not ideal people. You should be glad, because you are not an ideal person. Neither am I.

Jesus reaches out to those who are morally messed up—which is all of us.

Secondly, God used all the messy stuff that is wrapped up in this genealogy—God used all the messy stuff—to accomplish his purpose. You don’t read through this and say, “This is all clinically—you know, it’s all clean, tidy, neat, organized, perfect.” It clearly isn’t—which ought to be an encouragement. ’Cause I don’t know about you, but if I take the history of my life, it’s not clean, tidy, organized, neat, and perfect. No, you see, God is far bigger than these things. He uses all the messy stuff in order to accomplish his purposes.

Thirdly, God is not operating on our timetable. The promise of Abraham took two thousand years to come to fruition. People said, “It’s never going to happen”—especially during the intertestamental period, between Malachi and Matthew, between the end of the Old, the beginning of the New—four hundred years of darkness, four hundred years of silence. And “at just the right time,”[27] when we had no way of escape, Christ Jesus came, and he died for sinners who had no use of him.

Fourthly, the family line of Jesus contained some who were moral outcasts.

Fifthly, the family line of Jesus was ethnically diverse, reminding us that Jesus reaches out to those who are morally messed up—which is all of us. We are supposed to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.[28] That is a moral obligation to the creator of the universe. We are immoral by nature. And the diversity that is represented in this, not least of all in Ruth, is a clear reminder to us that we are called to proclaim the wonder of God’s grace to a sinful world. It’s a gospel: “Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord”[29]—“good news of great joy [which] will be for all … people.”[30]

So, what is true, actually, of his genealogy, of his family tree, is actually quite helpful in this regard. Because the family that he puts together, the church—big C and little c—his present family is made up of people we wouldn’t choose having experiences we wouldn’t want and facing events that we didn’t plan. True? I mean, would you choose yourself? And you know yourself. Aren’t you amazed? You say, “It’s amazing that God would love me. It’s amazing that he would save me. It’s amazing.” People that we wouldn’t choose having experiences that we wouldn’t want.

Take the history of your life, even your—up to today. The fact of the matter is, it’s not all hermetically sealed. It’s not all perfect. It is all messed up. And what about the events that we wouldn’t plan: the loss of loved ones, the challenges of children, the fears about our future, the disappointments with our past, the guilt that we carry, and so on? It’s all that. And the same God who calls Abraham into his purposes, and establishes David with a kingship that points to Christ, and brings his deflated and disintegrated little company of people under the oppression of Roman authority into the place of his spotlight in order that today, we might be able to think about these things, find ourselves in the panorama of his purposes, ask ourselves if we have responded to his most generous initiative to add our names to his family record…

Have you ever asked the Lord Jesus to be your Savior? To be your friend? To be your King? To be your peace, your security, your forgiveness, your hope, your everything? That’s what this is about. And that’s actually why he gave us this big, long list. And he’s putting together a list—and he’s checking it twice.

Well, Father, help us to think. Some of us are wanting just to feel our way into these things, and while our emotions are so important, we pray, Lord, that our hearts may be stirred as a result of our minds being taught. And as the people of God longed for your coming, and you came, so help us to long for your coming again, in power and in great glory. And help us to trust in you through the long days of darkness and, sometimes, silence, just as did the people of old, so that we might rejoice when that trumpet sounds and our eyes are opened to see you in all of your power and in all of your majesty. For we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.

[1] John 1:1 (ESV).

[2] Luke 1:1–3 (paraphrased).

[3] Mark 1:1 (ESV).

[4] Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), 26. Paraphrased.

[5] John 18:38 (ESV).

[6] Matthew 27:19 (paraphrased).

[7] John 19:9 (ESV).

[8] Genesis 18:17–18 (ESV).

[9] Psalm 72:1, 8, 11 (ESV).

[10] Luke 1:48 (ESV).

[11] Psalm 137:1 (NIV).

[12] Hebrews 9:27 (KJV).

[13] Acts 17:31 (paraphrased).

[14] Isaiah 9:6 (KJV).

[15] Psalm 137:2–4 (paraphrased).

[16] t. Berakhot 6.23.

[17] See Ephesians 2:12.

[18] Matthew 11:19; Luke 7:34 (ESV).

[19] See Matthew 9:13; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:32.

[20] Matthew 28:18 (ESV).

[21] Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:15 (paraphrased).

[22] Trans. John Mason Neale, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” (1851).

[23] Phillips Brooks, “O Little Town of Bethlehem” (1868).

[24] Luke 2:4 (ESV).

[25] See Luke 2:32.

[26] Brooks, “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”

[27] Romans 5:6 (NIV).

[28] See Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37; Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27.

[29] Luke 2:11 (ESV).

[30] Luke 2:10 (ESV).