Advent 3 - Unexpected Help

DAY 3 - The Unexpected
Isaiah 55:6-9 

Why does Jesus need to experience life as one of us? That's the question if we want to find God's gift for us. And there are clues in his family tree.

We notice some interesting details about Jesus’ family tree when we look closer. First, we notice Matthew divides the family history into three sections: Father Abraham to King David, King David to Exile, Exile to Jesus. That’s a clue. God did something big for his people in each of those times. These were big moves of God. With Jesus, the time is ripe for God to do something big again.

Second, all the names are male except four. Including four women in the photo album was weird. The women are Tamar (v.3), Rahab (v.5), Ruth (v.5), and Bathsheeba, or the wife of Urriah the Hittite (v.6). Imagine Jesus’s photo album is all black and white but four pictures are color. I think Matthew’s trying to tell us something. Let’s dig deeper and find out who they are.

Third, all these women have a colorful history with men. For example, Rahab was a prostitute. Fairly or unfairly, Jesus’s family tree includes people whose lives would’ve raised eyebrows.

Fourth, these four women are non-Jewish or married to non-Jewish men. They’re not part of God’s covenant family. Paul the apostle puts it this way in Ephesians 2: Gentiles were “excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12, CEB). They’re outsiders! Jesus’s family history focused on God’s rescue plan coming through one ethnic family first, the Jewish people. So why point out the outsiders?

Finally, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheeba all had big faith in God. Many had more faith than religious insiders. All four assertively took action to save their families, trusting God to help.

God’s help comes from unexpected places. Nobody expected God to start a family with a childless old couple, but God picked Abraham and Sarah. Everyone expected God to anoint a strong, good-looking warrior as king, but God picked young David of Bethlehem. Nobody predicted these four women to help God’s covenant family, but their faith saved the day. Nobody expected Jesus quietly stirring a new move of God after years of waiting, but God told Mary and Joseph, “It’s time!”

I wonder what good God is up to right now that we don’t yet see. Maybe God’s ready to do something big again.

REFLECT
When have you received unexpected help?

PRAYER
Faithful God, your promises stand unshaken through all generations. Renew us in hope, that we may be awake and alert watching for the glorious return of Jesus Christ, our judge and savior, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. AMEN.