A Genealogy of Grace (Mothers of the King)
Matthew 1:1-16; Romans 5:20
Every second Sunday of May, our national calendar encourages us to remember our mothers, and we respond to this reminder in various ways. For instance, you may show appreciation on a surface or external level by giving your mother a corsage or bouquet of flowers, or you might give her some chocolates and a card. You might serve her breakfast in bed or treat her to a meal at a nice restaurant. And if she lives far away, you might call her by phone or arrange an online conversation through Facetime or Skype. Showing appreciation to our mothers in thoughtful ways like these is entirely wholesome and appropriate. After all, Scripture teaches that both husbands and children alike should make their appreciation known for a godly and industrious mother. “Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her” (Prov 31:28).
But Mother’s Day is not all roses and sunshine. In the flurry of our external expressions of appreciation, we often wrestle internally – quietly and privately – with the painful reality that not every mother is or was a virtuous woman. You will agree with me when I say that we live in a fractured and broken society, a society in which many mothers fall short of this ideal, often very short. As we acknowledge this, we should also acknowledge that this is not a new predicament. More than two and a half millennia ago, Scripture alluded to this reality by asking this captivating question: “Who can find a virtuous woman?” (Prov 31:10). Even then, an ideal wife and mother was hard to find.
Let’s be honest. Your family tree is filled with mothers like this who fell short of the ideal woman portrayed in the final chapter of Proverbs. Your lineage is populated with men who fell short of the ideal father, as well, for “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). Knowing this, how should you respond to the shortcomings of your own mothers and grandmothers? And if you yourself are a mother, then how should you respond to your shortcomings and sins? Your response to the sins of your ancestors and the shortcomings of your family line should not be to ignore them. But neither should your response be to obsess over them, blaming them for your own personal failures.
Do not be ashamed of your ancestors and genealogy, no matter how sinful. Though you should not glamorize evil or trivialize sin, you should not minimize the significance of what God is accomplishing through the generations of your family tree. In fact, if you adopt the right perspective, you will find traces of the grace of God throughout your genealogy. Rather than bemoan the failures of the generations before you, you should glory in the grace of God instead. God’s grace shines through disgraced people. In fact, the genealogy of Jesus illustrates this encouraging perspective in a remarkable way (Matt 16:1-16).
The genealogy of Jesus highlights five mothers who suffered from disgraced reputations.
When you open the New Testament, the first chapter you read provides a summary of the human genealogy of Jesus (Matt 1:1-16). Of all people, you would expect his family tree to be pristine. You would expect to find an unbroken line of virtuous, godly women, untainted by serious sins and disgraced reputations, but this is not the case. In fact, God deliberately draws attention to mothers in his family line with reputations marked by sin.
When you read the Old Testament, especially Genesis, Numbers, 1 and 2 Chronicles, and Ezra, you will notice a lot of genealogies. In these genealogies, you will also notice something else: they give the names of men and not women, fathers and not mothers. But in a stunning fashion, Matthew 1 disrupts this normal pattern by highlighting five women, five mothers in the family line of Jesus. Ever more surprising is that each of these mothers suffered from experiences of deep disgrace and questionable reputations.
Tamar (Matt 1:3; Gen 38:24-26)
This woman married the oldest son of Judah, one of the twelve sons of Jacob. When her husband died, leaving her without a child, she disguised herself as a prostitute and seduced her father-in-law, Judah. As a result, she gave birth to a son and became a permanent member of the family. When you study the cultural background of this story, you will discover that Judah was ultimately responsible for this sin because he had refused to provide Tamar with the care and protection she deserved after her husband had died. Even so, no matter how you look at this story, you understand that it was a very disgraceful situation. This being the case, you might expect that God would leave this situation to gather dust in the Old Testament archives; but instead, he deliberately named Tamar in the genealogy of his Son.
Rahab (Matt 1:5; Josh 6:22-25)
This woman was a citizen of a non-Israelite nation who worshipped false gods. Having made her living as a prostitute, she turned away from this lifestyle and followed the one true God when she learned about him through the nation of Israel. She showed her faith by hiding the Jewish spies who visited Jericho, risking her life to do so. As a result, God spared her life and her family when he overthrew her home city of Jericho, and she later married a faithful Jewish man in the line of Jesus. It is fascinating to observe that not only does she appear here in the genealogy of Jesus, but she also appears again in the New Testament hall of faith as “Rahab, the prostitute” (Heb 11:31).
Ruth (Matt 1:5; Ruth 1:2-4)
This woman was a citizen of Moab, another non-Israelite nation who worshipped false gods, even offering occasional human sacrifices to these gods. Furthermore, her family line originally arose from the horrible incest that occurred between Lot and his oldest daughter after they had fled from Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19:31-35). This was a sad and sorry heritage to be sure. During an extended time of famine in Israel, a Jewish family traveled to Moab for refuge. They did this rather than trusting God by remaining in Israel. While in Moab, one of their sons married this Moabite woman named Ruth. This choice disobeyed God’s divine law. When he died sometime after that and the famine ended, Ruth – now a widow – chose to renounce her pagan religion and homeland to follow the God of the Bible instead. She returned to Israel with her mother-in-law, Naomi, and eventually married a godly man named Boaz, forging yet another link in the family line of Jesus. It is special to note that an entire book in the Old Testament is named after this woman who converted from pagan idolatry.
Bathsheba (Matt 1:6; 2 Sam 11:3-5)
This woman also suffers from a disgraceful reputation. Just mentioning her name reminds you of disgraceful things because she famously committed adultery with King David. Ultimately, it was David who bore the blame for instigating, even forcing, this terrible sin. His decisions caused her situation to spiral further downward when he arranged for the murder of her loving, loyal husband, Uriah. Yet, despite this tragic experience and a miscarriage of their first child, Bathsheba would go on to become a great grandmother in the line of Jesus through her second son, King Solomon. Generations later, in a most gracious way, God names her in the genealogy of his Son as “her who had been the wife of Uriah.”
Mary (Matt 1:16; John 8:41)
You may be surprised that I am including Mary in this list of mothers who suffered from disgrace. After all, we know that she had committed no sins of immorality, had not been wrongfully treated, and was a woman of sparkling integrity who was “highly favored” by the Lord and was “blessed among women” (Luke 1:28). Sadly however, she lived under a lifelong cloud of presumed scandal. From the time she became pregnant with Jesus, the public at large suspected her of infidelity. In fact, the Jewish religious leaders flatly accused Jesus of being born out of wedlock, reflecting the popular consensus about her at that time (John 8:41).
Together, these five women named featured in the genealogy of Jesus share a common trait: each one suffered from disgrace. In some cases, they brought this disgrace upon themselves due to their own sinful choices. In other cases, they suffered disgrace resulting from the abuse and mistreatment of others. So, the question remains: of all the mothers in the genealogy of Jesus, why did God deliberately name these five, including the four who were not his actual mother?
The genealogy of Jesus magnifies the grace of God.
You and I should find deep and lasting encouragement in knowing that these women share a trait more noteworthy and significant than their tainted reputations and painful pasts: the grace of God outshined their sin and sorrow. Despite their sinful choices and despite the suffering they endured due to the sinful choices of people in their lives, God graciously featured them as mothers in the royal, kingly line of Jesus the Messiah. Through their lives he brought salvation into the world, defeating the power of sin and providing forgiveness and restoration to God sinful people in a broken world. As Paul eloquently reminds us, “Where sin abounded, grace abounded much more” (Rom 5:20).
It is a natural thing for you and me to conceal the disgraceful events and people in our families and our past. But the God of all grace did not take this approach with Jesus. Instead, he chose and featured prominently those mothers whose names remind you of scandalous things. By his sovereign, gracious choice, he included these women as mothers in the family line of Jesus.
If the genealogy of Jesus himself featured mothers with disgraced or shameful reputations, then why should you expect anything different? God does not weave people into his purposes and plans because they come from a pristine family background. He weaves people into his plan instead who have disgraceful backgrounds, the kind of disgrace that comes from our own sin and the kind that comes from the sin of others towards us. God delights to find sinners and save them. He delights to redeem us from the power of sin and from the pain of sinful things that other people have done to us. The grace of God shines through disgraced people.
“Who can find a virtuous woman?” (Prov 31:10). You must admit that this is a very difficult question to answer, because this kind of woman is very hard to find. In fact, it’s very likely that your wife, mother, mother-in-law, or grandmother is not such a woman after all. And Mother’s Day is no time to pretend otherwise.
Even those who believe they come from a great and godly heritage need to consider that Paul the apostle thought this about himself. He said, “Though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews” (Phil 3:4-5). Yet, though he enjoyed an honorable and upstanding heritage, he learned to embrace a different perspective about himself, saying, “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief” (1 Tim 1:15). Do you have the same perspective?
God can take a woman (or a man) who is not virtuous and weave your story into the marvelous work that he is doing in the world today. Nothing that you’ve done or nothing that’s been done to you is so disgraceful that God cannot rescue and bless you as his child and feature you in his glorious plan for the world. He loves to draw and deliver beautiful lives out from sordid family backgrounds. He takes pleasure in making foreigners his children. He delights to reconcile his enemies. He makes all things work together for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). In fact, that is what he desires to do in your life today. If you peer through the lenses of his grace, you may even see traces of his grace throughout your genealogy. Yes, God’s grace shines through disgraced people, no matter what kind of background or heritage you have.
How should you respond to this encouragement from the genealogy of Jesus?
First, learn to view your family tree differently.
Choose not to blame your sins and failures on the shortcomings of your fathers and mothers and refuse to harbor jealousy towards those with family lines that seem more pristine. Accept the fact that every family line, including yours, is a trail of wreckage and debris due to sin. When you do, you will learn to see something better and brighter. You will see his grace and goodness, bringing life out of ashes, light out of darkness, and glory out of decay (Isa 61:3). Whatever evil and harm has occurring in your life, God is able to turn it around for good, bringing his grace and salvation as a result (Gen 50:20).
Second, thank God for the fathers and mothers that he has placed into your family tree and into your life.
Give them the honor and respect that God commands – not because they deserve respect, but because it is the right thing to do “in the Lord” (Eph 6:1). By doing this, you can channel of God’s grace by loving the unlovable and honoring the dishonorable. If we are fully honest with ourselves today, we will recognize that even the most honorable and virtuous mothers among us are not as virtuous as they may seem. After all, there is not a virtuous mother among us apart from the grace of God (1 Cor 15:10). There is no true virtue apart from the grace of God.
Third, receive the grace of God that brings salvation to all people (Tit 2:11).
After all, this is the ultimate purpose for the genealogy of Jesus anyway. It reveals how our God and Savior, Jesus Christ, came into the world to save us from the problem, penalty, and power of our sins. He came to “save his people from their sins” (Matt 1:21). “For by grace [you are] saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph 2:8-9). Every father and mother and every daughter and son must follow the example of women like Rahab and Ruth. Turn from your false religion, false gods, cultural allegiances, and personal sins to trust in Jesus alone. To do this, you must come to Jesus as your Savior, your King, and your God.
Fourth, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ (2 Pet 3:18).
Grow means “to increase.” You need to increase your awareness of the grace of God in your life. You also need to increase your personal dependence on his grace as you the challenges of daily life. Learn more about Jesus and draw more deeply from his grace. His grace heals the deepest wounds, gives strength for every trial, overcomes whatever defeats you and enables you to be a channel of his grace to the world. No matter what kind of background or heritage you may have, his grace shines through disgraced people – including you.
Thomas Overmiller serves as pastor for Faith Baptist Church in Corona, NY and blogs at Shepherd Thoughts.