Matthew 1:1-17 - Jesus Is the Son of David - November 30, 2022

According to a recent report distributed by the United Nations the population of planet earth reached 8 billion people on November 15. They also projected that in 2050 there will be almost 10 billion humans on earth. [1] Since the dawn of time, somewhere between 60 and 100 billion people have walked on the dust of this earth. But, of those billions, only a handful have made any real, lasting, permanent impression – whose names are still spoken around the world. And of that handful, one stands far above the rest. His name is Jesus.

Think about it: Jesus never wrote a book – and yet millions of books have been written about him. Jesus never painted a picture (that we know of) – and yet the world’s greatest art has Jesus’ words and works as its inspiration. Jesus never raised an army – and yet millions of his followers have fought and died for him. Jesus never traveled very far from his birthplace – and yet word of his life and work has reached every corner of the globe – even those places that have tried to ban it. During his lifetime, Jesus only had maybe a few dozen dedicated followers – and yet today over 30% of the planet’s population confess to follow him. [2] The most important question that any of the earth’s 8 billion citizens can ever ask, then, is who is Jesus? That’s our question this Advent season: Who is Jesus? And today Matthew reveals him as the Son of David – that is, as a King.

However, what many people in Jesus’ day – and many people today – don’t understand is what kind of King Jesus came to be. Most expected him to be a “political” King – whose primary purpose would be to make their lives happier, safer and more prosperous. Would we really want Jesus to be that kind of King? Politicians of all stripes and all times have promised to be that kind of “king.” In 1964 Lyndon B. Johnson promised not so send American boys to Vietnam to fight a foreign war. He lied. In 1988 George H.W. Bush told Americans to “Read his lips: No new taxes.” He lied. [3][4] In 2008 Barack Obama promised that his so-called “Obamacare” healthcare plan wouldn’t raise rates. He lied. [5] And I didn’t even mention anything said by anyone running in the latest election cycle. In America we’re used to leaders who say what people want to hear. No one’s campaign slogan is, “Slow, arduous change,” or “realistic compromises,” or “it’s going to get worse before it gets better.” No. We want leaders who promise the moon – and so that’s what they promise. And you don’t have to live through too many elections to become cynical about such promises.

But when we look at Jesus, we see a completely different kind of leader – a different kind of king. First, we see that Jesus is the Promised King. Matthew begins his Gospel this way: a record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Even this heading tells us a lot about who Jesus is. Christ is not Jesus’ last name. Christ is a title. It’s the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah which means “anointed one.”

The Old Testament – God, in countless places, starting already in Genesis – promised to send a Messiah – a King who would accomplish God’s mission. God left a breadcrumb trail of prophecies throughout the OT which would lead people to the Messiah. He promised that the Messiah would come from the line of David (2 Samuel 7:12). He would be born in David’s city (Micah 5:2) and sit on David’s throne (Isaiah 9:7). And part of Matthew’s purpose in providing us with this extensive genealogy – and the rest of his gospel – is to prove that Jesus is this king – the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of David. When Matthew wrote his gospel, Israel hadn’t had a legitimate king for hundreds of years. Now, Matthew declares, “a king has finally come to sit on David’s throne. And his name is Jesus!” Matthew drives this truth home by citing no few than 15 OT prophecies which were fulfilled in Jesus.[6] Jesus is the promised King.

He is also the compassionate King. Jesus didn’t come to lead a rebellion against Rome or hand out welfare checks. He came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10). We see hints of this truth in the structure of Matthew’s genealogy. First, in contrast to genealogies found in the OT, where a person’s descendants are listed (which makes sense – if there’s no Abraham, there’s no Isaac!) – here, Matthew lists Jesus’ predecessors (with the implication that those who went before Jesus were dependent on him!) Second, while the Israelites traced their ancestry through male ancestors, Matthew also mentions four women: Tamar (Matthew 1:3), Rahab and Ruth (Matthew 1:5), and Bathsheba (Matthew 1:6). All four of these women were outsiders. Tamar and Rahab were Canaanites (Genesis 38:2-6; Joshua 2:1-13). Ruth was a Moabite (Ruth 1:1-4). And Bathsheba was likely a Hittite like her husband – Uriah (2 Samuel 11:3). Moreover, each of these women were stigmatized. Tamar, after her brother-in-law refused to do his duty to provide her with a child (Genesis 38:10) tricked her father-in-law, Judah, into sleeping with her in order to have children (Genesis 38). Rahab was a prostitute (Joshua 2:1-13). Bathsheba committed adultery with King David (2 Samuel 11). Ruth once worshiped an idol called Chemosh (1 Kings 11:7) and was a widow (Ruth 1:5).

What’s the point? The point is that while the Jews of Jesus’ day expected a Messiah who would come to drive out their Roman oppressors and reestablish Israel’s power and status and independence, Jesus came instead to bring the outcasts to God – in large part, by removing the shame of marginalized, alienated people like Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba. The rest of Matthew’s gospel bears this out. Who does Jesus spend his time with? Outcasts and rejects. With those who had done terrible things or were afflicted with terrible diseases. But I think that what stands out to me most is the fact that three of the four women listed in Jesus’ genealogy were burdened with a shameful stigma. And yet, God was not ashamed to include them in his Son’s genealogy and Jesus is not ashamed to associate and save those who may bear some shameful stigma.

In the end, no matter what we’ve experienced in the past, this includes all of us. We all have plenty of ugly shame from our past that haunts us to this day. We tend to focus – and rightly so – on how Jesus takes away our guilt – that is, the debt of the sins we have committed. But he also takes away the shame – the sin done to us. We don’t have to try to wash our shame away, work our shame away, explain or eat or cry or drug our shame away. Because Jesus isn’t a king who sits on his throne and demands that you serve him; Jesus is a king who descends from his throne, filled with compassion wanting to serve you. Jesus knows what it’s like to live with a shameful stigma (remember, the Jewish leaders mocked him as an illegitimate child (John 8:41)). At our darkest point – when we feel the ugliest and most unloved – Jesus says, “I love you – no matter what!” He reminds us through Word and Sacrament that neither the sins we have committed nor the sinful things others have done to us define us. We don’t have to live with guilt or shame. We aren’t worthless. We aren’t damaged goods. We are clean. We are whole. We are his. Jesus is the compassionate King.

But in order to be compassionate, Jesus also had to be rejected. To the Jewish elites of his day, Jesus was the wrong kind of king. He came from the wrong place, associated with the wrong kind of people, preached the wrong message, gathered the wrong disciples, carried out the wrong mission, and waged the wrong kind of war against the wrong kind of enemies. (In fact, incidentally – and maybe ironically – in Matthew’s Gospel, apart from Matthew’s calling Jesus the “Son of David” here and the crowds on Palm Sunday (Matthew 21:9), the only people who hailed Jesus as King – often far less than sincerely – were Gentiles and rejects – including the Wise Men (Matthew 2:1-12), blind men (Matthew 9:27), a demon possessed man (Matthew 12:23), a Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:22), Roman soldiers (Matthew 27:29), and Pontius Pilate (Romans 27:37).) But God’s chosen people – the Jews – almost universally rejected him as their King. It all came to a head on Good Friday. Matthew wrote about it: above his head they posted the written charge against him: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews” (Matthew 27:37). Pilate posted this sign – over the objection of the Jews – likely as a sarcastic shot against them: “See, this is your king…see what I, the Roman governor, can do to your supposed King!” The Jewish leaders – like so many people today – rejected Jesus, the promised and compassionate King. But more importantly, because we deserved to be rejected by our holy God – Jesus had to be rejected by him in our place. When Jesus cried out my God, my God, why have you forsaken me (Matthew 27:46) from Calvary’s cross, he was describing hell – that is, his Father had rejected him, turned his back on him, disowned him. Jesus was rejected by God for our broken promises, our failure to show compassion, our lack of faith and love and hope – so that we never would be.

But that’s not how the story ended. Three days later, after Jesus had risen from his grave, he proclaimed that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me (Matthew 28:18). That’s what we would expect of a king, right – to have all authority? Jesus has all authority over everything in the universe – politicians, economies, natural disasters, down to the minor things that happen in our lives every day. He also has the rightful authority to command us how to live. He has every right to demand anything and everything from us. But that’s not why we hail him as king. We hail him as king because he gave everything for us – to save and redeem us.

Who is Jesus? Jesus is the Son of David, the promised, compassionate – and rejected – King that we follow through this life and into the next. Amen.

[1] https://www.un.org/en/desa/world-population-reach-8-billion-15-november-2022

[2] https://www.kentuckytoday.com/baptist_life/7-encouraging-trends-of-global-christianity-in-2022/article_6a1f9336-861a-11ec-aab8-dbfeb19c7929.html

[3] https://www.cnn.com/2012/08/22/politics/gallery/presidential-promises/index.html

[4] https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/jun/26/broken-presidential-campaign-promises-1916/

[5] https://www.budget.senate.gov/newsroom/budget-background/obamacares-five-biggest-broken-promises

[6] https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/how-does-matthew-prove-that-jesus-is-the-messiah.html