First Sunday of Advent, Year A

 Today is the First Sunday of Advent.  Today begins our season of waiting; waiting on a child, a Savior, who will redeem the world.  As I thought about this week’s lectionary scriptures, I began to think more and more about the Christ child, the baby that would be born.  We know of Jesus’ works, miracles, teachings, and why he came, but what do we know of the time leading up to this point?  Last year we focused more on Mary through the Advent Season, thinking about her perspective, so this year I thought I would focus on Joseph, the earthly father, adopted father, step father of Jesus…all of these terms apply.

Has anyone here ever traced their genealogy?  As a Christmas gift last year, I received an Ancestry DNA kit (as did, I’m sure, many of you).  I found out a lot of things I knew, but more things I didn’t know.  After I embraced the Wesleyanism I had always felt present in my heart, my family really struggled with that.  What sealed the deal was moving my membership from The Southern Baptist Church to The United Methodist Church.  I had family members (especially in my Mom’s family) that didn’t speak to me for months because “we have always been Baptist”!  So, imagine everyone’s shock when, low and behold, eight generations from me, through my mother’s line, was a Methodist Circuit Rider.  Not “just” a Circuit Rider, but a Circuit Rider who was on the very first group of ministers ordained in the new world by Bishop Francis Asbury, who was best friends with Andrew Jackson (who not only served as his personal chaplain in the war of 1812, but was the only person Jackson allowed to train his men to shoot), who was ran out of (what would become) Nashville for teaching persons of color to read and helping establish a house of worship for these same people (this was the late 1700’s and early 1800’s), and who was responsible for bringing Christianity and Methodism to  “the great bend in the Tennessee River”, which is now what we refer to as the Tennessee Valley (southern TN/northern AL).  So, as it turned out, they were wrong and I was just realigning with the Methodism that resonated deeply within my DNA.  Science proves it!

That’s a long story to intro what we will be talking about this morning:  the ancestry DNA of Christ.  This genealogy is recorded in both Matthew and Luke, and from Adam to David, the lists are identical, but do begin to vary some after that point.  Since Year A of the Revised Common Lectionary focuses on Matthew, Matthew’s listing is what we will focus on. 

Matthew’s family tree of Jesus from Joseph begins with Abraham, then moves to Isaac, then to Jacob, Judah and Tamar, then skip a few generations to Boaz and Ruth, and their grandson was Jesse.  Now I’m hoping that you’re thinking a few of these names are familiar to you, since we’ve talked extensively about a few of them.  There are some truly incredible stories that accompany many of these ancestors of Jesus; there’s a podcast that I love to listen to, and a few seasons ago they devoted every podcast to this ancestral line of Christ, and it was amazing to hear. 

This time of year, we start hearing in our hymns, the scriptures, and the prayers about the “stump of Jesse” or the “root of Jesse”.  Growing up, I had no idea what that meant.  These terms were somewhat foreign and seemed to never really tie in to anything.  These terms are metaphors, and they relate to the earthly lineage of Jesus.  Jesse, the grandson of Ruth and Boaz, was a prominent sheep farmer in the town of Bethlehem, in Judah, and was of the Tribe of Judah.  He was the father of seven sons, and two daughters.  But there’s one son we all know pretty intimately:  David.

During this time, Israel had transitioned from the rule of the judges to a king, and their first king, King Saul, was ruling.  But things weren’t going all that well, and Saul fell pretty hard from Diving grace.  So, God sent Samuel out to anoint a new king of Israel, but God didn’t tell Samuel directly who or where to find him.  So, to cut our story short, Samuel winds up at Jesse’s home, and asked Jesse to bring his sons to him.  Samuel started with the oldest, Eliab, to whom God said “he is not the one”.  Then to the strongest, Abinadab, and God said “he is not the one”.  Then to the wisest, the purest, and down the list, and to each one God said “he is not the one”.  Samuel asked Jesse if this was all of his sons, to which he replied all but one; his youngest son David is in the field shepherding the sheep.  Samuel went to David, the shepherd boy; and to understand the implication here, you need to know that sheepherding wasn’t looked upon as a desirable trade.  It was less something you wanted to do, and more something you were saddled with because of family obligations and the inability to move into any other trades (typically you were mentored into your trade, per Jewish traditions, and it was typically your father that mentored you, teaching you the only thing he knew, etc.).  So, when Samuel came to David, the sheepherder, and God said “he is the one”, it was one of those almost Cinderella moments, because the shoe fit on the least likely candidate.

And this is the man from whom Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, would come, fulfilling prophesy that the Christ would be of Davidic lineage.

I love King David and all things about this man.  And when you think about what we know about David, I’ve stopped and wondered more than a few times, why him?  This boy, this child, was anointed king while he was in a field working.  He wasn’t born into a royal line; he had no claim to a throne.  He wasn’t educated.  He wasn’t “special” by the definition of the word, but look at all he did in his life: he slayed a giant, he soothed the ruling king, he wrote numerous psalms and prayers, he was a valiant warrior, and the unified Israel under his rule was stronger than it had ever been. 

But, while many of us know these things, most of us don’t think of these immediately when David is mentioned.  We, in typical people fashion, tend to remember first the story of Bathsheba.  Now, David had a bunch of wives, eight of whom are named in the book of Samuel.  But it seems that he was never quite satisfied, and one day, while strolling along the rooftops, he spotted a woman whose beauty was more than he could handle.  He does a little digging, and finds out that she is married to a soldier named Uriah.  So being married wasn’t enough to dissuade his longing for this beautiful woman; he was consumed by want for Bathsheba.  He was so consumed, that, he ordered Uriah to the front of the battle line, securing Bathsheba’s widow status.  He had a man killed in order to take his wife. 

So, this was the man God chose to be the King of Israel?  This is who he chose to be the patriarch of the line that would bring forth Joseph and the Christ child?  If you’re asking why him, know that you are not alone.

And I think that’s exactly what we should be asking, because I think that’s what we are to learn from this.  We affirm that we are all broken people in need of God’s grace, but do we really believe that?  Do we live that? 

I am encouraged when I think about the ordinary boy that God made a king and in whom God established the earthly line that would bring forth His Son; because if God can do that with David, think about what God can do with you.  Amen.