Lineage. Matthew 1.

Did you read them all? Did you force yourself to try and pronounce every one of that long list of names? Or did your eyes glaze over, and your brain decide to just skim that part? Jeconiah, Shealtiel, and Zerubbabel... I'd better stop so you don't skim this post. Good for you if you slowed down, and tried to read each name. Understandable if you didn't. I've certainly done both.

This list of names at the very start of the gospel of Matthew tells us quite a bit about Jesus. It also tells us something about Matthew, and what his intentions are in writing this gospel. Here are a few random facts from the list. Jesus, like all other Hebrews, is descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. No mention is made of Esau, Jacob's brother, and yet two lines later, two sons of Judah, Perez and Zerah, and their mother Tamar are all mentioned. (And if you're curious, you can read about them in Genesis 38.) There are several women mentioned. Even if you don't know the stories of all these people, right in the list is one reminder that their lives were not all squeaky clean. ("David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife...") The middle section, David to Jeconiah, were all kings. This is the lineage of Joseph, descended from David, which is the reason Jesus was born in Bethlehem (which we don't learn about in this gospel, but in Luke).

The second half of the book is also about Jesus' lineage. Direct descendant of God the Father, conceived in a miraculous way through the power of the Holy Spirit. It's the more royal lineage, to put it in terms like the writer of Hebrews. The lineage that counts.

In starting his gospel with Jesus' lineage, Matthew lets us know that his perspective is that of the Jewish people who will hear Jesus' story. The pattern is similar to the book of Genesis. Lineage matters. It also establishes Jesus' Jewish credentials as a descendant of David. It authenticates one part of the story of Messiah.

More of the authentication will come from fulfilled prophecy. And we see that in this very first chapter of Matthew, too. In verses 22 and 23, Matthew writes: This all happened so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled: “Look! The virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call him Emmanuel,” which means “God with us.”

Lineage counted for the Jewish readers and it counts for us today. We too can count Abraham as our ancestor, and heirs to the promises given to him. Remember how Paul put it in his letter to the Galatians?

For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female – for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to the promise. (Gal. 3:26-29 NET)

Even more important than being children of Abraham, we are children of God because of our faith in Jesus.