Christmas Lists
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He’s making a list, he’s checking it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty and nice. Santa Claus is coming to town.
Santa loves his lists.
List of people who have been naughty and lists of people who have been nice.
The story of Christmas starts with a list of names.
A very special kind of list called a genealogy.
A genealogy is a list of a persons family history.
Who’s family list does the Christmas story have?
Obviously Jesus.
So if this is a list of names that leads us to Jesus Christ, then it is perfectly right to assume that any list with Jesus on it is a NICE list and not a NAUGHTY list.
So lets us go through some of the key names on the list today.
1 The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham:
2 Abraham fathered Isaac, Isaac fathered Jacob, and Jacob fathered Judah and his brothers.
A key verse:
6 Jesse fathered David the king. David fathered Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah.
Leading all the way to:
16 Jacob fathered Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.
Here is the catch: While we expect Good names on the list, what we actually find is Grace from the list maker.
I want to draw your attention to 4/2 names on the list.
Names which should not be on the same list as Jesus, yet are there because Christmas reminds us of just how gracious God is.
1: Tamar:
1: Tamar:
3 Judah fathered Perez and Zerah by Tamar, Perez fathered Hezron, and Hezron fathered Ram.
Tamar is introduced in Gen 38, a chapter that interrupts the story of Joseph.
After suggesting that his brother Joseph be sold into slavery, Judah leaves his family to live with Hirah the Adullamite.
He marries a Shua, a Canaanite, and has three sons: Er, Onan and Shelah.
1 And it came about at that time, that Judah departed from his brothers and visited a certain Adullamite, whose name was Hirah.
2 Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua; and he took her as a wife and had relations with her.
3 And she conceived and gave birth to a son, and he named him Er.
4 Then she conceived again and gave birth to a son, and she named him Onan.
5 She gave birth to yet another son and named him Shelah; and it was at Chezib that she gave birth to him.
Once his eldest son, Er, reaches adulthood, Judah obtains a wife for him—Tamar.
6 Now Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar.
Tamar and Er’s marriage ends abruptly when God takes Er’s life because he was “evil” in the “sight of the Lord”.
7 But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord took his life.
Though the narrator does not specify the nature of Er’s evil, this word also describes the doomed men of Sodom in Gen 13:13.
Tamar is left without a child to claim Er’s inheritance.
In the ancient Near East, it was customary practice for male relations to produce an heir for the deceased through his widow.
Following this practice, Judah instructs his second son, Onan, to marry Tamar and produce a male heir for Er.
8 Then Judah said to Onan, “Have relations with your brother’s wife and perform your duty as a brother-in-law to her, and raise up a child for your brother.”
However, Onan knows that if his brother has no heir, Er’s larger inheritance as firstborn will pass to him.
Onan adopts the practice of coitus Interuptis. (Google it).
His selfish act is described as an “evil activity” in the sight of the Lord, and Onan receives a divine death sentence as well
10 But what he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord; so He took his life also.
Juda now thinks that Tamar is a Jewish Daisy Damelka!
Suspicious that Tamar is responsible for his sons’ deaths, Judah instructs Tamar to live with her father until his youngest son, Shelah, is old enough to marry.
When Tamar realizes that Judah does not intend to follow through with the marriage, she devises a plan to ensure that Er’s line endures.
Disguised as a prostitute who could be associated with a religious shrine, Tamar sits near the town gate and waits for Judah to solicit her sexual favors
12 Now after a considerable time Shua’s daughter, the wife of Judah, died; and when the time of mourning was ended, Judah went up to his sheepshearers at Timnah, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite.
13 And Tamar was told, “Behold, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep.”
14 So she removed her widow’s garments and covered herself with a veil, and wrapped herself, and sat in the gateway of Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah; for she saw that Shelah had grown up, and she had not been given to him as a wife.
When he does, Tamar demands a pledge to guarantee that she will be paid.
Judah gives her his seal, the cord it hung upon, and his staff Gen 38:15–18
15 When Judah saw her, he assumed she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face.
16 So he turned aside to her by the road, and said, “Here now, let me have relations with you”; for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. And she said, “What will you give me, that you may have relations with me?”
17 He said, therefore, “I will send you a young goat from the flock.” She then said, “Will you give a pledge until you send it?”
18 He said, “What pledge shall I give you?” And she said, “Your seal and your cord, and your staff that is in your hand.” So he gave them to her and had relations with her, and she conceived by him.
From this encounter, Tamar becomes pregnant.
When Judah discovers Tamar’s pregnancy, he condemns her to death by fire.
Tamar then returns the seal, cord and staff to Judah, stating that they belong to the father of her child.
Judah clears Tamar of any guilt because he failed to provide her with Shelah.
Tamar bears Judah two sons, Perez and Zerah.
Perez is later designated as the chosen seed in Judah’s royal line.
2: Rahab:
2: Rahab:
5 Salmon fathered Boaz by Rahab, Boaz fathered Obed by Ruth, and Obed fathered Jesse.
A harlot of Jericho who hid two Hebrew spies, helping them to escape.
Rahab’s house was on the city wall of Jericho.
She secretly housed the two spies whom Joshua sent to explore Jericho and helped them escape by hiding them in stalks of flax on her roof.
1 Then Joshua the son of Nun sent two men as spies secretly from Shittim, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab, and rested there.
Rahab sent the king’s messengers on a false trail, and then let the two spies down the outside wall by a rope through the window of her house.
15 Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the city wall, so that she was living on the wall.
When the Israelites captured Jericho, they spared the house with the scarlet cord in the window—a sign that a friend of God’s people lived within.
Rahab, therefore, along with her father, her mother, her brothers, and all her father’s household, was spared.
Rahab eventually married a man named Salmon and they had a child who they called Boaz.
Boaz married Ruth and became the father of Obed, the grandfather of Jesse, and the great-grandfather of David.
Thus, a Canaanite harlot became part of the lineage of King David out of which the Messiah came.
An early sign that God’s grace and forgiveness is extended to all, that it is not limited by nationality or the nature of a person’s sins.
This Canaanite woman’s declaration of faith led the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews to cite Rahab as one of the heroes of faith.
31 By faith the prostitute Rahab did not perish along with those who were disobedient, after she had welcomed the spies in peace.
While James commended her as an example of one who has been justified and proved it by works.
25 In the same way, was Rahab the prostitute not justified by works also when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?
According to rabbinic tradition, Rahab was one of the four most beautiful women in the world and was the ancestor of eight prophets, including Jeremiah.
Conclusion: