How Jesus’s family tree shows us he is worth the wait.
In the first episode of the twentieth season of TheSimpsons, Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus (Matt. 1:1-17) finally makes prime time. Ned Flanders, the Simpsons’ good-hearted evangelical-ish neighbor, tries to redeem the time by reciting the New Testament while he and Homer stand stuck in concrete. As Ned launches into the genealogy on the opening page of the New Testament, viewers are expected to cringe at the prospect of a lengthy genealogical recitation.
Many contemporary Christian readers will either read the genealogy during Advent this December or as they start a Bible reading plan on January 1. I suspect that most of us aren’t that different from The Simpsons’ audience. We can scarcely wait to finish the genealogy to get to “the good stuff.” Of course, Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus turns out to be much more interesting than we suspect, but the feeling that we’re still “waiting for the good stuff” is an ironically appropriate response to reading through Jesus’ family tree.
Waiting to Arrive
From time to time, Christians take to the airwaves and bulletin boards to tell us that Jesus’s return is right around the corner. Churches or movements find themselves captivated by a vision of some grand new season or some fresh work that the Holy Spirit is about to produce. There’s a tendency to flock to ministries that seem to have it made. We dream about what God might do for us or through us if we could only touch the hem of a ministry’s robe. But these seasons seem to pass without a sense of arrival. It can make the rest of us feel like we haven’t quite made it yet, like we’re not really firing on all cylinders or ticking all the boxes. ...
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