This post is from Moms Take Ten episode 164, “Moms in the Bible–The Lineage Women”, which you can listen to wherever you listen to podcasts or at https://sites.libsyn.com/403493/moms-in-the-bible-the-lineage-women
There are two main moms of the Bible that we have talked about around Christmas time–Elizabeth and Mary. I love studying them but there are other mamas, many other mamas that played a role in bringing the events of this holiday to pass.
Let’s start by going all the way back to the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve had eaten of the forbidden tree and God had called a family meeting. Everyone involved was present–God, Adam, Eve and the serpent. Turning to the source of this conflict, God speaks these words to the serpent: “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than any livestock and more than any wild animal. You will move on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life. I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head and you will strike his heel.” (Gen 3:14-15)
This passage is pointed to as the first promise in Scripture of the Messiah. Here we see that all is not lost. God has a plan for how he is going to get his vengeance on the serpent for the sin that he brought into the world. And he is going to do that through the offspring of the woman, the child or children that she will bear.
Now, we know, having the pages of Scripture in our hands, that the Messiah was not one of Eve’s children. However, we see that she was hoping he would be. Nothing in what God said to the serpent indicated timing, so it would make sense that she would be wondering if her child would be the one. Her first born, Cain, clearly wasn’t since he killed her second born. Her second born clearly wasn’t since he was killed. When Seth came along she said, “God has given me another offspring in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.” Do you hear her hope? Maybe now the promised one will rise up and redeem what was lost.
But it wasn’t Seth either. Generation after generation began to pass and all were left waiting until that sweet baby boy was born in a manager.
The hope for all mankind was placed in the offspring, one in particularly, who would come and redeem. And where do offspring come from? A woman. Essentially, we are told in Scripture, to look to the woman. Study her, follow her story, for it is through her that God’s redemptive plan will play out.
Matthew begins his gospel with the genealogy of Christ, going from generation to generation, beginning with Abraham, to show how Jesus’ lineage fulfilled the promises spoken of him. Genealogies mostly focus on who the father was as they carry the family name and line. Each father represents a mother who gave birth to their child. We don’t know all their names but they each played a special role in this genealogy. Matthew does, however, go out of his way to mention five. Judah, who was one of the twelve sons of Jacob (from Leah), fathered Perez and Zerah, Matthew tells us, by Tamar. (Matt 1:3). Her story is not a pretty one. Her first husband, Judah’s eldest son, “was evil in the Lord’s sight and the Lord put him to death.” (Gen 38:7) So, as was custom to protect the widow and the man’s lineage, she was given to the next son to have a child through him for her first husband. But that son just used Tamar’s body without giving her a chance at pregnancy. “What he did was evil in the Lord’s sight,” says Genesis 38:10, “so he put him to death also.” Can you imagine? Two husbands, both of whom were so evil and so mistreating of her that God put them to death, and now she finds herself once again widowed with no hope of a future. Long story short, she devises a plan, tricks her father-in-law into sleeping with her, and becomes pregnant by him. That is not the way any of us would hope our family would be formed, and yet, even in the pain and the deception, the Lord provided a future for her through her sons.
Moving down the genealogy we see that “Salmon fathered Boaz by Rahab,” (Matt 1:5) Rahab was the woman from the city of Jericho who hid the Israelite spies in exchange for her extended family being spared as Israel conquered the city. Though a foreigner, she recognized the power of the Israelite God and placed her life in his hands. She was willing to stand against her own people to do so. Her extended family was rescued as a result and brought to live with the Israelites. And here we see that she started her own family with an Israelite man and that they had a son named Boaz.
This Boaz, Matthew tells us “fathered Obed by Ruth.” Another foreign woman, this one from Moab, proved herself fiercely loyal to her Israelite mother-in-law, Naomi, and returned with her to Bethlehem, leaving behind all she once knew in Moab. She returned with very little promise of a future–she was a widow, penniless, a foreigner, of a people who were despised by the Israelites. Yet on the road to Bethlehem she declared that she would put her life in God’s hands. And in God’s providence, she found herself in the fields of a man whose own mother had done the same. I have a whole episode on this which I’ll also link in the show notes. I love this story! Through Boaz, the Lord provides food for Naomi and Ruth, work for Ruth, and then future security as Boaz steps up as their kinsman redeemer for Naomi and Ruth. Little did Boaz or Ruth know that they would end up being the great grandparents of King David.
David, Matthew tells us, “fathered Solomon by Uriah’s wife” (Matt 1:6). He doesn’t even use Bathsheba’s name which I have a hard time but I understand he was trying to make a point. No, she wasn’t a foreign woman like Rahab and Ruth, and possibly Tamar, but she was equally off-limits to David because she was already married. He ignored that when he brought her into his house, had his way with her, then killed her husband after learning his actions had led to her pregnancy. As with Tamar, Bathsheba was so greatly mistreated, and yet God gave her a son who became a king, and a place in the lineage of Jesus.
The years pass following the birth of Bathsheba’s son Solomon, and generation after generation came, looking for the Messiah but not finding him. Then, we get the glorious news in verse sixteen, “and Jacob fathered Joseph the husband of Mary, who gave birth to Jesus who is called the Messiah.” He had finally come! After 42 generations, and hundreds upon hundreds of years waiting, the Messiah had been born to Mary and her husband Joseph. For those of us who know their story, we see God’s grace in that statement. For there was a period of time when Joseph was not going to be Mary’s husband after all. The idea that Mary could be pregnant through the Holy Spirit and carrying the Messiah was simply too big, too difficult to grasp for Joseph and feelings of betrayal bore down on him, though tempered by his love, so that he decided he was no longer going to marry her. But God moved, sending his angels to speak to Joseph so that he would understand and be strengthened to do what he was called to do, journey with Mary as her husband, helping her fulfill what was asked of her. Mary was not just spared single parenting and a life of shame, she was given the gift of a partner who believed her and who helped her. What a gracious gift to this young woman of whom so much was being asked of.
Though all throughout history we had been told to look to the woman, very few were looking to Mary as she brought forth Jesus into this world. And yet her pain, her labor, brought about the moment that Eve had been so desperately hoping for. It was the moment that changed everything for all of us.
This is why we celebrate Christmas, isn’t it?! He has come for us, amen?
There is brokenness in the lineage of Christ, just as there is in the world that he came to save. And yet, in these women’s stories we see hints of the redemption that was and still is to come. He didn’t leave them in the pain alone. He brought justice, rescue, provision, security, identity, and a future to Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and Mary. As we look to the women in Scripture, we see his heart for us and how he uses us to further his plan and purpose. He did it then and he is still doing it today.
Because though he came once, we await his final return. And while we do, we have a role to play. We get to join with the efforts of all the women of history who believed in God, taking their stand against the serpent and his ways. We get to follow Christ in faith and pass that faith along to our children, strengthening and equipping them for their own stance against him.
This Christmas season, may you find the hope and the encouragement that you need to keep going, to keep standing, to keep believing.
Image from John Heseltine / Pam Masco / FreeBibleimages.org.
Lyssa Stoyko 