I have seldom met a parent who wasn’t entranced and delighted by their newborn.
The ancestors of Jesus, all the people in Joseph’s and Mary’s lines must have rejoiced because here he was, the fulfilment of all the promises down through time from Sarah and Abraham, through fourteen generations to Bathsheba and David, through fourteen generations again to those deported to Babylon and the people brought home again.
And finally, HERE HE WAS! The joy! The passage in the Lectionary for this week lists all these people, or all of those whose names are known. It is “A Genealogy of Jesus Christ” compiled by Ann Patrick Ware of the Women’s Liturgy Group of New York. Try reading their names out loud and, if you can, I invite you to imagine them looking over the manger at this tiny, tiny baby and rejoicing with his happy parents.
A genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of Miriam, the daughter of Anna:
Sarah was the mother of Isaac,
And Rebekah was the mother of Jacob,
Leah was the mother of Judah,
Tamar was the mother of Perez
The names of the mothers of Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, Nahshon and Salmon have been lost.
Rehab was the mother of Boaz,
and Ruth was the mother of Obed.
Obed’s wide, whose name is unknown, bore Jesse.
The wife of Jesse was the mother of David.
Bathsheba was the mother of Soloman,
Naamah, the Ammonite, was the mother of Rehoboam.
Mach was the mother of Abidjan and the grandmother of Asa.
Azubah was the mother of Jehoshaphat.
The name of Jehoram’s mother is unknown.
Athaliah was the mother of Ahaziah
Zibiah of Beersheba the mother of Johas,
Jocoliah of Jerusalem bore Uzziah,
Jerusha bore Jotham; Ahaz’s mother is unknown.
Abi was the mother of Hezekah,
Hephzibah was the mother oif Manasseh,
Meshullemeth was the mother of Amon,
Jedidiah was the mother of Josiah,
Zebidiah was the mother of Jehoiakim,
Nhushta was the mother of Jehoiachin
Hamutal was the mother of Zedekah.
Then the deportation of Babylon took place.
After the deportation to Babylon
the names of the mothers go unrecorded.
These are their sons:
Jechoniah, Shealtiel, Zerubbabel,
Abiud, Eliakim, Azor and Zadok,
Achim, Eliud, Eleazar,
Matthan, Jacob, and Joseph the husband of Miriam.
Of her was born Jesus who is called Christ.
The sum of generations is there: fourteen from Sarah to David’s mother;
fourteen from Bathsheba to the Babylonian deportations
and fourteen from the Babylonian deportation to Miriam, the mother of Christ.
Standing peering into the manger are all his ancestors and standing next to them looking too are the angels. The angels are singing of good news of great JOY for all the people. People sing when they’re joyful and apparently angels do too.
The shepherds were welcomed to the stable, they must have been delighted to be invited, even them, even there, even so.
This is a joyful story because God is with us - Emmanuel! I mean seriously, this changes everything!
Do you see it? Is your heart filled with joy too?
If you don’t see it right now, because life is hard sometimes, I pray that you might. I pray that your heart might be filled with joy because GOD IS WITH US.