1 12/24/15 West Valley Church Michael O Neill Advent 2015 Jesus Family Tree Light: Jesus Video The 5th CANDLE is the CHRIST CANDLE The white candle reminds us that Jesus is the spotless Lamb of God, sent to wash away our sins! His birth was for his death; his death was for our birth! In John 1, verse 29, we read: The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! And then in John 3, verses 1 through 6: There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus. Rabbi, he said, we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you. Jesus replied, I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God. What do you mean? exclaimed Nicodemus. How can an old man go back into his mother s womb and be born again? Jesus replied, I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. This season of Advent, our sermons have been exploring the stories of just a few of the people in Jesus Family Tree that are listed in Matthew chapter one; some are well known and some not so well known. We have been trying to find in their stories the traditional Advent themes of Hope, Joy, Peace, and Love, and to see a more human side of Jesus. The Bible is not afraid to show that there are all kinds of people in Jesus family tree. There are good people, bad people, and people we know practically nothing about. Some were kings and heroes of the faith who were dedicated completely to God. But others were sinners on a grand scale: murderers, prostitutes, and all kinds of dysfunctional characters. In other words, they ran the gamut of ordinary people,
2 like you and me. It was into this broken and sinful bloodline a bloodline no different than any of ours it was into this that Jesus was born. Jesus is the only solution to all of the sin that defines the lineage of humanity. So tonight we come to the true Light that entered the world: Jesus. I ve been giving you teasers on Sundays telling you that there is something interesting about Jesus place in the family tree that I bet you didn t know, so I should tell you the answer. Remember I ve said that Matthew was writing to the Jews, and that for them, it was important to prove pedigree through proper lineage. Matthew wanted to leave no doubt in his readers minds that Jesus fulfilled that most important prophecy that stated that the Messiah would be a descendent of King David, Israel s greatest king. In fact, David was so great that no one else in the Bible is named David. We typically honor someone by naming our children after him or her, right? But the Jews honored David by not naming their children after him. That s how revered David was. The Messiah had to be of the line of David. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God said: The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up a righteous descendant from David s line, and he will rule as a wise king. He will do what is just and right in the land. (Jer. 23:5, ceb) and the writer of Psalm 132 said: The Lord swore to David a true promise that God won t take back: I will put one of your own children on your throne. (Ps 132:11, ceb) Every Jew expected the Savior of the world to rise from David s sin-soaked bloodline. So Matthew is making it doubly clear that Jesus is the Christ and here s how: If you are familiar with the family tree in Matthew 1, you ll know that Matthew broke the lineage into three groups. He says in Matthew 1:17 So there were fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen generations from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen generations from the exile to Babylon to the Christ. (ceb) Now you need to know that there were more than fourteen generations in each; Matthew skipped a few. But this was a perfectly acceptable abbreviation of family lines, so long as you could prove the connection between the generations left out. It s also worth noting that this was written in the same generation of Jesus, and there was not a single Jewish historian or religious leader who was alive when it was written that disputed Matthew s list. So why did Matthew go out of his way to emphasize three groups of fourteen each? Here s why: in Hebrew, there are three letters that spell David (Da-veed). The Jews had numbers that corresponded to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, kind of like the decoder pin in The Christmas Story that Ralphie drank so much Ovaltine to get. Only Hebrew is far more sophisticated than that. But if you were to add up the numeric value of the three letters that make up the name David, guess what it is? Fourteen! So Matthew is making sure that no one misses the point: three times for three letters, fourteen generations each for the number fourteen that David s name adds up to. Also, three was a number that represented human completeness, and fourteen, which was double the number
3 seven which represented the completeness of God doubly complete. Three times fourteen means that there is no question: Jesus is the family tree of David and Jesus is completely human and completely divine. I bet you didn t know that! Jesus was born into a family line that was kingly but was horribly dark and dysfunctional. The complete man and complete God became the Light of the world. Let s bring this together for tonight s service. John starts his Gospel by telling us that: Everything came into being through the Word, and without the Word nothing came into being. What came into being through the Word was life, and the life was the light for all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn t extinguish the light. (John 1:3-5, ceb) We ve come into this dark place to remember that Advent, in part at least, represents a time in the church in which we reflect on darkness. Each of our family trees are filled with dark times; some darker than others. Of course, we would rather avoid the darkness. We would much rather equate the Advent season with shopping, decorating, Christmas parties, and festive holiday lights. This has been how we prepare for the coming light that dispels darkness, not by reflecting on darkness, but by ignoring it. But the darkness is still there. It s all around us. And there remain times when darkness is so pervasive that it can no longer be ignored. The end of 2015 feels like such a moment. We are inundated by stories of violence and terrorism, racism and fear. Whether terror attacks in Paris or San Bernardino, or fear of evil lurking in crowds of refugees, darkness retains a palpable presence. (I might remind you, by the way, that Mary and Joseph were refugees for some of the same reasons as Syrians are). For many of us, Christmas is more about darkness than light; we are reminded of loss, of grief, of pain, of poverty, of aloneness. God arranged Jesus arrival through his family line to be exactly in a time full of darkness and lacking in hope. The people of Israel had for centuries been praying for the long awaited and hoped-for Messiah that is reflected in the list of unknowns in the third grouping of fourteen in Matthew s genealogy of Jesus. And during that wait, Palestine was occupied by one empire after another until finally Rome moved into the neighborhood. The period before Christ could easily be described as tumultuous for the Jewish people. Rome marched through the land, burning whole cities, and putting to death anyone who would resist. General Varus in 4BC crucified up to 2000 Jewish rebels who picked up arms against Rome. Herod ordered the building of great hellenistic cities, like Sepphoris, just a few miles from Nazareth. He used an exploited workforce of day laborers, carpenters, and farmers
4 to support his building projects. And in the middle of this dark story, light arrives in a baby s makeshift crib. 1 Three times fourteen is also the complete darkness of humanity, Matthew would say. And at the end of that dark line is light. With Jesus birth begins a new family line of light. Into the dark cumulative chiliad of the world came Christ, and with him God brought a new bloodline, one with life and light and no longer death and darkness. And here is the amazing thing: because of Christ, you don t have to go through geometric gymnastics to try to prove your pedigree or worth; Christ has grafted you in. You don t have to dwindle and deteriorate in the dark any more. You can be adopted into the full light of the family of God through Jesus Christ. I have to be honest and tell you that without Christ, your family tree is doomed to get cut down and burned up in the fire; I don t care what your pedigree is. John the Baptist said: And don t even think about saying to yourselves, Abraham is our father. I tell you that God is able to raise up Abraham s children from these stones. The ax is already at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that doesn t produce good fruit will be chopped down and tossed into the fire. (Matthew 3:9-10, ceb) Your family tree is not good enough; its destiny is to be cut down and burned. But Because of Christ s birth, life, death, and resurrection from the dead, you can now be cut from your doomed family tree, and be grafted into the family tree of Jesus. Romans chapter 11 talks about how our only hope is to be grafted into the family tree of Jesus. Verse 24 says: You were naturally part of a wild olive tree and you were cut off from it, and then, contrary to nature, you were grafted into the cultivated olive tree. (Romans 11:24, ceb) I would strongly encourage you to ask God to graft you into Jesus family tree. What better season than now, what better time than tonight? There is an old Christmas tradition of putting lights on the Christmas tree. Back in the days before electricity, families would often use candles. If you are a Christian, you are like those candles on God s family tree. Light pastors candles, who in turn light the peoples candles. When song is done, and all candles are light: You are a branch of light on the family tree that is God the Father s family. And now, as a light on that tree, you are a light for others to see as well, illuminating the darkness so that they can find their way to God s forever family tree. If you and I don t allow the light of Christ to shine through us, the ever-present darkness keeps 1 Much of this section is from Eric Paul s excellent blog, Full of Darkness and Hope: An Advent Reflection, https://cpl.nts.edu/index.php/blog/item/160-full-of-darkness-and-hope.
5 people destined for the forest fire. But if you shine your light, others can find their way to the tree. Please turn off the house lights Hold up your candle. Do you see how the darkness is pushed back to the corners? Now, hold your candle down to about your waist (be careful!) Do you see how the darkness advances toward us? In Jesus famous Sermon on the Mount, Matthew records Jesus words to us: You are the light of the world. A city on top of a hill can t be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. Instead, they put it on top of a lampstand, and it shines on all who are in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before people, so they can see the good things you do and praise your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:14-16, ceb) You have been grafted onto God s family tree. You are a light on the branch for others to see. Go from this place and be the light of Jesus for others so that they too can find faith in the family tree of God. Please extinguish your candles. Please return your candle in the baskets at the doors on your way out. Have a blessed Christmas!