Christmas Is the Celebration of the King
Have you ever noticed how many of our Christmas hymns talk about Jesus as King? “Joy to the World, the Lord is come, let earth receive her king.” “Hark! The herald angels sing, glory to the new-born king.” “Noel, noel, noel, noel, born is the king of Israel” (The First Noel). “This, this is Christ the King, whom shepherds guard and angels sing” (What Child is This?). “Born thy people to deliver, born a child, and yet a King” (Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus).
If we’re paying attention to our songs, we’d understand that Christmas is about a King. Christmas is the celebration of the coming of a King. But why are we supposed to be so excited about this?
A King Foretold to Come
The Bible teaches that God created everything, including man and woman in his image, that man rebelled against God bringing sin into the world and fracturing the relationship between God and man, and that all of creation was effected by man’s sin.
But the Bible also teaches that after man sinned, God began the process of setting things right and restoring man and creation back to their original design. This process began with God’s promise to Eve in the Garden that one of her offspring would defeat Satan. It continued through God’s covenants with Abraham, Moses, and David.
Then, through the prophets, God told his people that he would send a King to defeat their enemies and rule over them with perfect justice and righteousness, someone who’d usher in a kingdom of everlasting peace.
For example, the prophet Micah said, “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah…from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days….And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. And he shall be their peace” (5:2, 4-5a).
And the prophet Isaiah, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from this time forth and forevermore” (9:6-7).
And the prophet Jeremiah, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land” (23:5).
Through the prophets, God told his people that a King would come to undo the effects of the curse on the world because of sin. Wrongs would be righted. Oppression would cease. The wicked would get what they deserve and God’s people would dwell in safety and peace. This King would set up a government unlike any the world has ever seen. God’s plan to redeem and remake the world would reach its climax with the coming of this King.
Genealogy Shows Us Who Jesus Is and What He Came to Do
How do we know who this King is? Well, the writers of the New Testament were convinced that a man named Jesus of Nazareth was this promised King who would come to set things right and bring us back to God.
One of the ways they argue their case that Jesus is this promised King is unexpected and often overlooked: genealogies. It’s no accident that the New Testament opens with the genealogy of Jesus (Matt. 1:1-17). Matthew begins his Gospel with a formal genealogy of Jesus to show his readers at the outset who this Jesus guy is.
The focus of the genealogy is Jesus’ identity as king. We’ll spend most of our time considering But Matthew also shows us what Jesus came to do. Notice that verse 1 begins, “The book of the genealogy (biblos geneseos) of Jesus Christ.” This is the exact same phrase used in Genesis 2:4, “These are the generations (biblos geneseos) of the heavens and the earth when they were created,” and 5:1, “This is the book of the generations (biblos geneseos) of Adam.”
Matthew uses this phrase to draw a parallel between Jesus and Genesis, between Jesus and God’s creation of the world and Jesus and God’s creation of mankind. Matthew is saying, not so subtly to his original readers, that Jesus came to establish a new creation and is the new Adam. Matthew’s genealogy thus tells us who Jesus is and what he came to do. It tells us that God sent Jesus to remake the world and be the head of a new people. [1]
As the hymn “Joy to the World!” says, “No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground; he comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found.” Jesus came to undo the effects of the curse on the world due to sin.
Jesus’ Royal Family
As I said, the main point of the genealogy is to reveal the identity of Jesus. The main two things I want us to see in this genealogy is that Jesus came from a royal family and that Jesus came from a broken family, or Jesus’ royally broken family.
First, I want you to notice Jesus’ royal family. The primary purpose of Matthew’s genealogy is to show us that Jesus is from the royal line of King David, and that, therefore, he has a legal claim to the throne over God’s people.
Notice in verse 1 that Matthew refers to “Jesus Christ.” Again in verse 16, he says, “Jesus…who is called Christ.” “Christ” is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word for Messiah, or “anointed one.” It’s a royal title, not Jesus’ last name. Jesus wasn’t born to Joseph and Mary Christ. He didn’t become part of the Christ family. “Christ” is a title, not a name. Matthew thus begins and ends his genealogy by stating clearly that Jesus has legal right to the throne of Israel.
Jesus the Rightful King
Why is it important that Jesus be shown to be a descendant of King David? Because God made a promise to King David back in 2 Samuel 7:16, “Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.”
God tells David that his descendants will always sit on the throne and that from his line someone will come who’ll sit on the throne forever. Matthew emphasizes King David in his genealogy in order to make it clear that Jesus is the fulfillment of this promise because he’s a descendant of King David.
Matthew goes out of his way to make King David the central figure in his genealogy. In verse 1, he lists him before Abraham, out of chronological order. He even organizes his genealogy to reveal the centrality of David. Verse 17 says that he’s organized it into three groups of fourteen. The reason for this goes back to a Hebrew practice called “gematria.” This was a system the Hebrews used to apply numbers to Hebrew letters. When you add up the value of David’s name (DVD, 4+6+4), you get fourteen. So David’s name in Hebrew is equivalent to the number fourteen. David’s name is also the fourteenth name in Matthew’s list.
When you compare this genealogy to the one found in Luke and various Old Testament genealogies, it’s clear that Matthew omitted several names in order to create this literary symmetry. He wasn’t lying when he did this. The verb “was the father of” can also mean “was the ancestor of.” [2]
Matthew is going out of his way to connect King David to Jesus. His point is that Jesus is the rightful heir to the throne of David because he’s a direct descendent of David. Jesus is the King because he has the right family history.
Jesus Has the Last Legitimate Claim to the Jewish Throne
At that time, the Jews were tenacious about their family history, about their pedigree and ancestry, about who they belonged to. That’s why there are over fifty genealogies in the Old Testament.
This has changed for modern day Jews. Jews today have no record of their tribal ancestry. After hundreds of years of exile and being scattered all over the earth, the Jews lost their ability to keep track of their ancestry.
This means that no Jew today could prove themselves to be a son of David, and so no Jew today could prove to be the Messiah. This is a devastating fact for Orthodox Jews who believe that their Messiah is still to come because they’ll have no way of proving that he’s a son of David.
Jesus’ Messiahship can be verified because there’s more than one historical document that proves that he’s a son of David (cf. Lk. 3:23-38). Jesus sits on David’s throne and there will never be another legitimate claim to his throne.
Jesus’ Identity Was Challenged
Another reason why Matthew begins his Gospel by making it clear that Jesus has unrivaled legal claim to the throne is because Jesus’ identity was constantly being called into question. One example is in Matthew 13:53-56.
Modern skeptics aren’t the first people to doubt the identity of Jesus. During Jesus’ ministry, there was suspicion and debate over who he was. People found it hard to believe that the Christ could be a carpenter’s son from Galilee. Even his own family wondered how it could be so.
Matthew thus feels the need to put to rest the questions concerning who Jesus is, making it clear from Jesus’ family history that Jesus has legal right to reign as King over God’s people. The Jews could debate about his teaching and the source of his miracles. But they couldn’t debate his genealogy. That was something, especially in that culture, that they could verify. This means that the genealogy of Jesus has great apologetic value, both then and now.
Approaching King Jesus with Seriousness and Joy
Matthew’s genealogy tells us that the baby born in Bethlehem is no ordinary baby. He’s the King of the world. He’s robed with majesty. And his reign is one of peace.
This means we should approach him with seriousness and joy. There should be a weight to our worship of him, a seriousness about our devotion to him. Kings deserve and demand allegiance and obedience. If we say we belong to King Jesus, then we’re saying that we don’t rule our lives any more. His rule changes everything in our lives. It means our jobs are places where we want to display his character. It means we do everything we can to help other people follow him as King. It means we understand that everything we have is his. It means no human king or president or political party rules our hearts or our hopes. It’s a travesty that Christians would be more passionate about politics than their King. Jesus is the King of kings. He’s the top of the flow chart of leaders in the world. He’s in charge, thus his kingship should carry weight in our lives.
But he’s not an authoritarian King. He’s a kind and patient and forgiving and merciful and happy King who loves and delights in his subjects. He actually wants to be with the people who live in his realm. He likes to mingle with them, talk to them, listen to them, even weep with them. King Jesus is the kind of king who you wouldn’t know is a king if you met him when he lived on the earth.
Yes, he’s holy and glorious and supremely ruling over all things. But there’s no one more approachable than Jesus Christ. He’s not so high that you can’t reach him, so rich that you can’t know him, or so powerful that you can’t be comfortable around him.
Jesus simultaneously wants to break our proud hearts and heal our hurting hearts. The One who has eyes that blaze with fire has a heart full of mercy. So when we approach King Jesus, we approach him with seriousness and with joy, with gravity and gladness, with humility and hope.
At Christmas we celebrate the entrance of the King, and if we’ve truly received him as King, then we’ll find rest under his rule and live lives of serious and joyful submission to his word.
Jesus’ Broken Family
Jesus came from a royal family, but secondly, we need to see in Matthew’s genealogy that Jesus also came from a broken family. Jesus’ family history isn’t what most people would expect. Jesus’ family line was far from squeaky clean. When you start to scratch the surface of the porcelain nativity scene, you’ll find that Jesus came from a broken, dysfunctional, and immoral family.
Let’s look at some of the people in Jesus’ family line. Let’s start with Abraham (v. 1). Abraham was a liar and a coward. He told his wife Sarah to lie and say that she was his sister so that his life would be spared in Egypt (Gen. 12:11-13), and then he did it again when he told a man named Abimelech that she was his sister (20:2).
Isaac (v. 2), like his father, was also a liar and a coward. He also told Abimelech that his wife Rebekah was his sister so that his life would be spared (Gen. 26:6). Jacob (v. 2), like his father and grandfather, was also a liar and a schemer. “Jacob” literally means “he cheats.” He hustled his brother Esau for his birthright (Gen. 25:29-34) and he plotted with his mother Rebekah to trick Isaac into blessing him instead of Esau (Gen. 27). Two times he straight-up lied to his dad and told him that he was Esau (vv. 18-19, 24).
Judah (v. 2) was the one who convinced his brothers to sell their youngest brother Joseph into slavery (Gen. 37:26-27). Tamar (v. 3) was guilty of prostitution and incest. She married Judah’s firstborn son, but when her husband died, she dressed up like a prostitute and sold herself to her father-in-law Judah (Gen. 38). Perez and Zerah were the products of this incestuous relationship.
Rahab (v. 5) was a Canaanite prostitute who helped the Israelite spies when they came to Jericho (Josh. 2). When the Israelites conquered Jericho, her life was spared and she became part of the people of God, but before God saved her she was selling her body for sex.
Also in verse 5 you see Ruth. She was a godly lady, but she was an outcast because she was a Moabite. The Moabite people were the result of Lot’s incestuous relationship with his daughters (Gen. 19:30ff) and were denied access to the people of God (Deut. 23:3).
Then in verse 6 you see David who fathered Solomon “by the wife of Uriah.” Matthew makes it clear that David’s son Solomon was the result of an adulterous relationship. Solomon came from another man’s wife – Bathsheba, whom David stole, abused, and then had her husband killed in an effort to cover his tracks (2 Sam. 11-12).
Solomon also indulged in sexual sin, marrying and sleeping with hundreds of foreign women and concubines. His house was dysfunctional and his sons ended up splitting the kingdom of Israel. Rehoboam (v. 7), one of Solomon’s sons was an arrogant young man who listened to the advice of his ungodly friends instead of the older, wiser men that had served with his father (1 Kgs. 12).
Uzziah (v. 8) allowed false worship to continue in Judah and so the Lord made him a leper, and therefore unclean (2 Kgs. 15:1-7). Ahaz (v. 9) was engaged in all-out pagan worship, burning one of his own sons as an offering to the pagan gods (2 Kgs. 16:3). Manasseh (v. 10) rebuilt all the altars to false gods that his father Hezekiah had torn down. He even built altars to the pagan gods in the courts of the temple in Jerusalem (2 Kgs. 21).
Yes, there’s the occasional Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah and Josiah who did what was right, but for the most part, Jesus’ family tree is full of sinners and scoundrels. Jesus’ family tree wasn’t something to brag about. But it does have lots to teach us.
God Is Not Sexist
It teaches us that God’s plan includes all ethnic groups and genders. Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth (vv. 3, 5), and possibly Bathsheba (“the wife of Uriah,” v. 6), were all from different ethnic groups and all were women. This shows us that God’s plan has always included all the nations and it has always included women.
Christianity is often accused of being sexist, or male-dominated, because God calls himself Father instead of mother, and because Jesus was a man, not a woman. But God has never been sexist. He is not a male or female and his plan has always included men and women. He made men and women in his image, giving them equal dignity and worth. Yes, there are different roles. But having different jobs doesn’t mean you have different value. That’s a twentieth century American feminist lie. Women are not only valued and cherished by God, but also chosen by God to play a central role in his work in the world. Jesus was conceived in and born to a woman. Some of Jesus’ closest followers and supporters were women (Lk. 8:1-3). The first Christian in Europe was a Macedonian woman named Lydia (Acts 16:11ff). And in a day when someone’s genealogy almost always only mentioned the men, Jesus’ genealogy mentions four women. This refutes the charge that God or the Bible is sexist. God made and loves and cherishes and uses women to carry out his glorious work in the world.
The Bible Is Not Propaganda
Another thing that critics of the Bible like to do is accuse the writers of the Bible of being propagandists, of making up pretty stories in order to create a religion. But if you were going to make up a religion, you probably wouldn’t make the family of your religion’s main character as messed up as Jesus’ was. Matthew isn’t afraid to mention all these evil and wicked ancestors of Jesus. His honesty about the sinfulness of Jesus’ ancestry serves to confirm its reliability.
In the first two sections of the genealogy, Matthew makes it clear that the Messiah came through a family of adulterous, lying, scheming, murderous, idol worshippers. In the third section of the genealogy (vv. 12-16), there are a bunch of people we’ve never heard of. This was the time when Israel was in captivity in Babylon, and so this era is shrouded in darkness. The nation of Israel was in serious decline and in danger of being wiped off the face of the earth. This was the time when God raised up Esther to save the Jews from the evil Persian King Ahasuerus.
Matthew is telling us that the Messiah didn’t just come through broken people, but through a broken and decaying nation. This genealogy teaches us that God used broken people and a broken nation to move his plan of redemption forward.
King of Grace
As I’ve said, the purpose of this genealogy is to make it clear that Jesus is the King. But the genealogy shows us that Jesus is a certain kind of King. Jesus is the King, but he doesn’t rule by the law like other kings. He rules by grace. Jesus is the King of grace. As the hymn “Joy to the World!” says, “He rules the world with truth and grace.”
He rules his people with grace. Jesus’ family history backs up his claim to be king and it tells us an unmistakable fact about him. Jesus is a King who’s a friend of sinners.
Jesus is a King who stepped into a mess in order to do something about it. I love how Dane Ortlund puts it in his new book Gentle and Lowly, “When Jesus Christ sees the fallenness of the world all about him, his deepest impulse, his most natural instinct, is to move toward that sin and suffering, not away from it.” [3]
Christmas tells us that, in Christ, God decided to move toward us. At Christmas, we learn that God moves toward, touches, heals, cleanses, embraces, and forgives “those who least deserve it yet truly desire it.” [4] Christmas reveals the affectionate heart of God for you.
The King of Grace has moved toward you. He wants to be with all who desire him. Will you have him? Will you trust him and turn away from your sins and live under his gracious rule? His arms are open, he sees you, and his heart overflows with love for you. Will you have him?