Tuesday, 16 April Matthew 21:5-38
Lenten Reflections on the Gospel of Matthew: Behold! Your King is Coming!
Dr Graham Leo
Introduction Thank you for joining me in this series of Lenten reflections on Matthew. First, a couple of housekeeping comments.
I am writing these primarily for my own church, Robina Anglican church, on the Gold Coast, Australia. Permission is given for anyone to share them electronically or by other means to anyone else in the world, on the conditions that each reflection is sent in its entirety, including the page header above, and that they do so freely, with no commercial benefit or costs. Freely we receive, freely we give. My copyright is asserted, however, for a probable future publication in print and digitally.
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As in my other Lenten series, I will not be consulting commentaries. This is a devotional exercise, not an academic one. My plan is to ask the Holy Spirit to guide my thoughts and my heart for each day’s reflection, and trust that he will do so. That’s not to blame God for my mistakes, though! Any wrong doctrines, misinterpretations, missed treasures or errors are my responsibility!
If I occasionally seem to be quoting someone without proper attribution, please accept that I am probably reflecting something that I read a long time ago and have not realised that I have absorbed someone else’s words or ideas as my own. If you detect any such borrowings, please let me know, and I will gladly acknowledge it.
Matthew is a long book, so there will be some occasional long readings, and we will have to skip over many events, to fit into the 47 days. I'll be writing a reflection for seven days of every week of Lent, finishing on Resurrection Sunday. I know that is not quite traditional, but it maximises the time available for a long book, such as Matthew.
The overall theme for these Reflections is Behold! Your King is Coming!
The quote comes from Matthew 21:5. I perceive this to be the overall theme as Matthew tells his tale. I’ve observed six stages to this revelation of the Messiah. Each of them ends with a clear statement of the stage of revelation of the Messiah. I will draw your attention to these throughout the series. For easy reference, here are the stages.
Stage 1: 1:1–11:30. Seeking the Messiah.
Stage 2: 12:1–17:13. Responding to the Messiah.
Stage 3: 17:14–20:34 The Messiah Reveals His Kingdom.
Stage 4: 21:1–26:35 The Messiah Claims His Kingdom on Earth.
Stage 5: 26:36–27:56. The King Establishes His Kingdom.
Stage 6: 27:57–28:20. The King Ascends His Throne.
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Ash Wednesday, 26 February Seeking the Messiah. Matthew 1:1-25
Most people skip the first 17 verses of Matthew – that long list of ancestors. But there are many lovely truths and pearls of wisdom that can be found in them. We’ll just look at one, today – but there are many more for the willing searcher.
Matthew mentions five women in his list of the ancestors of Jesus: Tamar (v3), Rahab (v5), Ruth (v5), Bathsheba (v6), and Mary (v16). They are an interesting collection of characters!
Tamar was a young woman who was generally poorly-treated by the men in her life (you can read her story in Gen. 38). Rahab was most likely the prostitute from Jericho through whose care the Israelite spies managed to escape, and whose family was saved in her house on the wall of Jericho. They later became honorary Israelites. Both Tamar and Rahab were most likely originally Canaanites. Ruth was the daughter-in-law of Naomi an Israelite woman unlucky in love and life. Ruth was a Moabite. Bathsheba was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and it was she who caught King David’s attention while bathing naked on the roof of her house in full view of David’s bedroom window. Canaanites, Moabites and Hittites were the constant enemies of Israel. Mary was a young Hebrew woman who fell pregnant before she was married, to the embarrassment and indignation of her fiancé and community.
If you ever thought that you had to be a good person, or come from the right side of the tracks, or have a good social media reputation to win the attention of God, this list of women in the ancestry list of the Lord Jesus Christ should change your mind forever.
In fact, even to include women in an ancient genealogy was unusual. It was customary only to list the males. If Matthew really felt the need to include women, he might have been ‘wiser’ to choose women of good standing – but Matthew was guided by the Holy Spirit and He wanted you and me to reflect on this list.
The person I want to focus on today is the one whose name was not used: Bathsheba. In case you didn’t notice, she is the only one in the list whose name is carefully avoided. She is described as the woman who had been Uriah’s wife. But she still made the list!
I’ve spent a long time wondering why, of all the people in this list, Bathsheba was the only one who was not given a name. If you dig around the history books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, you can find a lot of information. Here is a little history I have discovered. It’s a bit complicated; stay with me for a few paragraphs.
We are told that Bathsheba was the daughter of Eliam (2 Sam. 11:3). Eliam was the son of Ahithophel, called the King’s Counsellor in 1 Chron. 27:33. So Bathsheba was the grand-daughter of Ahithophel, David’s chief political advisor.
If you are a careful reader of the Old Testament, you may have wondered why Ahithophel betrayed King David and joined the forces of David's son, Absalom, in the civil war that threatened the future of Israel; and perhaps denied the potential for the Messiah to be born in the ancestry list we have recorded before us today. That story is told in 2 Sam. 15.
I cannot help but wonder if Ahithophel wanted revenge on David for David's destruction of his grand-daughter Bathsheba’s marriage. As a palace insider, he would certainly have known all the gossip and would have been able to ferret out the dastardly means by which Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba, was murdered on David’s instructions (2 Sam. 11).
Talk about a House of Cards! With a quirky echo of the British royal family. A ‘commoner’ set her cap for a Prince who was destined to be King. They had a passionate affair and, after his wife died in a mysterious accident, he lived first in a de facto relationship with his mistress, then ultimately married her. But that’s not all!
King Solomon who appears in Matthew’s ancestry list only made it to the royal throne because Bathsheba headed off a rival contender by secretly negotiating at the deathbed of King David (1 Kings 1). Perhaps Bathsheba was always a schemer, a social climber with a long-range plan to become not only Queen, but Queen Mother.
What do we take from this? Two things: First, there is nothing that you or I have done that God cannot take and use for his own good purposes. If we truly seek forgiveness, he will freely grant it. God doesn’t just love good people; he loves ordinary people and makes them good. And, what may be even better, he can even turn bad into good (Rom. 8:28).
Second, the conniving themes of the David-Bathsheba story contrast sharply with the personal integrity, humility and devotion of the Joseph-Mary story that concludes this chapter. The record contains saints and sinners – but Jesus came to turn sinners into saints.
This Divine genealogy shows us that God’s plan to come to this planet himself, in the form of a human baby, was his eternal plan. For generation after generation, in all nations, men and women have cried out to God for relief, for salvation, for forgiveness, for comfort, for hope. Every culture has crafted its myths and legends around these themes. At long last, that for which the world has been seeking, waiting and hoping has come. The long nights of despair and fear are over. The King has come to save his people. All will, at last, be well.
Matthew introduces Jesus to us through the angel’s words as the one who will save his people from their sins. These words are the last line of one of the Fifteen Psalms of Ascent, perhaps sung by Levites as they ascended the fifteen steps of the Temple to worship their God and to anticipate the coming of the Messiah over the long centuries of waiting:
Psalm 130 (NRSV) A song of ascents.
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord;
2 O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!
3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?
4 But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.
5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope.
6 My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.
7 O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love and with him is great power to redeem.
8 It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.
Prayer: Oh my God, thank you so much for coming to us, to me! in the form of your son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for showing me that you used broken and flawed men and women as a part of your line of ancestry. If the fathers and mothers of God could include broken people such as Bathsheba and David, then I can be in no doubt that a sinner such as I am may also be called a child of God. Thank you for finding me, and loving me. Amen.
