Interesting Heritage
It looks like we are experiencing our last snow in the weather forecast. After tomorrow the weather is to improve significantly, with temps rising to the 60’s next week. As I traveled downtown to my Tuesday meeting the snow began to fly. Fortunately it let up and was mostly clear throughout the day. That gave me the opportunity to get in a long work out at the fitness center. I have been off my routine for a few days, so it was good to get back into action.
Yesterday was fairly busy for me and I had meeting last night. So my workout time gave way to an afternoon nap. Even with that, I could feel the fatigue in the midst of my meeting. However, certainly nothing like in the past!
BIBLE VERSE FOR TODAY… “So Boaz took Ruth home as his wife. The Lord blessed her, and she became pregnant and had a son.… The women of the neighborhood named the boy Obed.…Obed became the father of Jesse, who was the father of David.” (Ruth 4:13-17) “Boaz (his mother was Rahab), Obed (his mother was Ruth), Jesse, and King David.” (Matthew 1:6)
I recall years ago the hair stylist who had cut my hair for years once asked me, “do you have Indian blood in you?” She said, “your complexion, some facial features and your lack of facial hair are characteristic of Indian heritage.” I didn’t think a lot about it although men usually don’t like to have the smooth features of their face pointed out.
A few years later when I was campaigning for the State House I ran into a man who was a distant relative. We got to talking and he said, “you know I recall hearing that one of of our great… grandfathers married a Choctaw Indian. The family didn’t talk too much about, because it was viewed as unacceptable.”
Do you have an “interesting heritage” or as it is said “a few skeletons in the family closet?” The Lord’s directions to His people were clear in terms of protecting the family line. We can go back to the day of Jacob and Esau. Esau married a Hitite women from the land of Canaan, whose people were worshipers of idols. The Bible says Esau’s wife created heartache for Rebecka, so she sent Jacob back to her family to find a wife. The men of Israel were instructed to take wives from among the tribes of Israel. This was intended to keep the devotion to the Lord strong and protect the inheritance of the land and possessions the Lord had given to His people.
But we see from the exodus there were “foreigners” who aligned themselves with God’s people and throughout the history of Israel we see that this instruction from the Lord was not always closely followed. We can trace the ancestry of the Children of Israel and find some interesting family members. What makes the genealogy of Jesus through David noteworthy is two women who are mentioned. David’s great-grandmother was Ruth. David’s great-great grandmother was Rahab.
Ruth was a Moabite, Rahab was the prostitute from Jericho that saved spies when they scouted out the city. The Moabites trace their origins to Moab, the son of Lot, born to his daughter through an incestuous relationship. They were more often than not, the enemies and oppressors of God’s people. The god of the Moabites was Chemosh a pagan god that required child sacrifice.
But the presence of these names in the lineage of King David and Jesus, reveals the redemptive nature of God. It reminds us why Jesus came. To give new life and new identity. So we find Rahab embracing the true and living God, and forsaking her background and the pagan city in which she lived to begin a new life in the community of faith.
We find Ruth clinging to her mother-in-law and saying, “your people will be my people, your God, my God.” And Ruth comes with Naomi to the place of God’s provision and meets and marries the son of a former prostitute and has child that becomes the grandfather of a King. A King of Israel and the human lineage of the King of Kings.
This calls for reflection and should bring encouragement to us today. God is one who redeems and sets people on a new course and in a new direction. God removes that which would be considered a cause for shame, and instead turns people into champions of faith with a future and divine destiny. It is God who makes us worthy, not our past or heritage. That my friend, is good news!