An Unexpected Label...

This past week, we have been looking at a lady in Jesus family tree who carried a label that followed her everywhere; a label that she could not shake. This lady, named Rahab, was a prostitute who lived in the city of Jericho. We have seen Rahab respond to the evidence of God’s activity through the Jewish people by recognizing that the Lord was the one true God. Rahab responded by recognizing that the label that she bore placed her on the lowest rung on the ladder as part of this wicked culture and that she was worthy of punishment and in need of rescue. And Rahab responded by swimming against the current of the culture she lived in that devalued human life by protecting the spies from the Jewish people that she viewed as representatives of the one true God.

Rahab then demonstrates her belief in who God was and her need for rescue by doing something that many would view as incredibly risky and even stupid, as we see in Joshua 2:12:

"Now therefore, please swear to me by the LORD, since I have dealt kindly with you, that you also will deal kindly with my father's household, and give me a pledge of truth, and spare my father and my mother and my brothers and my sisters, with all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death." So the men said to her, "Our life for yours if you do not tell this business of ours; and it shall come about when the LORD gives us the land that we will deal kindly and faithfully with you." Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the city wall, so that she was living on the wall. She said to them, "Go to the hill country, so that the pursuers will not happen upon you, and hide yourselves there for three days until the pursuers return. Then afterward you may go on your way." The men said to her, "We shall be free from this oath to you which you have made us swear, unless, when we come into the land, you tie this cord of scarlet thread in the window through which you let us down, and gather to yourself into the house your father and your mother and your brothers and all your father's household. "It shall come about that anyone who goes out of the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be on his own head, and we shall be free; but anyone who is with you in the house, his blood shall be on our head if a hand is laid on him. "But if you tell this business of ours, then we shall be free from the oath which you have made us swear." She said, "According to your words, so be it." So she sent them away, and they departed; and she tied the scarlet cord in the window.

Now place yourself in Rahab’s shoes. Would you have responded the same way? Would you hide spies from a nation that is bent on destroying your people? Would you provide a way of escape to ensure their safe return with all the information necessary to overcome the defenses of your city? Would you trust the word of two spies that they would spare your life?

Remember, you are a harlot, a prostitute; you probably have been lied to hundreds of times. How many times have men failed to come through on their promises to you? And what would happen to you and your family if the rest of Jericho found out what you did? Rahab responded to who she was and who God was by trusting these men, who represented the Lord, to keep their word. Rahab exercised and demonstrated faith by placing her confident trust in the fact that these two men, who were God’s representatives, would keep their promise to her, in spite of the label that she wore.

And for weeks, Rahab watched and waited. For six days, Rahab watched from the window of her house that sat on the wall of Jericho as the Jewish nation silently marched around her walled city. Rahab watched, waited, and trusted God to look past her label and to her faith. A few chapters later, in Joshua 6:22, we see how God responded to Rahab’s act of confident trust that swam against the current of the culture she lived in:

Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, "Go into the harlot's house and bring the woman and all she has out of there, as you have sworn to her." So the young men who were spies went in and brought out Rahab and her father and her mother and her brothers and all she had; they also brought out all her relatives and placed them outside the camp of Israel. They burned the city with fire, and all that was in it. Only the silver and gold, and articles of bronze and iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the LORD. However, Rahab the harlot and her father's household and all she had, Joshua spared; and she has lived in the midst of Israel to this day, for she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.

God responded to Rahab’s act of confident trust that demonstrated her faith in Him by giving her a new label as part of His people. And some 1,400 years later, we read Matthew to see that Rahab, who once had a label as a harlot, not only received a new label; Rahab became a part of the family tree that God would use to bring His son Jesus into humanity in order that we would have the opportunity to receive a new label. A new label “forgiven; healed; repaired; restored; loved; valued; child of God; follower of Jesus;”.

As Matthew revealed to the Jewish people, and to us here today, God gave Rahab a new label and a new role in the kingdom mission that He has given His people. Because this morning, Rahab is not just a part of the Christmas story, Rahab is the point of the Christmas story. The Christmas story is about people like Rahab, who have a label, receiving a new label as part of God’s family and as part of God’s kingdom mission. People who wear unexpected and unflattering labels like Rahab. People who have wore unexpected labels like me; people who have worn unexpected labels like you.