An Unexpected Promise made...

During this Christmas season, we have been looking at the Christmas story from one of the four accounts of Jesus life in the Bible. This account, called the gospel of Matthew, was written to prove to the Jewish people that Jesus was the Messiah that God promised would come to rescue and restore the Jewish nation as His chosen people.

So to prove that Jesus was the long promised Messiah, Matthew begins his gospel with a genealogy to show that Jesus had the proper family background to be the Messiah. But as we discovered, for a Jewish person, who was so familiar with the history of the Jewish people that is recorded for us in the Old Testament, reading this genealogy, or family tree of Jesus, would not seem very convincing and would even be very confusing. For the average Jewish person, the family tree of Jesus would not seem to represent a strong family tree; instead Jesus family tree seemed to be filled with flawed and broken people who one would not expect to be in the Messiah's family tree.

So let’s pick up where we left off last week and continue to look at the Christmas story as a Jewish person would have read in, beginning with Jesus family tree at Matthew 1:5:

Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse. Jesse was the father of David the king. David was the father of Solomon by Bathsheba who had been the wife of Uriah.

Now a Jewish person reading this genealogy, at this point would cringe in embarrassment. They would cringe in embarrassment because every Jewish person was familiar with the story of David and Bathsheba. To understand why this is so significant; to understand why a Jewish person would respond this way, we first need to understand who King David was and the role that he played in the Jewish nation. King David was known as the greatest king that ever led the Jewish people. It was King David that led the Jewish armies to conquer their enemies. It was King David who captured Jerusalem and established it as their capital city. It was King David who established the Jewish nation as a military and political power in the world.

And it was King David who was described in the Bible as a man after God’s own heart. And as a man after God’s own heart, it was King David who desired, at the apex of his power and prominence, to honor God by building what would later be known as the temple in Jerusalem. We see David’s desire and God’s response recorded for us in 2 Samuel 7:1:

Now it came about when the king lived in his house, and the LORD had given him rest on every side from all his enemies, that the king said to Nathan the prophet, "See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells within tent curtains." Nathan said to the king, "Go, do all that is in your mind, for the LORD is with you." But in the same night the word of the LORD came to Nathan, saying, "Go and say to My servant David, 'Thus says the LORD, "Are you the one who should build Me a house to dwell in? "For I have not dwelt in a house since the day I brought up the sons of Israel from Egypt, even to this day; but I have been moving about in a tent, even in a tabernacle. "Wherever I have gone with all the sons of Israel, did I speak a word with one of the tribes of Israel, which I commanded to shepherd My people Israel, saying, 'Why have you not built Me a house of cedar?'"' "Now therefore, thus you shall say to My servant David, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts, "I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, to be ruler over My people Israel. "I have been with you wherever you have gone and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make you a great name, like the names of the great men who are on the earth. "I will also appoint a place for My people Israel and will plant them, that they may live in their own place and not be disturbed again, nor will the wicked afflict them any more as formerly, even from the day that I commanded judges to be over My people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. The LORD also declares to you that the LORD will make a house for you. "When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. "He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. "I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me; when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men, but My lovingkindness shall not depart from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. "Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever."'"

Now, this morning, imagine yourself as King David. What do you say to this? We see his response in 2 Samuel 7:18-20:

Then David the king went in and sat before the LORD, and he said, "Who am I, O Lord GOD, and what is my house, that You have brought me this far? "And yet this was insignificant in Your eyes, O Lord GOD, for You have spoken also of the house of Your servant concerning the distant future. And this is the custom of man, O Lord GOD. "Again what more can David say to You? For You know Your servant, O Lord GOD!

I mean how else would you respond when God says that one of your descendants will be the Messiah who will have an eternal kingdom. David asks one thing from God, in 2 Samuel 7:29:

"Now therefore, may it please You to bless the house of Your servant, that it may continue forever before You. For You, O Lord GOD, have spoken; and with Your blessing may the house of Your servant be blessed forever."

King David simply says "God, just please keep your promise. Please keep this amazing promise that you have made to me and my family, that I would be a part of the family tree of the Messiah". For the Jewish people, King David was not just a king: King David was the King.

So imagine their embarrassment when Matthew, the writer of the account of Jesus life designed to prove that Jesus was the fulfillment of this promise brings up the name Bathsheba. There would be embarrassment because of what happened between King David, their greatest leader, the man after God’s own heart and Bathsheba. The type of embarrassment that would make a person wish that a part of their story would never be brought up. The type of embarrassment that would make a person wish that a part of their story would just disappear. The type of embarrassment that maybe you feel when you think of your story. Maybe as you look at a part of your story, there are pieces that are so embarrassing and shameful that you wish would disappear.

And just like you and me, the Jewish people knew about a part of King David’s story that they wished would simply disappear. We will look at that story tomorrow.