There's quite a lot of interest in people tracing their family trees at the moment, with various organizations willing to help us out - generally for a fee if you want to go beyond the basics. There's even a television programme with the the same title as this blog post because we're nosy about other people's ancestry as well. It seems that our heritage is important to many of us. I'm sure that some of you reading this have done much more than my rather limited efforts in that regard. One of the things that Luke does in the third chapter of his Gospel is give us a genealogy of Jesus (Luke's Gospel, chapter 3, verses 23-38). Now tracing their heritage was important to the Jews, not just because of personal interest but it could also be important legally, as we see in the book by Ezra (chapter 2, verses 59 and 60).
Luke goes to great lengths to give us a genealogical record of Jesus, although it isn't the same as Matthew's (Matthew's Gospel, chapter 1, verses 1-17). The reason for the differences is unclear and various theories have been put forward. If you know anything about tracing the royal families of England over the centuries, however, you will be aware that some of the paths confirming rights to the throne were rather tortuous, and they often met and crossed in various places. Matthew and Luke similarly trace different routes for Jesus, but they meet at important points.
Luke shows us that Jesus had a great heritage, including being born into a human race created by God. We all share much of that heritage.
What we know for certain is that Jesus was born into the line which included:
the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, who were explicitly created by God;
Enoch, who followed God so closely that he didn't die, but God took him straight to Heaven at a relatively young age;
Noah, who, with his family were the only people saved from the Great Flood, because they loved God;
Abraham, the man of faith who became the ancestor of Israel, as well as other nations;
Isaac, the second of the great Hebrew patriarchs, whose near-sacrifice at the hand of his father was prophetic of Jesus's death and resurrection;
Jacob, who wrestled with God and wouldn't let go until he was blessed, the father of Israel - the name given to him in later life by God;
Judah, the founder of the tribe into which it was prophesied that the Messiah would be born;
Ruth, the foreigner who married Boaz and they became great-grandparents of King David;
David himself, the great King, warrior, prophet, poet and the man after God's own heart par excellence, from whom it was prophesied that the Messiah would be descended;
Zerubbabel, who was instrumental in the rebuilding of the Temple after the Jewish exile, and likened by Haggai to a cygnet ring on God's finger - the heavenly royal seal and a symbol of huge authority.
This is the family into which Jesus was adopted humanly when Joseph married Mary, one which started with a human son and daughter of God and included men and women of great spiritual significance. Jesus was also directly the Son of God in his own right. So Luke has painted a convincing claim to Messiahship for Jesus. But what about your heritage? Whoever you are, your family started with the same son and daughter of God, not spiritual children like Jesus, but human creation by the King of Heaven. If you've given your life to Jesus, then you have also been adopted into God's spiritual family.
So, who do you think you are? You are God's creation, fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139, verses 13-16) - God loves you unconditionally and died for you willingly, as Jesus on the cross. If you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and saviour then you've been set free from all the mistakes, guilt and shame of your past, and born again into a personal spiritual relationship with the creator of the universe and King of Heaven, as a child of God. That's who you are.
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