Tag Archives: Matthew 1

Chapter-a-Day

Matthew the Quirk

4 Comments

Matthew the Quirk (CaD Matt 1) – Wayfarer

Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.
Matthew 1:17 (NIV)

Like millions of others around the world, Wendy and I have become enamored with The Chosen, a crowdfunded, independent production that is a modern retelling of Jesus’ story. If you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend it. I also recommend that you push through the first three or four episodes which provide a lot of backstory for that may not seem to be going anywhere when you first watch it. Trust me. If you watch the first three seasons and then go back and watch the first three episodes you’ll see a million things that the writers were telling you before you could actually see them.

One of the more creative choices that the writers of The Chosen have made is to make the character of Matthew a young man on the spectrum. Matthew is brilliant. He is gifted with numbers, which is why the Romans love him as a tax collector. However, the writers have chosen to portray the young disciple as socially awkward. Wendy and I even wondered if they chose to portray him with a mild form of Asberger’s. At any rate, it was an interesting choice.

What we know is definitely true from Matthew’s biography of Jesus is that Matthew loved numbers. The ancient Hebrews loved numbers. The letters of the Hebrew alphabet performed double duty, representing numbers as well as letters. Because of this, there are all sorts of patterns in the Hebrew text of the Great Story that are completely lost when you translate the text into English. And yet, some of them still remain.

In his introductory chapter, Matthew displays his love of numbers. Three times (three is the number of God, the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) Matthew uses the word Messiah (the Greek word Christos) in introducing Jesus.

He also provides a genealogy of Jesus, tracing Jesus’ lineage all the way back to Abraham. There are some fascinating and curious aspects to the genealogy he provides. Before I get to that, I’d like to share one more clip from The Chosen in which Matthew shares with Philip what it fees like to be an outcast. In context, Matthew is both an outcast as a Roman collaborator and because of the fact that he is on the spectrum (Note: You might have to click the link and watch it on YouTube. It doesn’t seem to want to play as an embedded object).

Matthew chooses to list women in the lineage of Jesus. That was certainly not customary in the patriarchal culture of the day. Of course, Jesus had an entire entourage of women who followed Him along with The Twelve, provided financially for His ministry, and served in caring for their daily needs. Of the women Matthew mentions:

Rahab: A non-Hebrew prostitute who sheltered Joshua and Caleb in the spying out of Canaan and Jericho. She was spared from the conquest of Jericho and accepted into the community of Hebrews.

Ruth: A non-Hebrew woman who, after being widowed, followed her mother-in-law (Ruth) back to Israel and was redeemed by, and married to, a Hebrew man named Boaz.

Bathsheba: The adulterous mistress of King David whose husband David had murdered in order to have her as his own.

Women, non-Hebrew Gentiles, a prostitute, and an adulterous mistress. Not quite the glowing personages one might choose to include in the ancestry of the Son of God.

Matthew goes on to list three (the number of God) sets of fourteen (two sets of seven, the number of completion) generations (a total of six sets of seven or twice the number three for a total of three meaningful subsets) that cover the span of Hebrew history from Abraham to Jesus.

Matthew also introduced the reader to a systemic pattern of “Fulfillment” that he will use over, and over, and over again in his biography of Jesus:

“All this took place to fulfill what the Lord said through the prophet…”
Matthew 1:27

Matthew is a numbers guy, a systems guy, and in the Jesus Story he sees patterns that tie the entire Great Story together.

Next March I will celebrate the 20th anniversary of this chapter-a-day blogging journey which I started with a bit of a shrug and an attitude of “Hey, why not?” in March of 2006. In recent years, I’ve tended to trek through one of the four Jesus biographies (a.k.a. Gospels, or “good news”) in the Great Story each Lent season (40 days leading to Easter) and Advent season (40 days leading to Christmas). I noticed yesterday that we trekked through Mark, Luke, and John last year but it’s been three years since our last sojourn through Matthew.

So, in the quiet this morning, I’m excited to metaphorically lace ‘em up and revisit our systemic, numbers guy Matthew’s recollections and first-person account of being among Jesus’ core followers. I’m excited to take a fresh look at the Jesus Story from his unique perspective. My mind and heart are open to what new things I might discover this time through.

I love that God uses the uniqueness of every individual’s experience, personality, giftedness, and temperament for the good of the whole. It reminds me that even I, with my own individual and unique bents and quirks, have a role to play in this Great Story if only I will embrace it and choose in like Matthew did that fateful day when Jesus happened to pass by his Tax Collection booth and said, “Follow me.”

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!

Chapter-a-Day

Adding it Up

3 Comments

Adding it Up (CaD Matt 1) – Wayfarer

Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.
Matthew 1:17 (NIV)

I was good at math as a kid. I was always pretty good with numbers. I was mid-semester in the eighth grade when my teacher suggested that I switch to advanced math. She thought I was bored with class (probably) and really needed to be challenged (probably not). Despite my protestations of not wanting to switch classes, she kept at it until I agreed to make the switch.

As I recalled this memory in the quiet this morning, Pippin’s words to Frodo in The Fellowship of the Ring echoed within: “Short cuts make long delays.”

The shortcut I took to advanced math, created a long delay in my love of math. It was a waypoint in my education. By the time I switched to the advanced math class, I had already missed out on a number of foundational lessons. Without those foundational lessons, I was suddenly lost and confused. I may have been bored with the basic class, but now I was discouraged and felt stupid. Looking back, I realize that it was at this waypoint that I abandoned math as a subject I enjoyed. Through the rest of my education, I avoided math like the plague. I graduated from High School with only one year of math, and I graduated college with one remedial semester of the subject.

It’s ironic that my vocational career has been largely spent around numbers, data, and statistics. That which I was too discouraged to learn in the classroom I found I enjoyed learning on the job. I rediscovered my joy of numbers that withered in me all those years before. I grieve that it happened. The further I get in my spiritual journey, the more I’ve discovered that math is a core way God reveals and expresses Himself in Creation.

This came to mind in the quiet this morning as I begin a journey through Matthew’s biography of Jesus. Matthew was a tax collector. He was a numbers guy, so it makes perfect sense that he, just like God, uses numbers to express his purpose and reveal his themes. This, however, is largely hidden from a cursory reading of the text of the first chapter, which is mostly a genealogy (which, let’s be honest, most people skip over).

A couple of things to point out:

Three times Matthew refers to “Jesus the Messiah.” Three is a number of God (e.g. Trinity, three days in the grave, and etc.). Matt’s purpose in writing this biography was largely to explain to his fellow Hebrews that Jesus was the Messiah they had been waiting for. He makes this purpose blatantly clear in the first chapter in multiple layers. He says it not only with text but also with the number three.

The Hebrew people knew from the prophets that the Messiah would be a King from the line of David. Not only does the genealogy make this clear, but Matthew chooses to list fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the Babylonian exile, and fourteen from the exile to Jesus. In the Hebrew alphabet, letters perform double duty as numbers. If you take the Hebrew letters that spell “David” and add them together, they total fourteen. Three times Matthew numerically communicates to his Hebrew readers that Jesus was the “son of David” they knew the Messiah would be.

Time and time again in the Great Story I find that God is not who humans expect Him to be. He even says that through the prophet Isaiah: “My ways are not your ways.” The Hebrews of Matthew’s day expected the Messiah to be like human kings who lord over others through power and conscription. With his opening words, Matthew lays the foundation for revealing the Messiah that doesn’t look like the Messiah his fellow Hebrews expected. Jesus, the Messiah Matthew is going to reveal, came to be Lord of those willing to follow through love, servant-heartedness, and suffering. From the very beginning, Matthew expresses clearly that Jesus is the Messiah. From His family tree to His story to the words of prophets, it all adds up.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Messy

2 Comments

This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
Matthew 1:18-19 (NIV)

I had a great aunt, my grandmother’s sister, whom I adored as a child. There is no doubt, however, that Aunt Nita was an uppity-priss and a prude. I wasn’t around her often, and she was always kind to me, so I was always quick to find her eccentricities charming and silly. For my grandmother and her sister, their eldest sister could be downright intolerable. Aunt Nita presented an air of sophisticated aristocracy which belied the humble, very messy truth of her family’s story. Interestingly, she nevertheless researched and shared those messy family stories in writing, for which I am forever grateful.

I have come to appreciate that life is commonly messy. Even for those like Aunt Nita who enjoy projecting the image of spit-shine propriety, the truth behind the facade is rarely that clean or polished.

Joseph was a good man. He was a hard working carpenter. He was faithful, upstanding and lived life by the book. Then his betrothed comes to him with a wild story about an angel and a positive pregnancy test. Joseph had not signed up for this kind of mess. There would be the public scandal of his girlfriend pregnant before the wedding. And what about that pregnancy? Joseph was a rule follower. He knew he’d not slept with Mary. And, while Mary was not the kind of girl to make up fantasies to cover her mistakes, this story was a little hard to swallow.

And then the angel visits Joseph. “You’re a good man, Joseph. You’re faithful, and you live life by the book. That’s why you’ve been chosen, and blessed, to walk with Mary through messy. That child in Mary’s womb? He’s here to address messy at its core.”

Along life’s journey I’ve noticed that many who claim to follow Jesus are a lot like my great Aunt Nita. We love to present a spit-shine image of perfection and propriety. I confess that I lived much of my own life that way. I was a lot like Joseph. Then I found out life is really messy and the polished, projected image melted in very public ways. Jesus gets that. In fact, that’s why Jesus came in the first place. Jesus’ very conception created its own messiness. If I’m not willing to be honest about my mess, I don’t ever come to fully know and appreciate the fullness of Jesus’ love and grace.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Matthew 1

2 Comments

Luke’s genealogy of Jesus, from the Book of Ke...
Image via Wikipedia

The family tree of Jesus Christ, David’s son, Abraham’s son: Matthew 1:1 (MSG)

I remember back to grade school and some of the contests of pride me and the boys would get into on the playground, in the lunch room, and during recess. Whose dad is bigger? Who is better at [fill in the blank]? Who was related to somebody famous?

It’s silly to look back on now, but some of those things are simply a part of human nature, and they carry down through generations. Walk onto any playground today and you’ll hear variations on the same pissing match.

Even in Jesus day, the people took a great amount of pride and interest in who was related to whom. In those days, much of your life was determined by the tribe in which you were born. In fact, the writers of the gospels knew quite well that the Old Testament prophets claimed that the Messiah would come out of the royal line of David. Unless Jesus could trace his lineage back to David, the people would not accept him as the Messiah. That’s why both Matthew and Luke begin their biographies with a family tree. Matthew traces the lineage through Jesus earthly father while Luke traces the lineage through his mother. Either direction, you find the key link to David.

And, while Jesus could have bragged to the other boys on the playground about being from the royal line, they would have taken one look at the list and given Jesus grief that the line also included prostitutes, deceivers, adulterers, murderers, and evil idolatrous kings.

Everyone can point back to honorable and dishonorable branches in the family tree. While the past can help us understand who we are and where we came from, the journey is all about the steps we choose to take in propelling us forward.

Enhanced by Zemanta