Matthew 1:1-6
“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nashon, and Nashon, the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah...”
+ Introduction: Four Women in Christ's Lineage
Our Advent meditations take us on a journey of faith through the stories of four women whose names we do not expect to find in the lineage of Jesus, as recorded in Matthew 1.
At Christmas we easily see the beauty and significance of Mary’s faith in her obedient submission to the announcement that she would bear the child who would take away the sins of the world. She too is named in Matthew, but contrary to the other women, Mary lived to see the results of her faith. She lived the pain of the crucifixion and the joy of the resurrection. Probably no woman has ever had such an eternal awareness of the meaning of her life.
Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and the wife of Uriah, could not be more distinct from Mary. While we cannot identify easily with Mary and the miracle that happened in her, we are not sure that we want to identify with the others. Two were prostitutes, one of whom seduced her father-in-law. All were Gentiles, one of whom came from a tribe despised by the Israelites. One was forced by the King of Israel, who then murdered her husband. Obviously their names are listed because they had birthed sons in the line of Judah, through whom Messiah was to come. But, since all sons in his lineage were born of women, why are only these four women named?
They are named because of their faith lived out, like ours, in the common circumstances of life. We learn through their stories how God’s sovereign hand was drawing them into a life of faith before they knew Him. We see how He redeemed, and used, even their less than honorable efforts, to do what was right. What they knew of the prophecies that a Messiah was to be born of the tribe of Judah, we have no indication. We can be sure that not one did what she did so that her name would be included in the genealogy of Jesus. Not one qualified by any human standard to play a significant role in God’s story – that is in History.
How then, are they women of faith? Faith cannot be measured by human standards. It is simply said of Rehab – the only one of the four whose name appears in Hebrews 11:31 – that she “did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.” That’s it? Nothing more? Yes, because that is what faith looks like. Faith in God is not a matter of great and grand works. It is welcoming the daily circumstances of our life and obeying what He tells us to do with them, just because He tells us. When we mess up, faith means believing that He will take our feeble steps, redeem them and turn them to His glory and our good. The dailiness of our faith pleases God. By faith we are assured that our names are also written in His-story, the end results yet to come.
Hebrews 11 says that faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” As was true then, so it is true now, that this kind of faith invites mocking and scorn. These women of the ancient world are here to remind us that a life of faith in God is a life lived with, yet unseen, eternal blessed consequences.
-Esther Powell
Judah and Tamar by Émile Jean-Horace Vernet (June 1789–1863)
WEEK ONE: TAMAR
by Esther Powell
Deuteronomy 25:5-10; Genesis 38
Tamar means date palm, a “name that suggests strength, food, shade, and life.” Little about her life seems to reflect the meaning of her name. We don’t read long into her story before we begin to feel that it is a tawdry account. We feel distaste at her playing the prostitute, at the incestuousness of her relationship with a hypocritical Judah. But the story is in the Bible, and we are all the more “wonder” filled, that such a woman is named in the lineage of Jesus.
If anyone was caught in a cultural web it was Tamar. She was raised in a society in which it was expected that the brother of a deceased husband was to marry his widow, never mind that he might already be married. The purpose was so that his deceased brother’s lineage would not disappear. It also meant that the widow was not left destitute, unprotected and an outcast from society. This was not only a Canaanite law, but also a law of the Jews, who had specifically been given the “levirate law” by God. In Latin the word “levir” means brother-in-law. We can only begin to understand Tamar’s actions in light of this law. While her methods were less than honorable, her motives were right, and in the end it was Judah, himself, who declared that “She is more righteous than I…”
But, the greater eternal significance of Tamar’s actions is found in the birth and naming of her son, Perez. Perez means “breach.” He had breached the birth process by pushing past his twin brother whose hand had come out first. This was Tamar’s immediate reason for his name, yet, his name points to so much more.
In Psalm 106:30 — a Psalm written hundreds of years later, and which recounts the many ways in which Israel had rebelled against God — the Psalm writer says of God’s intentions for the Israelites, “Therefore he said he would destroy them, had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him, to turn away his wrath from destroying them.”
In Ezekiel 13:5 God rebukes false prophets because they had “not gone up into the breaches, or built up the wall for the house of Israel, that it might stand in battle in the day of the Lord.”
Again, God speaks in Ezekiel 22:30 “I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land that I should not destroy it, but I found none.”
In the story of Tamar and her son Perez, God reaches back into the mists of ancient history to announce to us that he would find a man to stand in the breach between His holiness and mankind’s sin. He would provide someone who would “turn away his wrath” and who would build up a kingdom that would “stand in battle in the day of the Lord.”
During Advent, we celebrate this very one who was previewed in Perez. Perez reminds us of the breach that Christ —like Moses, like the man God looked for in Ezekiel — filled. Christ, the babe in the manger, born of woman, is the one who stands in the breach between God's holiness and our sin. God’s anger against sin was poured out upon Him. That is why Tamar is among the women named in Matthew 1. Her convoluted step of faith came from a desire to be true to what she knew to be right. She did not know the eternal ramifications of her actions. But God did, and God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform, despite our bumbling steps of faith.
Follow along in our series this Advent:
Dec. 13, Week 3: Ruth (The Book of Ruth)
Dec. 20, Week 4: The Wife of Uriah (II Samuel 11, 12; I Kings 1:1,11-38; I Chronicles 22:6-10)