Matthew kicks-off the New Testament not with a bang but with what, at least to the modern reader, might be considered a rather dull and dry list of names – a genealogy of Jesus, which is at best tedious and at worst almost unpronounceable! No doubt Matthew was trying to make the important point, for the benefit of his first century Jewish readers, that Jesus was descended from the kingly line of David, and that his birth fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies about the coming of the Messiah.
1:22 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet...
All well and good, but what can a list of antiquated names say to me, separated as I am by time and space and culture from Matthew’s original readers?
Well, I was thinking about that, and it set me to thinking about Matthew and his first meeting with Jesus. Matthew tells us a bit about it himself in chapter 9.
9:9 And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him.
It seems to have been very much a chance encounter. Jesus had only just returned to Capernaum after a short excursion to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, and was literally between miracles, having just healed a “man sick of the palsy” (9:2), and on his way to the healing of Jairus’ daughter and a woman “with an issue of blood” (9:20).
And suddenly, there was Matthew, sitting at his tax collector’s booth by the roadside. In the right place, at the right time. In the right place, not only externally (in that he was physically by the side of the right road – in the right place to physically meet Jesus), but also internally (in that he was in that rare and blessed internal state that could respond without hesitation or debate to Jesus’ “Follow me”).
Just stop and consider for a moment how often you’ve ever been in the position of knowing exactly what you want, exactly what you need, and without a second thought, without fear or uncertainty, you’ve joyfully reached out, and gratefully grasped it with both hands.
Not that often, I’d wager!
My sister was an art student many years ago, and in her final show she exhibited a piece entitled, “I Put This Moment There”. It spoke to me about the preciousness of every moment, and although I like to think every moment is indeed precious, I have to admit that there are some moments where everything just comes together, everything falls into place, in a miracle of coincidence (or design) – when, even to the most hardened sceptic, it feels as if the mind behind the universe really has “put the moment there”, ripe for the taking, and dropped it, complete and perfect, right in the palm of your hand.
It was that kind of moment for Matthew, when Jesus, passing by, spoke two words and everything fell into place.
All well and good, but what does all this have to do with the fulfilment of ancient prophesies, exhaustive (and exhausting!) genealogies, and Matthew 1?
Well, in any story involving the birth of a child, it’s natural to focus on mother and baby – that’s where all the action is after all! But if Matthew’s genealogy says anything to me, it’s that Joseph was in the right place, at the right time, right in the centre of a moment that God had been in the process of “putting there” for generations.
Because, you will notice, that Matthew gives us the genealogy, not of the drama’s leading lady Mary, but of one of history’s supporting characters – Joseph. Now, I’m quite aware that Matthew was probably just following first century Jewish etiquette, giving the man his rightful place as head of the household, and that’s why his genealogy focuses on Joseph rather than Mary, but whatever his motivations, Matthew has left us with something like a slow motion moving picture of God’s hand as it swept through 42 generations, 42 lives both remarkable and mundane, till it finally came to rest in one place, at one time, on one ordinary man, for one special moment.
Maybe Matthew had his own “special moment” in mind (or at least somewhere in a corner of his subconscious) when he penned the genealogy of Joseph... or more likely, he was just following tradition. No matter. What we have in Matthew 1 is an illustration of the way God can weave together the moments of all kinds of obscure lives – the life of a “Sadoc”, or a “Zorobabel”, or yes even a “Joseph” – moments when those people were in God’s right place, at God’s right time – not always in the place they wanted to be, not always understanding the circumstances in which they found themselves, not always able to mildly “trust and obey” perhaps, but nevertheless “kept by the power of God” (1 Peter 1:5) and “called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28), and all drawn up into the culmination of God’s slowly unfolding plan, to place a certain man, Joseph, at the side of a certain woman, Mary, just at the time when she was most vulnerable, and everything was at stake.
When God said, “I put this moment there,” Joseph, like Matthew, was in the right place, at the right time. My prayer for the New Year is that what was true of Joseph, and true of Matthew, will be in some measure true of me.
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