The Refugee

If I were to ask you who you are? Or “Who is that man with the grey hair and glasses?” How would you respond? You might tell me: his name perhaps what he does for a living how active he is in the church who his people are When thinking about Jesus of Nazareth and the question of His identity you could give all these details and more and still be left with the question “But WHO IS HE?” Whenever we look at the things he did and the teaching he gave, we begin to see that this is no ordinary man- not if you believe even half of what the Bible has to say. [Now the authority of the Bible is an important question and one we will look at later but for now we will place that to the one side.] Today I want us to look at His background to see if we can make a stab at identifying him. In my time in Clontibret I had about 4 requests every year to inspect the baptismal and marriage records to trace their genealogical roots. There were times when this was not enough – sometimes ministers forgot to keep a record or one was lost and so sometimes we had to look at the committee and session records and this would raise up some skeleton which would have been better left hidden. Sometimes it was an unexpected pregnancy by an unmarried mother or being drunk in charge or whatever which led to them being excommunicated. If Jesus was looking for his roots he need go no further than the gospel accounts I Matthew and Luke. In Matthew’s account we see that Jesus’ ancestors had their share of human frailty. What is clear from this record is that Jesus was a real human being. What is so refreshing is that the Bible refuses to censor the facts- what it does is to show what happened and to show the character of those people who played a part in unveiling His word. In the genealogy we have a list of people but I want us to look at 4 of them- they are all women and that is very unusual since women seldom got a mention at all. TAMAR 1v3 To find out about Tamar we have to go to Genesis 38- this story was so raunchy and sordid that the Puritans refused to allow it to be read from the pulpit. This story relates to a very low point in the life of Judah, a time when things just seemed to go from bad to worse. He was the eldest of the brothers who were the tribal heads of Israel. He had planned with his brothers to get rid of Joseph just because they were jealous of the beloved son- they decided to sell their brother to some passing Midianites for 20 shekels of silver and to make it look like he had been killed by a ferocious animal. They were wiling to break their father’s heart just because they were jealous. No wonder he wanted to get away for a while. This led to him to meet a Canaanite woman marry her and have three children by her- all sons- ER< ONAN, and Shelah. When Er grew up it was arranged for him to get married but God judged him to be so evil that death was the only result- now according to Canaanite law it became the next brother’s duty to marry the widow and have children by her so that the line would continue but since he would not be the legal father he decided he would not play the game and so he too was judged. This meant that only Shelah, the youngest son, was left and Judah was afraid that he would end up dead also so he persuaded Tamar to go home to her father until the boy was a man. Time went past, year after year but she was never called back to marry the son- so she became more and more angry at this insult and public shame so she decided to set in motion her own alternative plan which would lead to her own revenge- “hell have no furry like a woman scorned” Her plan was to get dressed like a prostitute and to trap Judah into having sex with her and he willingly played this game- the result was that she got pregnant and was able to show that he was the Father. Here we have the Messiah or the Christ, the perfect God-man who is the saviour and in his family there are shameful skeletons in the cupboard. To make matters even worse Tamar was a Canaanite and God wanted his people to have nothing to do with them- they were vile people who had degrading forms of worship and who encouraged gratuitous violence and lust and he certainly did not want them to marry any. The last 5 chapters of Judges will serve to illustrate the effect that they had had on Israelite society and how his people had been so influenced by them. We are told that everyone did what was right “in their own sight” and that was wrong. Is there a lesson for us? Don’t let yourself be imprisoned by your past- Jesus came to right a great wrong and to make new men and women and even the presence of seedy characters in the genealogy of Jesus was not going to prevent Him from doping His work. Your past will not stop you from being a friend of God. RAHAB Joshua 2 Another Canaanite woman- this time one who finds great favour in the Bible- look at, another Prostitute-in fact she is running a brothel but James 2:25 and Heb 11:31Why? Because of her faith in God- while god rejects her lifestyle and her lying he commends her faith She illustrates very well the problem of humanity- on the one hand we are capable of rising to dizzy heights of doing the right thing even when it is a costly thing but then she is also capable of living a lifestyle which does not please God, indeed one of which he clearly disapproves. Yet while God disapproves and rejects her lifestyle decisions he does not reject her- you may know people or you may be a person whose son or daughter has made life decisions of which you cannot approve or you may have made your own decisions of which you know God does not approve but please know that God does not reject you, rather he loves you and wants what is best for you. RUTH Now this is surely a person who has a great story to tell- she is the one who demonstrated great loyalty and fidelity- she said to Naomi- your god will be my god and your people my people, wherever you live I will live…. Surely here we have a woman to be proud of and one none of us would be sorry to have in our family tree! Yet look again at her background- she was a Moabite woman and they were related to the Jews just like we are related to the English, the Scots, the Welsh and, nearest of all, to the Irish in the Republic of Ireland. If you take the time to read Ez 16 you will see that God considers all the nations to be related but like all families there are feuds. The relationship between Israel and Moab ranged from strained to outright hostility. Scratch every congregation and you will find people who are not and have not talked to each other because of something that happened many years ago. We had to be careful in the choir not to place two families setting together because they were not talking. Will this island ever be at peace with itself? Will our people on both sides of the peace wall be able to talk without shouting at each other or throwing bombs at each other? The answer can only ever be yes if we each allow God to work in our lives and change us- what we need is a new Ireland, north and south, which is being radically changed by the hand of god. Are you willing to allow god to change you? BATHSHEBA 2 SAM 11 We probably all know about David and Bathsheba- here we have the man who was loved by God, the strong man and king of Israel and he allowed himself to be tempted beyond his own power to resist and the result was the birth of Solomon and the death of the innocent Uriah – then in the reign of Solomon we have one who was very wise but also a fool- he refused to follow the wisdom and command of God and went ahead and married many foreign women and this led to him being compromised and his faith destroyed and nationally to the end of the covenant nation and then to the very exile of the same people. Once again we are shown that even the mighty and the wise can fall from grace but God is not beaten and his will cannot be thwarted. This man Jesus was a real man with real needs- he had a colourful family tree and he was the saviour of the world- so do not give up, do not think you are too bad to come to Christ. Paul tells us that God will not stop working until he is satisfied that He has completed His work. Who is this man Jesus Christ? Let me ask you another question- if you believed that he really was the godman, the one who came to save the world and save you- what would you do about it? Would you fall at His feet and worship him or would you put the decision to follow him on the long fingure?