A few years ago, I bought this graphic by Tricia Robertson titled “The Four”. I wish the skin tones were more accurate to the culture, but these four women, from left to right, are mentioned in the family tree of Jesus as found in Matthew 1: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba.
All of them are wearing crowns, but their lives were far from what society would call “crown-worthy”. All of them were non-Jewish immigrants with painful stories. I celebrate the fact that women are very important to God and were included in Jesus’ family tree. Tamar’s unglamorous story in Genesis 38 is full of sordid details involving her father-in-law. The invisible hands may symbolize the fact that she was used and then cast aside by a man who didn’t want his reputation tarnished. The stories of Rahab with the red cord, Ruth with the sheaves of wheat, and Bathsheba holding David’s baby are all found in the Bible. The common thread in all their stories includes heartache, brokenness, grief, and loss, and I wonder if maybe God is emphasizing that He is the only one who can transform pain.
Richard Rohr wrote a little book entitled “Preparing for Christmas”. In it he wrote: “Jesus’ birth accepted the full human condition, which becomes the first step toward the cross. His ministry did not have authority because of any external validation, but because of the transformative power of his journey through death to resurrection.” Perhaps this kind of fractured family line is to remind us how Jesus came, not through royalty, title, class, generational wealth, or credentials, but through broken and dysfunctional relationships, imperfect family systems, and poverty, and maybe, somehow, He is going to weave all the threads of our experiences, both the lovely and the painful, together as He restores us. That gives me hope.
An authentic God-filled life comes by the way of descent, where the scorched and scarred areas of our lives are honored and kept in His Shepherd’s heart, protected by His fierce and refining love. These places of growth remain and are celebrated. In Advent we’re reminded that the shoot came from the stump of Jesse. (Is. 11:1) In Advent we hear Jesus say, “I came for you.”
