Peter Misselbrook's Blog
Jan 7 2020 - Luke 3:23-38 – Don’t ignore the small print

When I started secondary school (rather more than fifty years ago now), I was given a Bible. It was an Authorised (or King James) Version bound in dull red cloth. One of the features of this particular Bible was that sections of it were reduced to small print. The suggestion, I suppose, was that such passages were not as important as the rest – or at least, not such good reading. You could get the substance of the story without ploughing through the minutiae of Levitical legal code or the endless lists of names that dominate the book of Numbers and occur regularly elsewhere. Genealogies such as that of Jesus found here in Luke's Gospel were definitely considered "small print".

The genealogy of Jesus we read here in Luke differs from the one at the beginning of Matthew's Gospel. Matthew traces Jesus' parentage through Mary while Luke traces it through Joseph whom he speaks of as the one whom people thought to be Jesus' father. Matthew has a carefully structured list to emphasise the plan of God moving from Abraham to David, from David to the Exile and from the Exile to Jesus; Luke simply has a list of names. Matthew includes women in the list to emphasise the grace of God embracing foreigners such as Rahab and Ruth and that human sin (Judah with Tamar; David with Bathsheba) cannot and will not frustrate his saving purposes. Luke simply has a list of men. Matthew starts with the ancestors and works his way forward to Jesus; Luke starts with Jesus and works his way backwards.

But the biggest difference is that while Matthew is content to trace Jesus' ancestry back to Abraham, Luke traces it all the way back to Adam – and beyond that to the power of God by which Adam was created. Matthew stresses that Jesus is the promised Messiah; Luke that Jesus is the Saviour of the world and the one in whom God has begun his work of new creation.

Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
Does his successive journeys run;
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
Till moons shall wax and wane no more.

Blessings abound wherever He reigns;
The prisoner leaps to lose his chains;
The weary find eternal rest,
And all the sons of want are blessed.

Where He displays His healing power,
Death and the curse are known no more:
In Him the tribes of Adam boast
More blessings than their father lost.

I have sometimes heard Christians say that we don’t need the Old Testament. It’s too long, too complicated and unnecessary; all we need is the New Testament which tells us about the Lord Jesus. These genealogies remind us that the New Testament is intimately connected with the Old and that the long history related in the Old finds its fulfilment with the New. Jesus came to fulfil and complete all that was written and promised beforehand. His life, death and resurrection, and the promise of his return, can only properly be understood against the background of that long history of creation, fall and of Israel's calling and disobedience.

Furthermore, we cannot properly understand the mission of God and his calling upon our own lives without an understanding of the big story of which we are now a part – a story which begins with Adam, concludes with the last Adam and embraces all who embrace him.

Understand the big picture. Live the big story.

Living God, creator of heaven and earth and redeemer through Jesus Christ of all that you have made, help me by your Spirit to understand your purposes that stretch from eternity to eternity. Help me to see how the many-coloured threads of the story all find their focus in the Lord Jesus. Help me to live the story as I live in him and to serve your kingdom purpose of bringing all things back under the lordship of Christ. Help me to start with myself today, that my every thought and action may be shaped by him and bring glory to his name.

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Jan 7 2019 - Genesis 3:8-24 – The dust of death

Genesis three tells us that God walked in the garden in the cool of the day. Surely this was not the first time God had done this – his footfall is readily recognised by Adam and Eve. The implication is that God had done this before – maybe many times before. Maybe it was God's habit to walk around his garden each evening. And on previous occasions Adam and Eve would have gone to meet him and would have walked and talked with their Creator in the cool and quiet of the day.

But this day was not like any previous day. Adam and Eve know they have disobeyed God. They felt naked and vulnerable and ashamed, and so, instead of running to meet God they ran from him to hide in the bushes.

But it is impossible to hide from God. He confronted his disobedient children with the words, "Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" Adam blamed Eve, and by implication, blamed God – it is the fault of "the woman you gave to be with me." Eve blames the serpent and, as has often been remarked, the serpent didn't have a leg to stand on.

We are sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. We seek to cover our shame with the flimsy tissue of shifted blame. It's always someone else's fault and never our own. We need to stop trying to hide. We need to be honest with ourselves and with others. But we find this really hard. We need the courage of G K Chesterton who, when asked to write an article on what was wrong with the world, responded with the simple confession, "I am."

One act of disobedience changes everything. Human relationships are no longer the source of unmixed blessing; all too often they are marked by tension and conflict. Godly rule becomes twisted into domination, exploitation and the thirst for power. Even marriage can become marked by manipulation and selfishness rather than mutual nurturing and respect. Families can be hard places in which to grow up.

Relationships with the animal world are no longer uniformly harmonious; often they are marked by mutual suspicion and fear. And nature itself has become red in tooth and claw.

Even our relationship with the earth is now marked by conflict. Work is no longer a simple pleasure; it becomes fraught with frustration and futility. We fight to gain a living for our families, but end up losing the battle. At last we return to the dust from which we were made – creation is undone.

The Bible's picture of our world is terribly realistic. To be sure, the world is still full of beauty and of good gifts, but the gates of Paradise are firmly shut against us. We live in a world marked by warfare, inequity, hunger, disease, pain, death and loss. Sheltering behind the shaky walls of Western civilisation we may seek to escape these demons, but death cannot be shut out and it will have the last word.

But wait, the last word is not left to death. In God's judgment on the serpent there is the glimmer of a promise of the light which will shine ever more brightly as we continue our journey through the Scriptures. One day a child shall be born who will crush the serpent's head. God will provide a Saviour from sin and shame and from the judgment that hangs over all creation.

Creator God, thank you that death does not have the last word. Thank you for your promise of One through whom creation undone will become creation renewed. Thank you for the promise of a day when we will be with you in Paradise, when sin and death will be banished and every tear will be wiped away. Thank you for resurrection morning and the hope of a world to come.

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Peter Misselbrook