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God has taught me so
much about His Father's heart and my spiritual adoption as His son through the
miracles of my children's physical adoption, but this Christmas season I
realized afresh that His entire redemptive plan hinged on it.
The
Gospels start with "This is the genealogy of
Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:" Matthew starts his writings about Jesus with
a listing of his heritage. He does this because at least seven distinct
prophecies about the Messiah speak of his royal bloodline. If Jesus was not of
the tribe of Judah and more specifically in the line of King David, the rest of
Matthew's story would be about a great man and teacher but not the Messiah. So
Matthew sets the table for the whole story of redemption in a genealogy. There
is only one problem...Jesus wasn't genetically related to Joseph!
Both Luke and
Matthew trace Jesus' linage through Joseph, yet both authors tell of the virgin
birth of Jesus through Mary. How then could Jesus be the Messiah? Only through
adoption! According to the Jewish Talmud, "whoever brings up an orphan in
his home, scripture ascribes it to him as though he had begotten him. (Talmud
Mas. Sanhedrin 19b)
Eight days after his birth, Joseph gave him the name Jesus and presented him to the temple to be circumcised. By bringing up Jesus
in his home as his son, that is exactly what Jesus became, his adopted
son! "Isn't this the carpenter's
son?" (Matt 13:55)
Joseph didn't plan
on being so entwined in the salvation of the world. In fact Scripture shares of
his reservations before his obedience (a very early example of 'ReluctantHusband Syndrome'?). But aren't you glad that he became Jesus' earth father so
that God could become our heavenly father?
CS Lewis said,
"The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God."
If I can presume to
edit CS Lewis I would write, "The Son of God became the son of Joseph to
enable men to become sons of God."
What a beautiful picture... the miracle of
adoption at both ends of God's redemptive story!!
-- Nathan
1 comment:
Thank you for that Nathan...that was really good!
Laurie
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