The Daily Double edition...
Truth to tell, I began the new year behind. While my reading schedule this year is light - just one chapter a day - I simply didn't get to it on the first or second. I handily caught up this morning, with the first reading being Matthew chapter one, including the genealogy of Christ in Matthew 1:1 - 17.
As it would turn out, that very passage was the subject of today's sermon.
What can be learned from a geneaology? Quite a bit, as a matter of fact. If you want to hear the sermon, wait until next weekend, then click on the "New Day Church" link in the blogroll at the right, and navigate to the audio archives, the sermon by Dick Gorski on 1/3/10. It should be up by then.
The short version: The genealogy of Christ isn't the squeaky-clean, perfect pedigree that you might think it would be. Included in the list of His human lineage are the abandoned, the hopeless, the misfits, the sinners. All of us - abandoned, hopeless, misfit or sinful - are welcome in His kingdom. The word translated "genealogy" from the Greek is the equivelent of the Hebrew word that is translated "Genesis" in the Old Testament, a word that at its root means "beginning".
No matter what your state, a new beginning is possible with Christ.
It's not a coincidence that the reading I did this morning and the message in our service were on the same topic; it's God at work. A general rule of Biblical interpretation is that if something is repeated, you need to pay attention, as God really, really wants you to know that particular thing.
Here's to new beginnings.
No comments:
Post a Comment