“The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” (Matthew 1:1)

The mission of Jesus Christ on earth required that He should be brought low from His exalted position, put on flesh and blood and become truly man in every essence and attribute.   In furtherance of this, it is expected that His passage into the world would not bypass the race that God had already chosen for Himself with unrivalled tradition and monopolistic status of being His point of contact with the rest of the world.   This was how a line of long genealogy that traced the human origin of Jesus Christ from Joseph (and Mary) to Abraham through King David ensued.  The records of Matthew about the human root of Jesus Christ bring a few lessons within our grasp. 

Firstly, when Matthew informs his readers, in verse 1, that Jesus was the son of David, the son of Abraham, it will require some efforts and further digging to know that there are as many as 14 and 28 generations separating these great characters.  This created a gap of 42 generations between Abraham and Jesus Christ in total and it is these details that were laid out in verses 2-17 which follow the terse statement.  Thus, a revelation which the scriptures will sometimes sum up in one short phrase, like in this instance, may require a long session of Spirit-assisted search through many other verses and passages to bring out all the beneficial details that may be shielding great treasures.  And where effort is not geared towards such discoveries and a casual reader hovers only around the peripherals, such treasures will remain hidden and may be lost forever.

Secondly, as stated above, Jesus had His human origin in the generation which God had already separated and called out unto Himself.  The first Adam had missed the mark.  God had to take sufficient time and effort to prepare the root of the Saviour who will resume the fight in which the human race had been knocked down and out.  In this connection, the promise that God had handed to Abraham in Genesis 12:3 that “…in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” would readily come to mind.  Along this line, therefore, the Bible scholars have never had any problem uniting their opinion that the coming of Jesus is the consummation of that promise.   Therefore, one of the lessons that are of vital issues to us about the birth of Jesus is the faithfulness of God to keep all His promises.

There are other lessons to pick here and one of it is how God, as we see in this case of Jesus, usually and specially prepares the way for every man who comes into the world.   The trace of Jesus genealogy by Matthew to Abraham and by Luke to Adam, the first man that was created and not born offers us enough information that all human beings are traceable through one source or the other, to this same man.  Thus, there is no single person who came into the world through a whatever parentage, mistaken or intended, tribe or lineage, no matter how backward or civilised, awkward or polished the circumstances of his birth may have been without the fingerprint of God behind such passage.  His infinite wisdom chooses for all human beings those factors as are determined by His eternal counsel and purpose that form a vital aspect of preparation He makes for all who come into the world.

Further to the above, the nature, the extent and depth of preparation God makes for people differ and they are things that distinguish one person from the other.  The preparation God makes, therefore, depends upon what He intends to build upon the foundation He is laying for individuals’ lives.   We dig deep and lay stones, hard concrete and iron rods in place to build bridges and skyscrapers.  It is inconceivable, then, to imagine that God, who is the Source and Custodian of all wisdom, will fail to understand a connection that exists between the foundation He lays for our lives and what He intends to build on or bring out of them.  With this we may become assured that there is no single person on the face of the earth who may be described as an accident of history.  Everyone is a unique creation of God, designed and sent forth by Him, to a place of His choice and to fulfil a divine agenda. 

We are already here on the earth and that was through the human root of whatever nationality, social and cultural background which His eternal wisdom has chosen for us.  It ought to be our honest conviction that God could not have made any mistake in that choice on which the plans and promises attaching to our lives and destinies depended when He planned our journeys into the world.  And since that choice is now a concluded one about which no one can do anything, all that is left for us is to ask and trust Him to heal our root at every point where healing is required.   This he will gladly do to the honour of His name.