Last year, Tim and I did the whole “23 & Me” thing. It was interesting to see where our ancestors originated and to see if my genetics predicted things like my earlobe type and if I am prone to having a unibrow (and believe me – I am). I was also able to discover several distant relatives based on the percentage of our shared  DNA.

During the Christmas season, we are often reminded of the sweet Baby Jesus narratives of the manger, the Wisemen, and the Shepherds. However, we tend to hop right over the beginning genealogy passage of Matthew 1.  It is the Old Testament version of 23 & Me!

The list contains hard-to-pronounce names for sure, but do not skip it! The list is full of meaning: fulfillment of prophecy, names you know, names you don’t know, names of people that make you scratch your head and think, “Why in the world would Matthew even include them on this list?”

Every word, every seemingly endless list in the Bible is there for a purpose. Sometimes it just takes a little more digging to find the jewels in them – but keep on digging and you will find the treasure!

A couple of years ago, my Sunday School class and I were studying Matthew 1 and we got the biggest blessing from examining the women in His genealogy.

There are 4 women mentioned (5 counting Mary). And they are not women who would normally be given an honorable mention on anyone’s list, much less, in the lineage of Jesus. If they showed up on your 23 & Me report, you might be tempted to delete them from your profile. The picture called “The Four” by Tricia Robinson is a beautiful representation of these women.

Here is a quick snapshot of the women included:

• Tamar (Genesis 38) – the daughter in law of Judah who played a harlot to entice him so she could have a legitimate son in the family line.
• Rahab – the harlot who hid the spies whom Joshua sent to check out the city of Jericho before they conquered it (Joshua 2).
• Bathsheba – the beautiful woman who had an adulterous affair with King David (2 Samuel 11).
• Ruth – a poor Moabitess widowed woman who had to pursue her kinsman redeemer, Boaz. She was an outsider to the Israelites.

As I was teaching my class, I had the family tree on display. I asked the women to use their sanctified imaginations to think about why the Holy Spirit directed Matthew to include these specific 4 women.  Many more could have been included, but why these four?

My class taught me a few things that day as they shared their amazing thoughts…

• The inclusion of the women demonstrates the redemption of ALL of us, no matter what our background, through Jesus Christ.
• All of the women were seeking redemption or salvation through different things; Tamar sought redemption through the birth of a legitimate son of her husband’s lineage; Rahab sought for safety from destruction by hiding the spies; Bathsheba perhaps sought the safety and status of being connected with a king upon finding out she was pregnant through the adulterous affair; Ruth sought redemption through a kinsmen to marry her.
• By the time we get to Jesus’s earthly mother, Mary, the questions of illegitimacy and/or sexual impurity disappear to create a stark contrast.

Indeed, they are honored women in Christ. It reminds me of the verse in Isaiah 61:3:

to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
    to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
    the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;…

I love how even the family tree of Jesus points directly toward Him as our kinsman redeemer and our salvation. Nothing on earth – no man, no baby, no earthly king – can accomplish what He accomplished for us.

So do not mourn over your sketchy past or your not-so-perfect circumstances. God will write your testimony using those very things. He will redeem it through Jesus Christ to make it into something beautiful. After all, Christmas, at its core, is about redemption.

Merry Christmas!