Every time Christmas comes, I can't help thinking that if it had not been for the birth of Christ. What would I be like? Without Him, I wouldn't be what I am right now.

As you all know the story of Christmas is written both in Matthew and Luke. Most people, I've heard, prefer the story in Luke for their Christmas play, for I think it's very easy to understand and the events are clear. The reason people prefer Luke is that in the first place [Matthew] we find is the geneology of Jesus, which is very long and complicated.

But this morning we realize that Matthew wanted to tell us (the Israelites) that Jesus was a descendant of David, whose ancestor was Abraham, the father of faith. As you know, people hardly believed in Christ, so Matthew truly wanted them to know that Jesus was Christ, whom they had long been waiting for.

The first time I read this part, I wondered why there were only four ladies mentioned in this geneology. Also, why those women!? You would think of Sarah or Mary as examples of faithful women in the Bible.

Vs.3 Tamar (Ge.38:18). In this passage, we can see how sinful Tamar was. She had a baby through tricking her father-in-law into fathering the child. It was for the family to prevent the line from perishing without any children, but even so, she was not a woman of faithfulness!

Vs.5 Rahab (Jos.6:25). She was a prostitute!

Vs.5 Ruth -- She was a Gentile!

Vs.6 Bathsheba, Uriah's wife -- She became David's wife, but before that she committed adultery with David, and perhaps even knew that David was having her husband killed.

Some theologists have strongly criticized the reference of these sinful women, saying that this geneology is not holy.

Just think of Uriah's wife, not directly, but she killed her husband with David. She was later one of David's many queens, but the author, Matthew, does not describe her as David's wife, but Uriah's. Well, she was Uriah's wife, it was just that David stole her from him. We say that all of these women were sinful, but behind each of them, we find sinful man. Those kings after David, how sinful they were!

In vs. 12, it's described that the Israelites were inhabiting Babylon, but they had been taken to that nation because of the sinfulness of their kings, and God couldn't but bring such terrible things down upon them.

Gal.1:4; Rom.4:25. In these two places, we again see how sinful men and women are. No one can blame others because we are all sinners. To make us free from sin in God's sight, Jesus was born into our world on Christmas Day (Mt.1:21). Living in this world, surrounded by many sins, some times we just can't find goodness! It's hard to tell what is good from what is bad! Naturally, for some reason, we can tell what is bad -- we have reason, or a mind, that rejects badness. For we are creatures made by God's hands. Deep inside of us, there is something very much like what God has.

God always tries to reach us. Christmas is one of those ways He reaches out to us. On the cross, Jesus bore every one of our curses. We could be a family of curses, due to our sinfulness, but Jesus took all of our evil with Him to the cross. Now, we are members of the family of the blessed!

Translated by Junko Okamoto - Edited for the Net by Shido
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