April 11th, 2013

Matthew 1:3 Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar, Perez begot Hezron and Hezron begot Ram.

Genealogies are so interesting when you start breaking down the details. Judah and Tamar. Tamar was Judah's daughter in law that's husband died because of his wickedness before she conceived a child. (Genesis 38) Then Judah asked his next son to go into Tamar and be her husband and give her a son, but he emitted on the ground his sperm do she would not conceive a child that would an heir to his brother and not his own, so he died too. Then he told Tamar to wait until his next son would be old enough, but he did not for fear Shelah dying too.
Over time Judah's wife died, and Tamar goes to play prostitute to get Judah to lie with her and give her a son. Judah does not know her and goes into her, and she becomes pregnant with twins. Once he finds out that it was her, he never goes into her gain, and she gives birth to Perez and Zerah. Zerah's hand comes out first and they put a scarlet thread on his arm to signify he came out first, but then he pulls it back in and Perez (which means breach) came through first.
I love the response it says when he comes out:"how did you break through? " I can totally hear that being said to a little baby. It doesn't say too much more about other than Perez became the father of Hezron and Hezron became the father of Ram.

One thing I did notice about Zerah is in his family line his relative is Achan who you can read about in Joshua 7 (often titled the sin of Achan in the bible)

Application: God is a redeeming God that likes to turn the things that are full of sin in the world, and bring them into His story and make beautiful things from them. He took this situation of Judah's sons and how they were wicked, and then Judah going to a prostitute and Tamar playing a prostitute to bring along the family line that leads to the birth of Jesus.
So even when things aren't right or good or things that are full of sin Christ wants to redeem those things.
A very personal example in my life. My grandparents met after world war 2. World war 2 was terrible and awful and full of sin and grossness in all the mass killings of people. My grandma was Japanese. My grandpa was a part of the service that came to help after the war. My grandparents were fixed up on a blind date, and they married and then got pregnant with my dad who was born on Christmas Day.
Redemption in one small picture. If there hasn't been a war my grandparents would not have met and my dad would not be here, I would not be here, my kids would not be here. My life is made because of something terrible in the world. It's humbling and it is one tiny glimpse of how God goes to work to make an imperfect world redeemed.
I love the song by Gungor: Beautiful things. He makes beautiful things out of the dust :).

❦



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