Design Not Despair
Want to wreck your week? Get a cup of Joe each morning and listen to the news. Here’s a small slice from the last 4 days for me. “Trump Impeachment Imminent.” “Dark Days for Everyone “Racism Fully Alive.” “Winter Storms Affirm Climate Change Erosion.” “Trump Impeachment Imminent.” “Burmese Genocide a Reality.” “Famine Strikes.” And in case I missed it. “Trump Impeachment IMMINENT!”
This last one apparently we cannot escape. It was like I was Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, except when my clock-radio went off, instead of Sonny and Cher singing “I Got You Babe,” I heard even more talk of Trump Impeachment - IMMINENT!
Listen to the news these days and it surely leads to despair. With doomsday dictators, damning drugs, deteriorating schools, drive-by deaths, and the national debt - our country, if not the world, is like a school bus careening out of control. Does someone have a hand on this steering wheel? Has the driver bailed just as we came in sight of Dead Man’s Curve? Where’s the hope?
Believe it or not, a Christmas message of hope for the despair we all experience at one time or another with the chaos of the world is found in Matthew 1:1-17. Yes, this is the family tree of Jesus. Yes, it can be a bit of a slow read. But give it a try. Focus especially on the conclusion with Matthew 1:17. “Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.”
This historical summary is not a mere testimony to man’s biological productivity. Matthew is actually revealing something astounding in the lineage of Jesus. He says that Jesus’ birth is the climax of three groupings of fourteen. You see, Matthew’s gospel was originally written to Jewish Christians to help them understand, in part, the hope of Christmas. Seven or any multiple of seven symbolized to the Jews perfection or completion.
What Matthew was declaring then in his summary was this: “My fellow Jews, this Old Testament history, from Abraham to Christ is a perfectly planned carefully choreographed flow of history. Nothing just fell together by chance. God orchestrated with meticulous and mathematical care the birth of the Christ of Christmas for the salvation of all mankind.
Matthew wanted the Hebrews and us to understand that God made sense out of nonsense. He wants us to understand God does the same today. The very God who perfectly carved the family tree of Jesus to save us from our sin, beginning with the birth of his Son in Bethlehem and concluding with his death and resurrection in Jerusalem, this is the same God who will still sculpt art to his glory from our lives. And this Maestro even did this with some pretty unlikely branches in that family tree, like Tamar, and Rahab, and Uriah’s wife.
President Trump may be impeached or not. Climate change may be real or not. Famines, wars, violence, and all other forms of chaos will be real. The world will go to hell in a handbasket. And on a personal level this Christmas, chaos may even break out for you. Family may be lost. A job may be lost. Someone won’t be home for Christmas. The engagement ring won’t be given.
My friend, it’s okay. Don’t despair. Part of the hope of Christmas is that a loving all powerful God is still in control. See his design. The Bus driver, with a capital B, still has his hands firmly on the steering wheel of your life and the whole world. After all, “When the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 - to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to son-ship” (Galatians 4:4, 5). Want more proof? Read the last name on the list of this genealogy again. “and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah” (Matthew 1:16).
In spite of all the despair all the people experienced in this family tree the last name on the list is Jesus. God cups his hands to his mouth and shouts to a distraught world, “See?! I did it! I controlled the flow of human history so that salvation is found in my Son. Famine in Egypt couldn’t stop my plan. Four hundred years of slavery couldn’t shackle my plan. Even a decree by an emperor to butcher babies couldn’t prevent my Son from being born.” This gives hope. When we see his design we lose our despair.
Back in 1997 the Windy City had one of its most brutal winters. Most days an onslaught of heavy snow covered everything. On one of those days Robert Mcgrath saw his wife go into the backyard garage to fetch some boxes to wrap presents. Two minutes later Mcgrath heard a sickening crack accompanied by a deafening crash. Looking back out the kitchen window McGrath saw that the roof of his old wooden garage had caved in. He went white with fright.
Without hat or coat he ran to his neighbor’s back porch grabbing their shovel and shouting, “Help - help Billy! Anybody! Billy - call for help. Come help. Garage caved in on Maggie!” Mcgrath started frantically throwing snow with the shovel and pulling away boards and yelling, “Maggie you okay? Talk to me! Maggie? Hang on we’re coming!” “Please, yell honey!”
With sweat freezing on their faces he and several neighbors frantically shoveled snow and removed sections of roof for about 15 minutes. Then he saw Maggie’s hand. He kept digging and throwing and pulling and within minutes, sobbing like a baby, he had his wife in his arms.
By the grace of God, she was fine.
Paul Harvey originally told this story. You can imagine one of his planned pauses. Then the voice of Middle America said, “Now folks…I would not tell you what I am about to tell you except a neighbor snitched.” You see, Mrs. Maggie McGrath had gone into the garage through one door and out the back door, boxes in hand. She was safe in the house when she looked out and saw her husband shoveling for her rescue and calling out orders to others.
So she put the coat and hat back on. She went out the back door of the house, down the back alley, around and into the still standing back door of the collapsed garage on the other side of the fallen rubble. She sat on the back side of the collapsed snow drift waiting patiently for her husband to find her. When he got close she messed up her hair, covered herself in snow and debris and extended a hand to be found. If this sounds like the wife is always in charge in marriage it’s because she is, right?! But Mrs. Maggie Mcgrath just wanted to show love for her husband by letting him experience some trouble in a loving effort to be the “rescuer.” However, the whole time she was in complete control.
Yes, the analogy limps in many ways but you tell me. Isn’t it great to know there really is someone who loves us and allows trouble or even brings it at times while we get to seek the rescue of others with the gospel? And all along the way no one is more in charge than he! After all, “… and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah” (Matthew 1:16).
