Passing-Thought

From Genealogy to Gynecology: the unity of the Bible as a family tree scandal

I must have "Family Trees" too much on the brain. Now I'm beginning to think the basic connecting principle of the entire Bible is genealogically driven.

Canonically speaking, the Old and New Testaments are sutured together by this divine-anthropological schema:

The book of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, son of Abraham, son of David... Thus, Matthew titles his Gospel. The gospel is genealogical; in a sense, the gospel is a covenant genealogy:
A) from paternal promise (in Abraham),
B) to royal investiture (in David),
B') to exilic divestiture (in Babylon),
A') to resurrection maternal fulfillment (in Mary).
Life to honor, honor to shame, guilt to justification.

The King James preserves the thrust of this action better than other contemporary translations, employing the masculine active verb form for fatherhood: "to beget". Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac begat Jacob, Jacob begat Judah...: in this manner, the begetting rushes forth, descending like the current of a mighty waterfall. But there are a number of rocks along the way down, disturbences in downward flow: whenever women are mentioned, the action pauses, until finally the volumous water empties into a crashing silence...like a symphony that ends its crescendo short one note, with the conductor bowing in its place. The active series of begettings stop with Joseph: "begat, begat, begat...Joseph husband of Mary by whom was born Jesus" Thus, paternal activity gives way to passive maternity, or in other words, genealogy gives way to gynecology.

What a wussy way to end a royal, patriarchal genealogy! Not to mention embarrasingly scandelous. "Some Messiah you are. Do you belong to the line of David or not? If Joseph is not the father, then whose bastard child are you?" Matthew's subsequent narrative begins to adjudicate the criticism his own genealogy invites. Jesus is "born of the virgin Mary" because God, not Joseph, is his father, from beginning to end. And that relationship necessitates that the son will bear forth a life of truth bearing false accusations, so that "through my lie, God's truth might abound to His glory" (Rom 3:7). That is what is meant in the beginning of the gospel in Genesis, when God declares to the serpent, "he [the seed of the woman] shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." The cross of the Messiah is where the truthfulness of God meets the head of Satan. Thus, the embarrassing genealogy (gynecology) of Jesus needs no apology, it is sufficient defense that the Messiah, is truly Messiah; the son of God, his only begotten. The genealogy is not simply descriptive history, it is a theological legacy preaching the shape of obedience that God requires of his son; a call to faithful obedience unto death with the hope of resurrection.

You now, who have been baptized into the Messiah, born of the Church by His Spirit and Word, descendents of the Family Tree of his Father, bear forth the crest our questionable origins. We carry the same scandelous image of truth to an unbelieving world, full of lies and deceivers. Take courage, "the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you."