Disgrace and Scandal

My quiet time last night was Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2 which both talk about the Birth of Jesus. As I was reading the genealogy in Matthew 1, I noticed that only a few names of women were mentioned: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and Mary. Why were these names particularly mentioned? Why were the other women - wives and mothers - unspoken in the record?

Who was Tamar? Wasn't Rahab a prostitute? And Ruth the Moabite? Why was she included in the list? How about Bathsheba, the object of David's lust, the woman David committed adultery with? Was Mary extraordinary compared to these women? How does this all relate to Jesus aside from the fact that they were his ancestors? These were some of the questions I had last night, so I browsed through the Old Testament and read about these women.

Here are their stories:
1. Tamar
She was Judah's daughter in law, the wife of his son, Er. Tamar became a widow but soon after, she was taken as Onan's (Er's brother) wife, as was the custom. Everytime they had sexual intercourse, Onan would spill his semen on the floor because he did not want to have a child. God considered it evil to deny his deceased brother an heir so the Lord also took Onan's life. Upon Judah's advice, Tamar went back to her father's house. Years later, Judah's wife passed away. After the period of mourning, he went on a journey to Timnah to shear his sheep. When Tamar heard about this, she left her father's house, took off her widow's clothing and covered herself with a veil to disguise herself. She sat at the entrance of a village which was on the road to Timnah. Judah saw her and propositioned her to have sex with him, not knowing that she was his daughter-in-law. He taught Tamar was a prostitute. Judah and Tamar then had an agreement - in exchange for sex, Judah will send Tamar a young goat. To guarantee that he will send the goat, Tamar asked Judah to leave his identification seal and its cord and the walking stick he was carrying. They had sex and Tamar became pregnant.

2. Rahab
She was a prostitute who lived in the land of Jericho, a member of the people God instructed Joshua to invade and take captive. Rahab's home served as a hiding place for the spies Joshua sent to scout the area on the other side of the Jordan River. When the King of Jericho heard that there were spies wandering in his territory, he sent orders for Rahab to bring out the men. She denied that the spies were still hiding in her house and told the king's men that they have left the town at dusk. When the Israelites finally took Jericho captive, only Rahad and her family was saved because she helped the Israelites by hiding their spies.

3. Ruth
She was a Moabite who became the wife of an Israelite whose family moved to the country of Moab .Ten years later, she was widowed like her mother-in-law and sister-in-law. Naomi, her mother-in-law, instructed them to go back to their father's house, but Ruth refused to do so. Instead, she travelled with Naomi back to Judah, the land where she hailed from, upon hearing that God was again blessing it with crops. Ruth remained loyal to her mother-in-law and lived with in a land away from home - Moab. She worked in Boaz's farm and then eventually, Boaz took her as his wife.

4. Bathsheba
She was the daughter of a man named Eliam and the wife of Uriah, the Hittite. She was beautiful. One evening when she was taking a bath, David saw her. She spured the king's curiousty that he ordered someone to find out more about her and immediately after, sent messengers to summon her. Bathsheba came to David and they had sexual intercourse. She became pregnant and sent word to David about her condition. Later on, her husband Uriah died. Upon David's orders, he was put in the front line where the fighting was fiercest. After the period of mourning, David brought him to his house and took her as his wife. David and Bathsheba had a son but this son became ill and died. Bathsheba mourned the death of her son and so David comforted her. He with lay with her again and she became pregnant.

5. Mary
She was a young Jewish girl from Galilee engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, who a descendant of King David. She became pregnant [by the power of the Holy Spirit] before they got married. Joseph, being a good man, decided to break off the engagement quietly so as not to humiliate Mary. They did not have sexual relations until the the child Mary conceived [by the Spirit] was born. At that time, the Roman Emperor ordered that a census should be taken. Because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to travel to Bethlehem in Judah to participate in the census. Joseph took her pregnant fiancee with him in his journey. It was in Bethlehem that Mary gave birth, in a stable with the sheep and donkeys.

As I read and took note of the bare facts that the Bible tells about these 5 women, I could not find a single uniting criteria which could possibly be the reason for their inclusion in the genealogy. There had to be a reason though, I thought. Every single detail in the events, stories and lives of the characters chronicled in the Bible has its own significance and contribution in better understanding these narrations.

Going back to our women: They were not all Israelites, I knew that; but I thought Ruth was the only foreigner. It turns out that Rahab wasn't an Israelite too. Their marital status were just as varied and equally confusing: Tamar was widowed twice, Bathsheba and Ruth were widowed once, Rahab was a prostitute. Mary became pregnant before her wedding (note: I'm simply surveying the facts; Sans spiritual interpretation, I'm showing their status and situation from the viewpoint of the people who surrounded them). They were not distinguished women, with Bathsheba as the exception because she became the wife of a king.

As I continued to ponder on the stories of these women, I remembered the film, The Nativity Story, which I watched a few months ago. Scenes that showed people gossiping about Mary's pregnancy flashed in my mind, as well as those of them wanting to stone Mary for her scandalous condition - an pregnant unwed woman. Because it is the account of the birth of Jesus which is read during the Eucharistic celebration on Christmas Eve, I also remembered what I quoted from Philip Yancey's book, The Jesus I Never Knew, in an entry I wrote in 2005.

He wrote:

In contrast to what the cards would have us believe, Christmas did not sentimentally simplify life on planet earth. Perhaps this is what I sense when Christmas rolls areound and I turn from the cheeriness of the cards to the starkness of the Gospels.

We observe a mellow, domesticated holiday purged of any hint of scandal. Above all, we purge from it any reminder of how the story that began at Bethlehem turned out at Calvary.

From the quote above, one word stood out to me: SCANDAL. This answered my question. The 5 women above were women of disgrace. At one point in their lives, they were they the subject of public gossip. Each of them knew the scent of scandal and experienced the painful reality of disgrace:

Tamar, the daughter-in-law who impregnated by her dead husbands father. She who acted like a prostitute in demanding a young goat in exchange for having sexual relations with the father of her dead husband(s). Didn't that bring shame not only to her also to her entire household?

Rahab, the prostitute, the non-Jew, the "betrayer" of her own people. Who would have accepted her had she not helped the spies? Regardless of race, people have always looked down on prostitutes. As a member of Israel's enemy, who would easily befriend her? A betrayer of her own people, who would not disown her?

Ruth, the Moabite, the member of a foreign people greatly disliked and lawfully excluded by the Israelites. The family of her husband may have taken her with open arms, but what about the other members of her husband's people? The people whose law explicitly excluded and denounced one of their fiercest enemies? What did the law say?

“No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants for ten generations may be admitted to the assembly of the Lord. These nations did not welcome you with food and water when you came out of Egypt. As long as you live, you must never promote the welfare and prosperity of the Ammonites or Moabites."

Won't the Jews of Ruth's time strictly follow this law having been victims of her people’s cruelty?

Bathsheba, the object of David's lust, the concubine. Do we have to say more? It's as simple as turning to the Ten Commandments: Do not commit adultery.

And lastly, Mary, the young unwed pregnant girl. The worst of it was she was engaged to a good man. Virginity is a virtue held high by Jewish law (Deuteronomy 22:13ff) Even in our time, we are still scandalised by such.

I reflected on these things and realised the extent of God's love and humility. We believe by faith that Christ became human, but never before have I known just how lowly the Father allowed the Son to become. Yes, he entered human history because the people He loves needed redemption. Yes, he was born in a stable, placed on a manger, became a carpernter, died a criminal's death on the cross. But I'm struck by how his genealogy seemed to want to remind us that even before He came into earth, God has already humbled him deeply. How? By weaving Jesus own personal history that is just as broken as yours and mine. It speaks to me that at every stage of Jesus life, by just him waiting for the perfect time to be born as a living, breathing person, he had already cast aside so much.

Though he descended from the fine line of kings and rulers, of tremendously faithful men and women who made great strides, there are those chapters in his genealogy such as those above that are often obscured. Perhaps it is because though we can relate to them, these stories of disgrace, scandal and humiliation remind us of just how broken we really are. Perhaps because such memories make our hearts bleed again. They anger us because they make us feel weak, vulnerable and powerless. It is not an easy thing to embrace but they speak just as significantly that God is One with us. Perhaps, afterall, that is the message of Jesus' birth, of just how personal Emmanuel can mean - That in being born of flesh and blood, he really did bear the brokenness of humanity.

The stories of these women speak to me of the Gospel - of how far God reached out, of how low and unfathomably deep Jesus went in expressing His love. It makes more sense to me now why he wept, why he showed compassion to people who were objects of scandal and disgrace, why he forgave and loved those who sinned, why he taught people to love foreigners and why he went as far as to preach love for enemies.

Before there were thorns in his head, before there was a wooden cross to carry, and before there was Calvary, he knew exactly what it meant to be human by the scandal and disgrace his mother had to go through. He deeply felt from heaven, the shame, humiliation and pain of the women who would be his ancestors and of all other people whose stories we would never hear.

So why should we doubt that he truly cares?