God With Us

If there is one thing that is proved through the genealogy of Jesus in the first chapter of Matthew is that what is said in the penultimate verse of the same chapter, “Emmanuel, meaning, God with us” (Matthew 1: 1-25). At first glance, the genealogy seems an unlikely vehicle for demonstrating divine accompaniment. It's a stark catalog of names spanning forty-two generations, many of whom the text itself portrays as deeply flawed. David, the celebrated king, commits adultery and orchestrates murder. Solomon's wisdom gives way to idolatry. The lineage winds through periods of exile, defeat, and apparent divine silence. If this genealogy proves God's presence, it's certainly not through an unbroken chain of righteousness.

Yet perhaps that's precisely the point. The inclusion of figures like Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba—women whose stories involve deception, prostitution, foreign origins, and sexual scandal—suggests something profound about how divine presence operates. Rather than requiring moral perfection or ethnic purity, this presence seems to work through the messiness of human reality itself. In spite of the messiness, God is still with us.

The genealogy challenges our expectations of what divine presence looks like. Rather than manifesting through power, purity, or obvious intervention, it appears to work through ordinary human processes: marriage, birth, death, generation and generation. It suggests that "God with us" might be less about dramatic theophany and more about the patient presence that sustains existence itself, even—or especially—when that presence remains largely unrecognised.

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SPRINGBOARDS and WALKING STICKS

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