WERE THE ANCESTORS OF JESUS… SAINTS, HOLY PEOPLE???

Nowadays people strive to trace their ancestors and get a copy, over the internet, of their Family Tree. I have managed to do it as I am descended from an Irish stock coming from Cork, the reason for my Irish surname, of which I am proud.
In the days of Jesus there certainly was no internet, the only record found is that left by historians, like Tacitus, Flavius, Suetonius and others. But, in our case, talking about Jesus we do have a very good record if we refer to the Old Testament and the Gospel.

It is interesting to note that Luke traced the family tree of Jesus from Adam, as he was addressing the Gentiles, the pagans, so he wanted to give a natural descent. Whilst Matthew, who was writing for the Jewish Converts, who were proud of their kings, especially David, traced Jesus’ geneology by starting from this great king, David, and gave proof that Jesus was in a direct line, descended from David, whereby the title, “Son of David”.

Though, interestingly enough, even Joseph, His foster father was from the lineage of David, so Joseph was addressed as “The Son of David” too. Going back to Matthew, he made it clear enough that Jesus was the rightful heir to the throne of David. In fact have a look at the opening of Matthew’s version of the Gospel: “A table of the descent of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham.” (1:1)

Yes, through His Divinity Jesus is from eternity, but as a human being, he had a Jewish nature with a Jewish background. The blood that ran in His vein was Jewish blood, royal blood through His mother, who also was of the lineage of king David, notwithstanding that she was poor. We do not find any record where Jesus was called the Messiah, there were so many false pretenders going round, besides the Jews expected a military messiah to overthrow the Romans. Jesus had shown from the very first day of His mission that He was anything but not military, no violence did ever enter His mind or approach.

It is worth noting that the Family Tree of Jesus was not made up of saints and holy ancestors. For example one of His ancestors was Rahab, who was a foreigner (not Jew) and a sinner, another one was Ruth, who was a foreigner too, though she was modest, and later she was accepted into the Jewish nation. We all heard about Batsheeba or Bethsabee, who sinned with David, and shamed the Royal Davidic family.

But why did God permit such people to be included in the lineage of Jesus Christ ? Well, there is only one reason, one could think of. This proves the fact, beyond doubt, that Jesus wanted to include in His Mission of Salvation, all the peoples; be they saints or sinners, modest women or harlots, being Jews or Gentiles. This was clearly underlined in the letter to the Romans, “Now thers is no more Jew and Gentile, no man and no woman, …..” The fishing net which Jesus used to catch His fish was big enough to catch all the fishes (not fish).

Yes there were sinners in His family Tree, but ultimately Jesus was to be looked upon as the greatest sinner of all as He took upon Himself all the sins, not only of His ancestors, but also of all humanity, including mine and yours.