Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov (The Brothers Karamazov)
Indeed, I always feel when I meet people that I am lower than all,
and that they all take me for a buffoon. So I say, ‘Let me really play the buffoon, I am not afraid of your opinion, for you are ever one of you worse than I am.’
I can’t go through with it. I just can’t.
I have always loved the book of Matthew, that is until I really started to read it. I let its words tattoo my mind. I let it soak. But you must be careful, you will see things you should never be allowed to see when you let God’s word soak. Most people don’t allow the Bible soak, they skim, so they don’t see.
But yesterday I saw. And I am shocked, God didn’t even try to hide it. If I was God I would have ignored it. Like some dirt in the kitchen, I would have pulled up the rug and sweep it under. Get rid of the blight. But not God, he allows the dirt to
Let me step a few paces back so you know what I am talking about. Yesterday I began a personal meditation study on the book of Matthew. I wanted to just read it and let it soak, just as I said before. But a mere five verses into my reading I started to see the dirt, it was plain as day. Like brown muddy footprints on a white linoleum floor. But it was verse six that cut me to the quick. My face actually blushed as I read the account.
I like to consider myself a defender of God’s reputation. That is partially my job. I want people to see him in a good light. I sometimes will even rehearse arguments in my mind against atheists, agnostics and arrogant scientific doubters to defeat their nasty naysaying. I design water-tight defenses for the deity of Christ and the greatness of God. But then I got to verse six and I can’t believe what I read.
God is not doing me any favors as I try to defend his name. Like my kitchen floor, at least he can sweep this muddy verse under the rug. By this time you are wondering what it says, but I am embarrassed for God. I don’t want you to read it.
Context: Chapter One of Matthew is a genealogy. It starts with Abraham and it goes through the male line of Jesus’ family tree until it gets to him. The purpose is to show how Jesus Christ has the right pedigree to be the Messiah. The anointed King of the Jews. But when you let it soak, you will see that Jesus has some major rotten apples in his family tree. Family secrets exposed! Take for example verse six, and I want you to read it slowly. I warn you if you are any kind of supporter of God this verse may shake some of your confidence in him.
“and Jesse the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife.”
Did you catch that? And if you are unphased by it, read it again and then try to imagine if you found this in your family tree after you did your DNA test. Sometimes DNA tests go horribly wrong, dirt that should remain buried are exposed and sometimes things are not as they appear. And remember, this is Jesus Christ we are talking about!
Solomon’s mom was Uriah’s wife. But David is his dad? If this is not a blight on the sacred record, I don’t know what is? I can imagine some non-Christian getting ahold of this information and saying, “I knew it! All of the wonderful men and women in the Bible are nothing more than a bunch of hypocrites and failures. Why would I want to believe in a God that chooses such broken human beings to be his heroes?”
How do you defend against that line of argument? Why are there not better people in Jesus’ family tree? Shouldn’t we be a bit embarrassed? In verse 5 of that same chapter, it turns out that Boaz, another Jewish hero, had a prostitute for a mom. And in verse 10, Manasseh is listed. I would blot that guy’s name out altogether. He worshipped Baal, he followed the astrological stars, and he had children sacrificed in the arms of Molech. I would definitely try to sweep that stuff under the rug as well!
A bunch of hypocrites. Failures. Embarrassements.
But isn’t that the point? We call Jesus Savior precisely because we all need saving! A verse that will turn your world upside down if you let it soak and not just skim by is Romans 11:32, “For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.”
The heart of God is mercy, and mercy is only seen by people who desperately need it. So that means God is really only seen by the broken, the flawed, the failures, the fools, the forgotten, and the deplorables. Jesus did not come for the healthy, but the sick. A perfect person does not need God. But those who cry out for forgiveness are the ones he loves to draw near to. Mercy does that.
The phrase “Uriah’s wife” is a devastating title. Why did God leave it there? It is a horrific reminder that David committed murder just so he could have sex with Bathsheba. Let that sink in. Why then does God say in two places,1 Samuel 13:14 & Acts 13:22, that David was a man after God’s own heart? That doesn’t make sense.
But you need to work through this. It is the most important paradox in all of
So apply it.
Is there anyone in your life that has sinned so grieviously that you just can’t forgive them? God can. Is there any son, daughter, spouse or friend who has run from God and you have lost hope that they will ever come back? God’s mercy can bring them back.
And how about this one: Do you judge others when they have a child or family member that has done something terrible to embarrass them? Do you go around and point the finger and say, “I would never do that?” What a bunch of hypocrites!
That’s right, we are all a bunch of hypocrites. Just like David! Tell the athiest to stuff that in his pipe and smoke it!
Jesus is amazing. Not only can he handle embarrassment and hypocrisy, but he uses it as a way to leverage salvation. Look at it like this, Archimedes the famous Greek mathematician once postulated that mathematically he found “a place to stand and with a lever, I will move the whole world.”
I believe, spiritually speaking, embarrassment, failure, hypocrisy, and shame is the point on which Jesus’ uses his lever of mercy to move a stubborn man back to himself. There is nothing harder to move than a stubborn heart. And instead of judging someone else’s failures and destructive decisions, it is at that exact point where Christ is getting ready to set the lever to set someone free.
I am not embarrassed, because it was my embarrassment that brought me back to God. Never, ever forget, “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” (! Corinthians 1:25)
There is nothing harder to move than a stubborn heart.