Welcome to the story

Βίβλος γενέσεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ υἱοῦ Δαυὶδ υἱοῦ Ἀβραάμ.

I like the way the English Standard and other versions translate this first verse of the gospel of St. Matthew. "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ...." The King James expressed it this way, "the generation of," which may not be a bad translation. It's just that I am in the midst of my own genealogical search, so I connect better with the former language. The bible devotes quite a few pages to the whole genealogy thing. The writers seem very concerned to establish a link between the promises in the Old Testament and the promised One in the New Testament, and one link is the ancestral lineage to Jesus Christ. This is the story of God's plan of redemption, from promise to fulfillment.

A friend was recently criticizing the current trend among some Christians to "tell their stories." "I'll tell you my story, you tell me yours." This friend retorted, "It's not about my story or your story. It is about God's story and you and I are a part of that bigger story."

I remember the first time I read the bible through in a more or less chronological fashion. I was impressed with the unfolding of God's story. When I got through the book of Acts I had the distinct impression that the story continued. It continued through the generations all the way to me. I was a part of that story of redemption. I was a son of Adam, a descendant of Noah, one of the children of Abraham by faith, I was one of the gentiles grafted in, as the story spread "in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." I am a character in the story that God is telling.

I'm not going to lay deep spiritual meaning on the immigration of my forebears, though my grandmother, Maria Pernici, was probably the same age as Mary when she conceived Jesus. But the sovereignty of God and the grace of God are ingredients as essential in this chapter of the story that we are a part of as they were essential to the accounts in the bible. So I want to say this to all the little ones in the next generation, to Micah, Amos, Ezra, Josiah, Elijah, Aya, and our littlest precious Ivo. You are children of God, children of the promise of grace, you are part of God's unfolding story, just as Abraham and David were, and just as Giuseppe and Maria and Diego and Vincenza were. Welcome to the story.