23 and Me

Bathsheba

December 24, 2023 • Rev. Melissa Madara • Matthew 1:1–6, 2 Samuel 11:1–5

On this Christmas Eve morning we turn to the age-old story of David and Bathsheba and explore the deep cracks and crevices of our lives that lead us to sing a joyful song of “Hallelujah” when God chooses to enter into our world of brokenness and redeem it.

Ruth

December 17, 2023 • Pastor Rob Kazinski

The story or Ruth is legendary. A woman who loses her first husband, and devotes her life to her cherished mother-in-law. She catches the eye of a Hebrew man named Boaz who quickly becomes smitten with the young woman. It is almost too perfect of a story. Only, Ruth is a foreigner. She's not the good Hebrew woman many would like to see. Still, it's because of her love and loyalty that we see the kind of sacrificial love that would carry all the way down through her distant progeny, Jesus.

Rahab

December 10, 2023 • Pastor Rob Kazinski • Joshua 2:1–15

Every family has that “one member” in their lineage that they don’t like to acknowledge. Maybe they’ve had an infidelity that split the family or perhaps they’ve had a few run-ins with the law, something that might make them a bit of an embarrassment. The story of Rahab is one of those incidences in the lineage of Jesus that perhaps we wish was not there. But it is through her story that we see salvation of the Israelites and the eventual salvation of all humankind.

Tamar

December 5, 2023 • Rev. Melissa Madara • Genesis 38:27–30

When we delve into the history of Jesus’s lineage, we quickly discover that Jesus’s family had a few skeletons in their closet – a few people whose lives and stories were more fit for an episode of “Desperate Housewives” or daytime television’s “Maury” than for sacred scripture. The story of Tamar – the first of four women included in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus – is a story that borders on R-rated, and yet explores the theme of God’s care for people in impossible situations.

Trinity UMC (21622)

Examining Matthew's Matriarchal Lineage