The genealogy of whoredom

When was the last time you read Jesus’ genealogy (Matthew 1:17)?

Have you ever just stopped to think how astonishing it is? As if it weren’t enough for the Saviour Messiah to have evil men and otherwise unknown folk mentioned amongst his forefathers, we also find names of women scattered throughout the list. That fact alone is worthy of our consideration! What on earth are dames doing on a Jewish family tree?

But here’s the even more surprising part: none of those ladies were your typical run of the mill girls. In fact, they were the total opposite. Tamar, for a start, was anything but a goody two shoes. She tricked her father-in-law into an incestuous night of pleasure that led to the birth of Perez- yes, that’s right, Perez- the same Perez through whom the Messiah’s ‘bloodline’ continued (and if you don’t believe the Bible would speak of such abominable antics, just read Genesis 38).

If I were the Messiah, I sure wouldn’t want Tamar’s name registered on my genealogy. And I’m guessing that you wouldn’t be too overjoyed at the idea either. Just as well we’re not Jesus!

Today we’re going to look at the second woman on the list. Now, you might want to take a deep breath before I tell you her name. So go ahead and take one...

Her name was... well, just to be safe, I think you’d better take another one.

Her name was Rahab!

What? You mean Rahab the dirty whore? Rahab the filthy prostitute? Rahab the smutty harlot?

Yes, yes, yes! Rahab the shame-faced Jezabel who made her living by jumping from man to man, orgy to orgy and brothel to brothel- Rahab the girl who got out of bed to get into bed! There must be some mistake here. Surely Matthew was having an off day when he outlined Jesus’ family tree. As if Tamar’s one-night stand weren’t beastly enough, there is no way in a million years that a sensual witch like Rahab could have anything to do with the Messiah. After all, Rahab’s whole life was a perpetual one-night stand. If Tamar was nigh on unforgiveable; what does that say for Rahab? No chance! That is way too degrading- degrading with a capital ‘D’. What was the Apostle thinking?

Now let’s not be too hard on Brother Matthew. You can find out more about Rahab in Joshua 2. To recap briefly, she was living in Jericho at the time of Joshua’s Conquest. After 40 years of going around in circles in the desert (some wonder why Moses didn’t just ask his wife for directions) the new generation of Hebrews were preparing to take possession of the Promised Land.

But before taking it, the Israelis first had to spy it out- and since Jericho was situated pretty much on the border, it constituted the perfect strategic spot to get a good glimpse and sniff of what life in Palestine would be like. It was a military leader’s dream come true.

To keep themselves undercover, the two spies commissioned by Israel’s new leader Joshua hid out in Jericho’s Red Light District. After all, there the lights are dim and no one asks your name. As long as you’ve got a wallet full of dough and plenty of free time, you’re everybody’s friend. It just so happened that the two spies ended up staying in a whore house. Do you know the name of the house’s owner? It was good old Rahab.

When the King of Jericho found out that two unknown fellows had come to spy out the land and were lodging with Rahab, he said to her, “Bring out the men that came to you and went into your house. They have come to search out our land.” But Rahab, rather than obeying her king, in a swift act of treason hid the pair of guys and replied, “Your Majesty, I don’t have a clue where they are” (Joshua 2:3-4).

That night, Rahab took the lads up to her roof and let them down the city walls by her famous scarlet rope, asking them to have mercy on her and her family once Joshua’s troops took the country. The men willingly obliged and the rest was history.

Well, it would have been history had not Brother Matthew, James and the author of Hebrews decided to resurrect it in the New Testament. Oh, and I forgot to tell you something else. Not only did the spies fulfil their promise and rescue Rahab along with her family a short time later (Joshua 6:25), but Rahab got married.

Her groom’s name was Salmon (don’t worry: there was nothing fishy about him). Together they had a precious little baby boy called Booz- the very same Booz who into whose family the Messiah was to be born more than a millennium later. Incredible, eh? You couldn’t make this stuff up. And you think cheap fiction and soap operas are exciting?

So what can we learn from the story of Rahab? We can learn that even a ‘dirty whore’, a ‘filthy prostitute’ and a ‘smutty harlot’ is not beyond the power of the grace of God. You can add a ‘liar’ to that list. And ‘guilty of treason’.

I mean, now that I think about it, is there any other rule in the book that Rahab hadn't broken? There are certainly some ‘no hopers’ in the Bible, but Rahab beats them all hands down. If you wanted to stain your enemy’s family history, what else could you possibly add to Rahab’s list of credentials  to make her look any worse? Paul may have called himself the ‘chief of sinners’ but I must admit that he looks like an angel when compared to this disgraced woman. And yet she is the one who ended up becoming Jesus' great-great-great-great (you get the point) grandma.

So there you have it. There is hope for all of us- even Rahab. It’s as if God puts an example like Rahab in the Bible to provoke us to wrath. "How can you save her? Why did you show her mercy? What reason can you possibly have for shedding grace upon her?" we scream to the heavens. And the God of Christmas replies, "Wanna know something even more unbelievable than that? I forgave you..."