Vital Signs - Tuesday, December 24, 2019

“This is the scroll of the lineage and birth of Jesus, the Anointed One, the descendant of both David and Abraham”(Matt. 1:1 ).

There are two things to notice here. The first is that the gospel of Matthew is a “scroll of the lineage and birth of Jesus, the Anointed One.” Another way of translating this is “the book of the origin of Jesus Christ.” Lineage and origin are connected to the Greek word geneseos, which is where we get Genesis.

Matthew wants us to do a Genesis double take. He wants us to remember the original creation and what happened shortly thereafter—mainly our rebellion against our Creator—but then look to the re-creation happening in Jesus. In other words, the broken, busted original creation is being re-created anew through Jesus, the Anointed One!

The beginning of Jesus’ story reminds us that God made good on his plan and promise to rescue this world and put it back together again. No matter how dark things look and tough things get, God has a plan.