Picked

My family is full of quips that do not really need to be re-quipped ...such as:
"You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose,
but just don't pick your friend's nose;"
for one example.
Is it in poor taste to introduce the lineage of Jesus in this way?!
The point is, of all relationships in life...you cannot pick your blood line.
(Please understand that I would still pick mine as mine...if I could. In spite of an occasionally questionable sense of humor, they're my blood!)
When God chose to be present with us, he picked the best representative of Himself...His equal in every way, His son. And Jesus came. He picked a human blood line that is mapped out in Luke 3: 23-38. The genealogy of Jesus includes all kinds of moral failures...liars, cheaters, murderers, prostitutes, adulterers...
Any human genealogy has its share of shame, Jesus picked this one;
A family with victories and defeats, godly and ungodly.
This family of our Savior communicates beautiful things about our God; things way too important to speed read!
Did you know:
That within this Jewish heritage, three of the four women listed in Matthew 1 were Gentiles?
Did you know that through His legal (though not genetic) father Joseph, Jesus fulfilled prophecy as the Messiah who would come in the line of King David?
Did you know that through Mary, Jesus was also part of a priestly heritage?
Did you know that while Matthew describes Jesus legal lineage through Joseph, Luke defines his blood line through Mary?
Matthew explains His connection with the nation of Israel
and Luke, his connection to all mankind through Adam.

 Together these two gospels, form every family connection needed for God to keep His promises to His children, extending forgiveness and a restored relationship with Him. He is our priestly intercessor...the One who makes it all right again. He is our Messiah...the One who rescues us from a life doomed to idolatry and death.
And of all the glorious gifts that Jesus shares with us, my favorite is this: His presence.
He is able to come into the human condition of liars, cheaters, adulterers, murderers, outsiders
and still remain perfectly God, perfectly good, perfectly perfect.
No matter whose bloodline He mingles with, Jesus remains
incorruptible.
Untainted by the ugly,
unchanged in His love
forever loyal to His plan to be our brother through His blood.