4 Names that changed the world

Names can help determine who you are, who you will become and who you will be. Names are thought of by our parents for months before it is ever decided upon.  It is what we are know by and most of the time it the name that we live with til we die.

So imagine being told by a being clothed in white, shining brighter than the sun, that you were going to have a child and that you couldn't choose the name. That his name had been chosen since the beginning of the world and that it would mean different things to different people. It's only a bump in the road that you will find yourself pregnant without ever being with someone.

Then Mary, a girl not yet a women, says I am the Lord's servant, may what you say come true. See this is where Mary and I are different. I would have had a ton of questions that would have taken days to answer. And Gabriel probably would have asked God, Really? Her? But in His sovereignty, He knew that Mary would trust Him and be okay with what was asked of her.

In wisdom beyond her years, Mary agreed to be a part of something that would change the world for the rest of its existence. Her saying yes made it possible for me to be righting this today. And for that I am forever grateful.

But Jesus and Mary aren't the main names I want to focus on today. There are 3 other women that have just as much of an important part in this story.

The first chapter of Matthew consists of the genealogy of Christ. This is listed twice for us in the gospels but this one in Matthew is the family tree from Joseph's side of the family. There are plenty of names that stand out on this list like Abraham, Isaac and David. But those are not the names I see most clearly when reading this chapter.

The first name that stands out to me is Tamar. She was married to a man named Er who was a son of Judah. Judah had 3 sons and Er was the oldest. Er died which left Tamar a widow. She then married to next of kin, which was what was done in those days if your spouse died. So she married Onan. He also died. So here was Tamar a twice widowed women who now only had one more option, to marry the youngest brother.  The problem was that he was not yet of age. What happens next is extremely sad, but happened often in the Bible. Judah went back on his word and did not allow Tamar to become the wife of his third son when the time came. So Tamar tricked Judah when he came into the city, where she became pregnant with two sons.

Tamar went through anguish and loss and out of desperation to try and get back at Judah did what she thought she needed to in order to survive.

The next name that shows up is Rahab. Now Rahab was a prostitute in the city of Jericho that helped to hide the Israelite spies when the king came looking for them. Everyone in town would have know who Rahab was. It was one of those things everyone living the city would have known, even if they didn't use her services. But God had been planning for this. He had made sure that everyone in the path of Israel heard of the things that God was doing. So when the time came, Rahab was willing to risk her life to help two men that she didn't even know.

The men hid on her roof as she sent the guards in the other direction. She then asked the men a favor. Rescue from the city before it was destroyed. The men of Israel agreed and Rahab and all of her family that were in the house the day that God provided for the kingdom of Jericho to be destroyed, her and everyone in her house were spared to complete God's promise. Then she happened to become the great grandmother to a certain man named David.

The next women who enters this story is one of my favorites. Her name was Ruth. Now Ruth was a Moabite woman who married a son of Naomi when her family came to escape famine in the land of Israel. She did not have the same God, the same beliefs, or the same future that her sister-in-law had. Her's was going in a direction that would lead straight to Jesus. Ruth's husband died as did the husband of Naomi and Naomi's other son. His wife went back to be with her family. But Ruth could not leave her mother-in-law.

Ruth said that where you go I will go and your God will be my God. I wonder if Ruth knew what she was saying when she said those words. Did she know that where she was going would lead her to be a part of the greatest story ever told? Though we will probably never know the answer to that question, I know that only God could have convinced her to leave the only home she had ever know to go to a place she had never been to marry a person named Boaz, the son of a prostitute. I'd like to think that had she know, she would have done the same thing.

And now we get to the 4th woman: Bathsheba. She was the wife of a man in the army of Israel. He was away at war and had no idea what was happening back at home. For some reason David, the king, was not out on the battlefield. We are never told why and it's another one of those questions that just may never get answered. David was on the roof of the palace when he saw a woman bathing. He asked his servants to find out who it was. They told him that her name was Bathsheba and that her husband was a soldier on the battle lines. David then had her brought to the palace where he slept with her. She became pregnant, and sent word to David.

David then brought her husband back from the war in order for him to sleep with his wife and then think that the baby was his and not the child of a king. He refused to when his fellow men were still in tents in the battle field to be intimate with his wife. He went back to the battlefield and was then killed. David brought Bathsheba to the castle and made her his wife. She later became the father of Solomon.

I say all of that to say this, if God can take a woman who is broken, a prostitute, a widow in a strange land and a women who had no choice in what she wanted to do, who's to say he can't use us? We are broken people who find the pleasures of the world to be what we desire most. We have lost ourselves in a land and we are no longer in control. But God takes the broken and makes them whole. He takes the things that enslave us and throws them as far as the east is from the west. He brings us out of a strange place and makes a sacrifice that we cannot pay. And He gives us a choice. The only question left now is what will you choose?