JESUS LISTENED TO THE WOMEN’S VOICES OF THOSE IN HIS GENEALOGY

By Deryn

Jan 6, 2022

Sibelius monumnet Helsinki showing organ pipes that are tree trunks of the forest

Photo Pixabay, Sibelious Monument,

Music becomes a voice for change

I have long believed that the arts serve purposes far beyond decoration. A painting can tell a story. A poem can preserve a memory. A novel can give a forgotten person a voice. Drama and dance are transient vehicles for storytelling. And music? Music can bring people together.  have seen something of this for myself in my travels. I have stood before the monument to Jean Sibelius in Helsinki, Finland, and I have visited Estonia. Standing in those places, knowing something of their history, gives a different meaning to the music. You begin to understand that these were not simply composers writing beautiful melodies. In times of oppression and uncertainty, music can become a vessel carrying the identity of an entire people.

Music when a nation finds its voice

Consider Finland. For more than six hundred years, Finland was part of the Swedish realm. In 1809, it passed from Sweden to the Russian Empire and became an autonomous Grand Duchy. During the nineteenth century, a growing Finnish cultural movement sought to strengthen a distinct national identity. The Kalevala compiled from Finnish oral poetry, became an important expression of that identity. Artists, writers, and musicians began to give Finland a language of its own, not necessarily a political language, but a cultural one.

Sculpture of Sibelious Head, Helsinki

Photo Pixabay, Sibelious Monument

Then came Sibelius. In 1899, during a period of increasing Russian pressure and attempts at Russification, Sibelius composed the music that would become Finlandia It was originally part of a series of historical tableaux presented at the Press Celebrations in Helsinki. The final section, known as “Finland Awakes,” stirred something deep in the Finnish people. Finlandia became a symbol of Finnish nationalism. When I stood before the Sibelius monument, I wasn’t just viewing a memorial to a famous composer. It reminded me of what happens when art helps people remember their identity. Sibelius helped give Finland a sound, and sometimes people need a sound before finding a voice. Organ pipes represented the trees of the forest; forests go deep into the psyche of the Finnish people, a voice that resonated with them.Estonian Music Festival Stand

Estonia sang its way toward freedom

I experienced a similar feeling when I visited Estonia. Domination by powerful neighbors has marked Estonia’s history, and during the Soviet period, language and national identity were under pressure. Yet Estonia had an extraordinary cultural treasure: its singing tradition.

The Singing Revolution of the late 1980s demonstrated just how powerful that treasure could become. Hundreds of thousands of Estonians gathered at the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds and sang traditional and patriotic songs together. They sang Mu isamaa on minu arm, “Land of My Fathers, Land that I Love,” a song that had become deeply associated with Estonian identity. They also sang the patriotic songs of composer Alo Mattiisen.Music of Estonian Dancers

Estonian Folk Dancers, Video - Deryn van der Tang

This was nonviolence; they were not taking up arms, they were raising their voices. By 1989, the movement had grown into the remarkable Baltic Way, when people in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania joined hands in a human chain stretching across the three Baltic countries. Music had helped people remember they belonged to something larger than the political system that governed them.

The music that defied ruins

Then there is Sarajevo. During the terrible siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s, cellist Vedran Smailović became known as the “Cellist of Sarajevo.” After twenty-two people were killed while waiting for bread, Smailović returned to the devastated area and played Albinoni’s Adagio in G minor in their memory. Picture a city under attack. Amidst the broken buildings and people living in fear, a man sits with his cello and plays. The music could not stop the bombs, nor could it bring the dead back. But it declared something profound:

Beauty had not been destroyed. Human dignity had not been destroyed, and the human spirit had not been destroyed. That is the power of the arts.

Why do the arts matter?

When we talk about social change, we often think about politicians, protesters, legislation, and movements. And, of course, these matter. But underneath every movement is something deeper: a story about who we are and what we believe is worth preserving. Artists help us tell that story. A composer can give a nation a melody. Poets can preserve a language. Painters can capture a landscape that becomes part of a people’s memory. A storyteller can take the ordinary life of one family and reveal something universal about courage, suffering, and hope.

Perhaps that is why oppressive regimes have so often tried to control language, literature, music, and art. They understand something we sometimes forget: culture holds memory. And memory gives people identity.

The Bible tells us, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver” (Proverbs 25:11).

Sometimes someone speaks, paints, sings, or writes that word.

The arts may not change the world overnight. Yet, they have the power to shift how people view the world. And once people see differently, they may begin to think differently, hope differently, and eventually act differently.

As I think about Finland, Estonia, and many other places I have traveled, I remember that the arts form a vital part of human society. They are part of our inheritance; they carry the stories of those who came before us. They inspire courage in those struggling today and plant seeds of hope for future generations. Perhaps that is why music has such extraordinary power.

A single voice may be silenced, a single instrument broken, yet a song alive in people’s hearts proves much harder to destroy.

And sometimes, when a people begin to sing together, the world begins to listen.

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women sitting on a wooden bench
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The sermon series run in our church during Advent highlighted the women in Jesus’ genealogy.  This is probably the first time I have heard these women being honored as part of Jesus genealogy. As I sat and listened to their stories, I wondered why I had not heard their point of view before. As an explorer of ideas and concepts, it struck me that preachers were generally male, the times the stories were written in were times of the patriarchal order and systems when women were not considered important other than to be breeders of children to carry on the male line. Being barren was the worst fate to befall a woman in those days. Women’s voices in general had been shut down or downplayed. Yet they carried the inner scars in the cells in their bodies and carried their generational trauma forward to the next generation.

a hijab woman leaning on the wall
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels.com

I then read a book on five women’s encounters with Jesus where their stories were told. Tears filled my eyes as I read of the compassion, lack of judgement and redemption for each of these women. At the same time, I felt He was redeeming the stories of the women in his genealogy, healing the generational trauma in their bodies, hearts, minds, and spirits. Jesus heard their cries for someone to listen to their story.

I will give a brief outline to the stories of the women in Jesus’ genealogy in this blog post and the stories of the five women that Jesus brought wholeness to in the following blog post as I want you to have time to think about these women and their back stories, how you viewed them in the past and what you may feel about them now you have viewed them from a different perspective.

BEFORE JESUS WAS BORN - HIS GENEALOGY

Tamar

a woman standing beside the coffin
Photo by Pavel Danilyuk on Pexels.com

Tamar was a Canaanite woman that Judah married to first one son then another. When both sons died without progeny, Judah did not do what was demanded of him by the same custom as he married his sons to Tamar, to marry her to another son or find her a husband. She felt rejected and discarded, and her dignity stripped when Judah told her to go to her parents’ house and live as a widow. She used her own initiative with the only possibility open to her, that of a prostitute. Judah went to the prostitute and slept with her. The child born from that encounter was Perez, part of the genealogy of Jesus. I have never heard a sermon explain why Judah went to a prostitute! But he said, “She is more righteous than I,” eventually giving her the recognition that he should have done at first. Read the laws in Deuteronomy 25:5 and 26:12, Judah had broken both those laws as the Tamar was also a ‘stranger’ in the land.

Rahab

sexy ethnic prostitute in bdsm collar lying on bed and biting red strap
Photo by Kamaji Ogino on Pexels.com

Joshua sent two spies out to,” Go, look out the land,” They ended up in Jericho at a prostitute’s house! Now that part of the story was explained to me in the past: what were they doing there instead of looking out at the land! Yet, Rahab is part of the genealogy of Jesus she was the mother of Boaz. James said, “was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction?” By preserving the lives of the spies, for whatever reason she was a prostitute or that they were visiting her, she and her families’ lives were saved and she was considered righteous.

Ruth

woman wearing brown headdress
Photo by Ogo on Pexels.com

Ruth was a Moabitess, immigrant foreigner. She was faithful to her Jewish mother-in-law Naomi. As widows they were destitute in the patriarchal system where only men could provide a living for a woman. Through her faithfulness to Naomi, they took the initiative, took an enormous risk to Ruth’s reputation to ask for marriage for Ruth to Boaz, calling on the same Deuteronomic laws of protection for widows. Yet, she found favor in both God and Boaz eyes, who took her as his wife. The women encouraged Naomi, “For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him [Obed] birth.” Obed became the grandfather of Kind David.

Bathsheba

woman holding flowers in hands in water
Photo by Monstera on Pexels.com

An innocent woman, taking her purification bath in her courtyard where she thought she had some privacy, was unaware of the lustful stare of King David whose palace overlooked her rooftop. She had no say in refusing the King when he sent for her. She was taken to his palace where he used her as he would. To hide his sin King David had her husband Uriah killed. Not only was Bathsheba raped, but her husband was also killed, and now she was a pregnant widow, probably the worst position a women could be in.

When Bathsheba heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. Once the time of mourning was over, David tried to rectify his sin and brough her to his house. She became his wife and bore him a son."

When Bathsheba heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. Once the time of mourning was over, David tried to rectify his sin and brought her to his house. She became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the Lord, and although he repented, his family life was dysfunctional as a consequence. When David was dying his son Adonijah placed himself on the throne. Bathsheba went into King David to remind him he had sworn to her that Solomon his son will be king after him. She reminded him that she and Solomon would be treated as criminals once David died. David rectified the matter and placed Solomon on the throne. When Solomon acceded to the throne, he had a throne brought for his mother and Bathsheba sat as his right hand, in a position of power. God upheld her dignity in the terrible circumstances she was forced into.

women working together
Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.com

When you look at these women’s stories from a completely different perspective, you hear their cries for justice in a patriarchal system that marginalized them as human beings made in the image of God. You see the hand of God moving to vindicate them and bring them into a place where they are given justice and the honor of being part of the genealogy of Jesus.

Jesus must have known and understood this when he sought out the women whose stories I will share in my next blog. [ to be continued…..] 

I would love to have your comments on this perspective. You can respond in the What are Your Thought box.

If you are interested to hear the sermon series, it can be found on You Tube Christ City Church. The two books I have read and used as reference as well are “The Day I met Jesus” by Frank Viola and “Women of the Bible Speak out” by Marlo Schalesky

4 Comments

  1. Yvonne Joan De Martino
    Yvonne Joan De Martino on January 14, 2022 at 5:12 pm

    Very interesting Deryn, and bit of an eye opener.
    Well written.
    Thank you
    Yvonne x

    Reply
    • Deryn
      Deryn on January 14, 2022 at 6:25 pm

      I shed tears reading this book!

      Reply
  2. Dianne Marie Andre
    Dianne Marie Andre on January 15, 2022 at 7:08 pm

    It’s encouraging to know God’s vindication for these women has continued through generations.

    Reply
    • Deryn
      Deryn on January 15, 2022 at 9:43 pm

      It certainly is. I found this really helpful, as it is not generally preached on!

      Reply

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