As I watched my Christmas begin during the Behold the Lamb of God concert, I noticed those in the background.
The cellist cello-ing,
the drummers drumming,
the voices in the background adding a richness we sometimes miss in the melody.
Thoughts of God working in the background throughout history came rushing in.
And I remembered Matthew 1 and those in the lineage of Christ.
Abraham was the father of Isaac.
Matthew 1, NLT
Isaac was the father of Jacob.
Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers.
Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah (whose mother was Tamar).
Perez was the father of Hezron.
Hezron was the father of Ram.
Ram was the father of Amminadab.
Amminadab was the father of Nahshon.
Nahshon was the father of Salmon.
Salmon was the father of Boaz (whose mother was Rahab).
Boaz was the father of Obed (whose mother was Ruth).
Obed was the father of Jesse.
Jesse was the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon (whose mother was Bathsheba, the widow of Uriah).
Solomon was the father of Rehoboam.
Rehoboam was the father of Abijah.
Abijah was the father of Asa.
Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat.
Jehoshaphat was the father of Jehoram.
Jehoram was the father of Uzziah.
Uzziah was the father of Jotham.
Jotham was the father of Ahaz.
Ahaz was the father of Hezekiah.
Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh.
Manasseh was the father of Amon.
Amon was the father of Josiah.
Josiah was the father of Jehoiachin and his brothers (born at the time of the exile to Babylon).
After the Babylonian exile:Jehoiachin was the father of Shealtiel.
Shealtiel was the father of Zerubbabel.
Zerubbabel was the father of Abiud.
Abiud was the father of Eliakim.
Eliakim was the father of Azor.
Azor was the father of Zadok.
Zadok was the father of Akim.
Akim was the father of Eliud.
Eliud was the father of Eleazar.
Eleazar was the father of Matthan.
Matthan was the father of Jacob.
Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary.
Mary gave birth to Jesus, who is called the Messiah.
While we often want to rush through any lineage in the Bible, God thought it important enough to write it all down.
Some of these names we recognize.
Most of them we don’t.
Some of them took the main stage in stories.
Others were only in the background.
But it is the background that God works.
Wielding His will on us.
Shaping the redemption story through people:
every day, ordinary, background people.
And I remember that what we see in the forefront doesn’t always show us what is going on in the background.
A while back, I taught bible study to a group of ladies. We had just trudged our way through the book of Judges. We were worn weary by the cycle of Israel’s sin much like we were worn weary by our own. But then we turned the page to the beginning sentence of Ruth:
And hope sprang forth.
Ruth is a small book. It is read mostly as a love story between Ruth and Boaz. But it is so much more.
It is the story of how God was working in the background. He was working while the chaos in Israel was taking place. He was weaving a thread of hope – ever so slowly, ever so gently – in the background while the world clamored and sin took stage.
And that thread of hope is documented in Matthew’s fifth line:
Maybe you feel like you’re in the background…
Or maybe your life is full of chaos and clamoring…
And you can’t see what God is doing.
May you remember: it is in the background that God works.
Wielding His will on us.
Shaping His redemption story.
Things may seem bleak or hopeless. And God might seem silent.
But He is there.
Working and weaving…
Amidst the hurting and the hard…
In the mundane and the melancholy…
between the now and the not-yet…
He is working…
somewhere in the background.