Placeholder

 December 25, 2020

The list is tedious. 1 Chronicles is what the title implies—genealogies of family lineages that had significance to people in a way we often cannot understand. Your family history determined where you fit in society, where you belonged; those lists of names told you whether you were in or out, and ultimately led to the Savior whose birth we celebrate today.

Even if we are serious students of Scripture, most of us skim through these lists to get to the story, but as we know from reading Ezra, not being able to prove one’s provenance was a serious matter that determined whether or not you were really part of God’s people. The Bible is filled with stories of great, and greatly flawed people, but merely having one’s name in the record books was enough.

Take Isaac, for example. His father Abraham walked by faith and became the father of nations. He did many great things,made some terrible mistakes, but for someone who lived to be 120, there really isn’t much said of him. His grandson Jacob was a scoundrel, but God seems to love scalawags in a special way, giving us plenty of stories about Jacob. Sandwiched between Abraham and Jacob is Isaac, who seems to be little more than a placeholder in the saga. About the only thing he accomplished was becoming the father of Jacob and Esau. 

Isaac gives me hope. The longer I live, the slimmer the possibility that I will accomplish great things in this world. I’ve had my time in the sun, known victories and defeats; like Isaac, one thing I can point to having accomplished is my children. They are rising higher, going further and deeper than I have done. Today as we gathered in our living room opening gifts, I felt a deep satisfaction. There was laughter and love. I am content. We aren’t perfect...far from it. Too often we resemble the biblical families with all their warts and wobblings, but I am thankful to included in the great plan of God. We are part of a greater family, with a lineage stretching back through faithful and faulty people, and reaching forward through our children and grandchildren into a future held secure in the grip of grace. My name isn’t in 1 Chronicles, but through the love and providence of the God who sent his Son into the world to be born, live, and die for our sins, it is in the Lamb’s Book of Life, even if like Isaac, I am little more than a placeholder.