God's mission prevails (Matthew 1:1-17 and Luke 3:24-38)

There are two geneologies of Jesus in the New Testament.  I have printed the start of both of them - snipping 40 some generations to spare us the details:
 
Matthew 1:1-17 An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David: the son of Abraham...

Luke 3:24-38 Jesus was the son (as was supposed) of Joseph son of Heli... 

It had been prophesied that the Messiah would come through the lineage of King David so it was important to show that Jesus could be traced back to King David.  But Jesus' lineage was never disputed during his ministry.  And since records were kept in the temple, it would have been an easy thing for the Pharisees and others who hated Jesus to dispute if there had been any question.  So we can assume this was a pretty clear fact.

BUT what is remarkable to me about Jesus' lineage is exactly what I snipped out of the verses above.  If you read the whole thing you can see that women are mentioned in it.  And they aren't the goodie-two-shoes grandmas one might brag about.  They are Tamar, who committed incest; Rahab, a gentile who was a prostitute; Ruth, also a gentile; And Bathsheba, who committed adultery with King David.  Jesus was not entirely Jewish?  And if you think the men mentioned in the geneologies might be any better, then think again.  There are names of some unjust wicked kings, adulterers, and murderers! 

Jesus had a terrible family tree.  But this tree shows us how God works.  People can choose to play a positive role in God's mission or a negative one.  Either way, in the end, God's mission always gets accomplished.  This is what our hope is based on: that we can trust God to work out his mission - keep his promises - despite the worse kinds of obstacles!  Even the obstacles we create in our own lives.  God can work through the obstacles in our lives to enable us to serve him despite ourselves.  It is exactly why Jesus came... to make right our broken lives, to make our paths straight.  God is powerful enough to enable any of us to follow Jesus.  There is hope for us.