Tidings for Tuesday
Which was the son of Melea, which was the son of Menan, which was the son of Mattatha, which was the son of Nathan, which was the son of David. Luke 3:38
Among the names listed in the genealogy of Jesus Christ through His mother Mary we find the name of Nathan. All we know of him is that he was a prince, a son of David and Bathsheba, which makes him a full brother of Solomon. We are not told of any deeds of his, or of his personality. He stands simply as a link in the genealogy of our Lord, proving that Jesus had a double claim to the throne of His father David. That is because the genealogy in Matthew traces Joseph’s lineage through Solomon. But there is another great lesson that we learn today from Nathan as he speaks to us from thousands of years ago. His presence in the royal household was a voice that spoke to his father David every day.
Where did Prince Nathan get his name? There is only one other Nathan listed in the Scriptures, a courageous and faithful prophet who challenged David about his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah. This challenge is recorded in 2 Samuel 12, a challenge that led to David’s repentance. If we read David’s Psalm of repentance, Psalm 51, we will encounter the words ‘My sin is ever before me’. David was so sorry for his great sin that he determined never to forget it, so that he might remain humble before God. Every day, as he sat down to his meals with his family, David would look across the table to Bathsheba’s third son and see the lad who he named after the faithful prophet. The prophet was gone, but his namesake sat at David’s table. And David would be reminded of his own weakness. You and I are no better than David, and have committed sins that are just as wrong as his. We should never forget that.
Pride is a sin that is very destructive. We can become so confident in our ability to stand and be faithful, so sure of our spiritual grounding, that we forget that we can take as deep a tumble as David did. None of us is immune to the devil’s attacks, to the weaknesses of the flesh, and the lure of the world. In truth, none of us has been free of stumblings and errors along our Christian pathway. While we should not dwell on those misdeeds because to do so would cripple us on our Christian pathway, we should remember them, and we should be sorry every day that we were a disappointment to our Lord and to others.
We need to keep a few Nathans around to make sure we are repentant and to keep us humble before our Lord. – Jim MacIntosh