The Advent of the Son Encompassed by the City
Have you ever wondered why the genealogies found in Matthew and Luke trace Jesus to a man who did not father him? Additionally, there are 25 lists found in the Old Testament, inspired to magnify sonship . . . more explicitly the sonship of Mary’s child born in Bethlehem. And yet, from the announcement in Genesis 3:15, the seed sent to redeem God’s people from their sins belongs to the woman. Both the favor and the enmity belong to the woman.
Perhaps part of the reason that the Seed is the woman’s specifically reminds us of the motherhood of heaven, woman representing that realm as Mother Zion. Our existence as male and female is far from arbitrary. It is more than just a way to exist in this world, more than the means to fill this world. Our maleness and femaleness are above all didactic.1 They teach us. They bring us hope. They point us beyond ourselves to the eternal, immutable, triune God, proceeding and embracing internally, as well as to the revelation of themselves in the heavens — an enthroning Father, an enthroned Son, and a Spirit-temple. They tell us what is beyond our brief sojourn here. They tell us about ultimate things, things that existed before God said, “Let us make mankind in our image.”
The world as we know it is fleeting. The cities below are fleeting. The frailties of our flesh, and with them our preoccupation with weaknesses and mortality, are fleeting. But there is a future. There is Father, Son, and Spirit manifest in a realm beyond troubles, trials, and fears, and there are bodies prepared for us to experience the never-ending joy of beholding the throne of the Father and the Son in the Tabernacle-City. And there is the embrace of the incarnate Son, the stag on cleft mountains, our Shepherd King and husband, waiting for us in Zion.
I have come to believe that in part maleness points to sonship, who we are as a people born in this world but pressing onward in time and upward in space toward our inheritance on the mountain of the Lord. This is one reason why the Scripture’s genealogies exist. They move us forward. And I have come to believe that femaleness points us to a people born from above, an eternal city built without human hands. We are a people born there, in the mind and decree of the triune God. Before God created the earth, our names were recorded in Zion (Ps 87:1-7). We are the seed of the Spirit-city, Mother Zion, who has given birth to a people destined for never-ending union and communion with God beyond testing and the serpent (Genesis 3:1-6), beyond Satan, sin, suffering, and death (Genesis 3:6-Revelation 22).
The Seed is Mary’s seed because the Seed is born from the city above. He came from heaven to earth. The Seed is Abraham’s seed because he was born here, below. He traversed this world, this wilderness — cradle to cross, cross to grave, grave to mountain, mountain to sky. Maleness points to sonship, and sonship points us forward as an earth-traversing people. We rejoice in David’s greater son, not because his DNA can be traced to David through literal blood lines (which they can’t) but because Jesus was faithful and achieved the end of sonship in the Sabbath City of God.
Think about it. We do not know Jesus’s bloodline because we do not know Mary’s bloodline. Perhaps through this God is telling us that it is not about literal blood, actual traceable DNA. It’s not about us. For those who would exalt maleness over femaleness, know that Jesus’s flesh is traced to a man who was merely thought to be the father of Jesus. For those who would exalt femaleness over maleness, know that Mary, indeed no woman in Scripture, has a genealogy and that Jesus was indeed male. Let those who boast, boast in the Lord. Like Melchizedek, Jesus is the eternal Son, without father, without mother, without genealogy (Heb 7:3). Existing as such he took on flesh to be born of the virgin in order that he might deal with sin and bring us to the glory citadel from which he came. But let us also know that the city from which he came and the city to which he ascended is a feminized city, which also cannot be traced. Her foundations are eternal foundations (Heb 11:10). Our maleness and femaleness are above all didactic. They raise our eyes and point us to things to come — things too wonderful for us, but things that we are destined to see and experience forever as his people. For the Lord has created a new thing in the earth — a woman will encompass a man (Jer 31:22). I wish you today and always the joy of thoughts carried to that Son in that encompassing Spirit-city . . . until the day when we reach that end for which we were made, yes, male and female.
Thank you, Lynna Sutherland, for reminding me of this word in your recent Facebook post.
“For those who would exalt femaleness over maleness, know that Mary, indeed no woman in Scripture, has a genealogy and that Jesus was indeed male”
While I agree with the things you say here, I do not think that most people are trying to exalt femaleness over maleness, but are trying to bring women back into the story. Notice in Genesis 1:26-29, God says he will make humankind male and female and give them dominion and blessings to multiply and fill the earth. In contrast, Gen. 9:1-7 God says he will bless Noah and his sons to be fruitful and replenish the earth and the fear and dread of them will be upon every beast and fowl of the earth. There’s also a punishment for murder. I think Jesus is continually emphasized as being “born of a woman” is pointing to the fact that the blessings of Noah and his sons was the paradigm God chose in response to the realities of the sin of patriarchy. In Gen. 6:18-19, God told Noah to go into the Ark in the order of Noah and his sons, and the Noah’s wife and the son’s wives followed by animals two by two male and female. In Gen. 8: 16, God told Noah to come out of the ark in the order of Noah and his wife, the sons and their wives, then the animals. Instead in Gen. 8: 18, Noah came out of the Ark exactly as he went into it with Noah and his sons first followed by Noah’s wives and the son’s wives then animals male and female. 1 Peter 3:20 compares Noah’s flood to a baptism. This baptism resulted in the blessings of Noah and his son while Gal 3:28 baptism formula now show that there is neither male nor female for we are one in God which goes back to the original blessings of Gen. 1:26-29 and emphasizes the two becoming one as shown in Genesis 2:24. Those are small details in Noah’s ark story that shed light on why the original blessings of male and female were given to Noah and his sons because they failed to come out of the baptism unchanged so God chose to recognize this in a fallen world. The blessings of mother and son through Mary and Jesus restored this in part. What about the blessings of mothers and daughters? I do find it significant that Song of Songs shows the Shulamite bringing the beloved to her Mother’s house which is an echo of matrilocality that is hinted at in Gen. 2:24 as well as points us eschatologically to the mother’s house in the New Jerusalem.