By Kathy Stanford

For me, Christmas is a truly sacred time of the year. Not because of the beloved traditions or the giving of gifts or even the special family time, but because of who we celebrate. Emmanuel – God with us.

One year, as I shopped and prepared for a Christmas Celebration, it seemed that everywhere I went, I saw Ugly Sweater products.  I found myself getting really annoyed.  As I stood in one store, filled with righteous indignation over yet another way the world had taken this precious and beautiful piece of God’s love and demeaned it to crass commercialism, I sensed that gentle presence that can only be the Holy Spirit.

And then my heart heard this question, “Why are you so bothered by this?”  Of course I answered back something like – “How can you ask that?  Don’t you see what they’re doing to Christmas?” Then He reminded me that making the ugly beautiful is what He does.

Matthew chapter 1 is one of the places where the linage of Jesus is recorded. Not many of us love reading long lists of who was whose father. So you might be unaware that among that long list of males there are five women listed. They are Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and Mary. Now lets imagine life at birth as a beautiful, perfect sweater. By the time these women are written into the lineage of Jesus, their sweaters are not so pristine. They are a deceiver, a prostitute, a widow from an enemy land, an adulteress and a young, unmarried, pregnant girl.

The first mentioned is Tamar. Her story is told in Gen. 38. She was married to Judah’s son Er, but he was wicked and God took his life. Then she was married to Er’s brother Onan, because it was their custom to provide an heir for a brother who died childless. But Onan acted wickedly and God took his life too. Then Judah made a promise he had no intention of keeping. (v. 11) He sent Tamar back to her family and told her to wait for the youngest son, Shelah, to come of age so that she could marry him. Years went by and Tamar knew that Shelah was grown, but Judah had done nothing toward fulfilling his promise. We need to remember that as a woman, she had no rights of ownership and was solely dependent on her male relatives, such as a husband or sons, to provide for her. So she took matters into her own hands. Pretending to be a shrine prostitute, she deceived Judah into sleeping with her and became pregnant with twins. One of those twins, Perez, is listed in the genealogy of Jesus.

The second name is Rahab. We read about her in Joshua chapter 2. You may remember the story of Jericho and the walls falling. Part of that story is Rahab, the prostitute who helped the two spies escape by hiding them and then letting them down the outside of the wall. Before they left, she struck a deal with them to save her entire family when they captured Jericho. (v.12-13) Sometime after Jericho fell, Rahab married Salmon. Their son was Boaz.

The third woman was Ruth, a woman with her own book in the Old Testament. She was from Moab, a land that was often at war with Israel. She was a woman of good character who, upon being widowed, chose to travel to an enemy land so that she could care for her mother in law. There she married Boaz and they were the great-grandparents of David.

The fourth woman was Bathsheba. The 11^th and 12^th chapters of 2^nd Samuel tell the story of her infidelity with King David. A lot has been said about her not being able to say no to the king, but there is no evidence that he forced himself on her. Because of their adultery, she became pregnant and David had her husband murdered. Though that 1^st baby died, she later bore Solomon, the first direct descendant in the kingly line of David.

And that brings us to Mary. Her story is found mostly in the first two chapters of Luke. We don’t know a lot about her life circumstances, but we can see evidence of her faith and godly character in the way she submitted to God’s will. And we see her faith and loyalty as she followed Jesus to the cross. We also know that she was misunderstood and thought wrongly of by Joseph.

Perhaps the brief story of one of these women resonated with you. After a few years of living, your life’s sweater has some spots on it. It may even be a little torn or slightly frayed. You may think it’s beyond hope, good for nothing but the trash bin or the rag bag.

Maybe, like Tamar, you’ve suffered betrayal by those you loved or trusted. A betrayal so deep and painful you felt utterly alone. Maybe you felt you had to do something to get justice for yourself. Even if it meant doing something you knew wasn’t right.

Or it could be that, like Rahab, you’ve made some wrong choices because you couldn’t see better ones. Maybe you have some major regrets that the enemy keeps throwing in your face, telling you that you’re an unlovable loser.

Perhaps you feel like Ruth. You’re just trying to live your life and do what’s right. But your life is filled with loss and disappointments, and dreams get crushed.

And then there’s Bathsheba.  Maybe you’ve been tempted by greener grass. Maybe you’ve coveted that bigger house, those “easier” children, or that more perfect husband

Or maybe, like Mary, you love God and want only to please Him. But you keep finding yourself misunderstood, even thought to be in the wrong.

But I want to remind you … right here … right now … we have hope – because of Jesus. Because of His love and sacrifice, the ugly sweaters of our life can be made new. His gentle hands will remove those splotches that life has thrown on us. Weather they come from our bad choices or circumstances beyond our control, His love can make our ugly sweater like new again.

We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. None are righteous. None. In our ugly sinful state God can’t fellowship with us. But because of Jesus we can be made right – our ugly sinfulness washed clean. And we can have deep, intimate fellowship with I AM, the One, the God of creation! 

“Father, thank you for the love and sacrifice that sent us Jesus. Thank you for the gift of taking our ugly life sweaters and making them beautiful again. Thank you for including imperfect women like me in your story. We love and praise you, in Jesus name. Amen“

If you don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus, or are unsure, click on the tab “Do you know Jesus” at the top of the page.