Lineage

My father started a search for his lineage in the 1970s. There was no Google to help him, or heritage foundation, so he hired a noted searcher who started from the known, a Scottish farm near Castle Douglas. He went to the parish churches to find out who married whom. It went on and on until after some centuries he stopped at a labourer on a farm. His descendants owned the wealthy and prestigious farm that bred award-winning Clydesdale horses and cattle. As a boy, my father spent some holidays at the farm with his mother. My grandmother had been a missionary nurse and her mother-in-law disapproved of “her fine English ways.” In fact she was born in England but her parents were German political refugees.
My Scottish great-grandmother was a very strong-willed widow. She had 4 sons and had decided who they should marry. The sons were equally strong-willed so my grandfather became a Rhodesian pioneer, one disappeared to America, and two remained bachelors.
Many years later through an inheritance, my father found his American cousin. She and her husband became very good friends of my parents on their trips to London, and John and I visited them in their home among the forests outside Princeton. I was most surprised to see a statuette of her father - it could have been my Dad!
And so I have something in common with Queen Elizabeth 11! She can trace her ancestors from Scottish royal houses and English ones from as early as the 7thc House of Wessex. Through Queen Victoria she is related to many royal houses in Europe – including Oldenburg in North Germany. Her husband, Prince Philip, was also a royal and was actually Queen Elizabeth’s third cousin.
All this leads me to think of our Lord’s lineage as told in the 4 Gospels. Matthew starts from Abraham and ends with Joseph, husband of Mary, and regarded as the father of Jesus. He could never have written “Son of God” because ancestry was required for the Roman Empire’s census. Mark has no list of ancestors but in his first chapter, tells of the baptism of Jesus by John in the Jordan and the voice that came from heaven: “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Luke writes in 1:35,  “the angel answered her and said, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon you, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God.” And then John, the great theologian, starts in 1:14 with this magnificent statement: “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”
And what of my lineage and yours? It is of no consequence. Our eternal lineage, if we are Christians, shall be as the sons and daughters of God himself.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Merle
Here is a poem from A CHRISTIAN IN LONDON AND PARIS that you may like to read.
LONDON WOULDN’T BE LONDON
London
wouldn’t be
London
without the Queen
 
the Queen
was here
yesterday
said a policewoman
on duty
in the Mall
when I
asked her
what was happening
she was
young and pretty
her filled eyes
showed
how she felt
 
that esteem
has been
earned
and at
eighty
still is
 
we were
on our way
to the
Queen’s Gallery
to see her
new portrait
 
there she sat
almost filling
the canvas
dressed in green-
a wonderful
vivid emerald-
the pearls
the broach
somewhat shy
serene
 
a film
showed the artist
touching
his palette
looking up
adding
layer upon layer
until the
portrait
was finished
realistic
simple
true
 
and I realized
the awesome responsibility
that rests on monarchy
to do
what is right
in the sight
of the Lord –
 
and on us too