What's In Our Basement?

Dear Byron,

Not sure if you read comic books. I know they've changed a whole bunch since I was a kid. I know you can still buy them to read about those super-heroes. Here's a story about a family that was about to lose their home because they couldn't make the mortgage payment. When they dug around in some old boxes in their basement they found an old Superman comic book that was very valuable to collectors, worth a cool quarter million bucks! They sold it and were able to make their mortgage payment and save their house: Cool-O-Rama » Superman Comic Saves Family Home From Foreclosure

This is the stuff that we who write novels love to use. At the last possible moment, just as disaster is about to come down upon the family, an unforeseen hero drops in, a strange twist of events happens and the bad guys go away, everything turns out right.

I have a friend who has collected and saved his Superman comic books for years. I don't recall him saying he has any first editions. I hope he does. He can use it for his retirement fund. Of course, knowing him, he probably won't want to part with the comic books themselves.

What's in your basement—or your attic if you don't have a basement? Let me put it another way. What do you know about your family history, about your heritage, about all those people who lived and sacrificed, laughed, celebrated, prayed and passed on what you and your family have today—your basement?

The Gospel of Matthew opens with the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham. That recitation of Jesus' "basement" is critical (Matthew 1:1-17). It points to the careful working out of God's plan to rescue His people through His exalted Son through generation after generation, working forward from Abraham through David to Jesus with a stylized (three fourteens) legal line of descent. All of God's promises are now fulfilled.

The Gospel of Luke goes in another direction, tracing Jesus' genealogy all the way back to Adam, thus relating Him to all nations (Luke 3:23-38). Luke names the actual ancestors of Joseph's branch of the family.

What's in our family's basement? Something far more valuable than a Superman comic book. That's what I want to share with you, Byron, in the posts that will follow. I want you to know a little about me, your GGMa and all those other people who lived before you. But above all, I want you to know that Jesus has brought us all into His great and wonderful family. And I want to celebrate with you and the rest of the Jesus Family in our heavenly Father's house forever and ever.

All my love,

GGPa Al