Grandma Reynen and the Genealogy of Jesus

Last night at the weekly Bible Study, while I was reading, of all things, the genealogy of Jesus, as it is found in the third chapter of the Gospel of Luke, I was reminded of my grandmother, Pearl Reynen. Now, why would I be thinking of my grandmother when the names of obscure men of Israel like Addi, Nashon, and Arphaxad were being mentioned, you ask?

To answer that question we must travel back into the “ancient” past of my youth to warm summer days spent in the small town of Hollandale, Minnesota. The city kids from New York would come for a week or two to visit family in the Midwest. These were happy, carefree times when the most pressing questions were what adventures we were going to explore in the sandbox or cornfield and what time the daily Scrabble game would begin.

There was one daily ritual that occurred at each lunch. Following the shared meal, Grandma Reynen would pull her Bible off the shelf, worn from years of daily use and filled with bits of paper, as I recall, from notes taken at church or at home from personal study. Along with the Bible was a denominational publication indicating the daily readings assigned for the day. No one was able to get up from the kitchen table until we had read from the assigned texts and reflected on the guided meditation.

I could actually hear my grandmother’s voice last night as I read the names of Amminadab and Eliakim, Jorim and Eliezer. These were just not names on a piece of sacred text but real individuals and heroes of the Bible who my grandmother knew and could tell you stories about them. She had a passion for the Scriptures that was rich, genuine, and these days, very rare. But, that daily example instilled in me a love for the 'Old Old Story' that today still quickens my heart and stirs my passions.

There is a tendency in the times in which we live to look back on such examples of families sharing meals and reading from the Scriptures as quaint or perhaps antiquated. But, I would suggest that the daily discipline of opening the Scriptures and reading portions of it, even the genealogies, can still have a profound effect on our lives as the stories become our own. I will always be grateful for my grandmother’s love, her passion for the Word of God, and for the biblical stories she shared of Adam, Seth and Noah, Jesse, David and Nathan, and let’s not forget, Zerubbabel.

Love One Another - Brian