If you were tasked with retelling the most significant story in human history, how would you begin? Matthew had to ask the same question, and what was his answer? A genealogy. Seriously? Could there be anything more boring than that? We normally skip right over genealogies, but in Jesus’s world, genealogies were anything but boring. And when we understand what Matthew does with Jesus’s genealogy, we grasp how electrifying it was for those in the first-century world, and how electrifying it is for us this Christmas season to reflect on the hope, salvation, and restoration that came through Jesus. What’s more, we are reminded that all are welcome to be part of God’s family, no matter how messed up our past or our present may be.