For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. – 1 Corinthians 15:22
In October of 1964 (59 years ago), the fifth episode of “The Addams Family” aired on CBS, and the title of the episode was called, “The Addams Family Tree.” In this episode, the quirky Addams’ find out that their family tree is filled with all sorts of devious people and characters of disrepute. However, instead of being embarrassed by these facts, they take ghoulish pride in them, reveling in the misdeeds of their predecessors. Of course, the brilliance of this old television series was how this odd family turned our normal conventions on their heads in order to force the viewer to look at them with a new light. Clearly, no one takes pride in the misdeeds in their family history, but at the same time, no one has a family history without any misdeeds. Whether we like it or not, we all have liars, murders, theives, and hate filled people in our bloodline. None of us have a perfect heritage. I can say this with certainty because ultimately all of our genealogical lines converge on a single man and woman, Adam and Eve. Therefore, we all have grown up in the original Adam’s Family Tree (notice only one “n” in Adam).
Later in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul describes Jesus as a new type of “Adam,” or literally, “the last Adam.” However, while the old Adam started a group of people through biological means, the new “Adam,” Jesus, started a new type of people through spiritual means, offered by faith. This is the great news that while you can’t change your earthly family tree, you can change your spiritual family tree by joining God’s family by faith. When you do that, you are adopted into Jesus’ family, he will make you come alive, and you take your place in the new Adam’s family tree.
So today, maybe we should actually try to be more like the TV Addams … not having pride about our past sins of our heritage, but being honest about them, knowing that those sins have been wiped out by the blood of Jesus. He is the new name at the top of our family tree.
Josh Rose