Sun Kwak, “Tamar: The Justice of God” (Advent 2025)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y9i-RcYu20

TEXT: Genesis 38:6-30

[6] And Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. [7] But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD put him to death. [8] Then Judah said to Onan, “Go in to your brother’s wife and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother.” [9] But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his. So whenever he went in to his brother’s wife he would waste the semen on the ground, so as not to give offspring to his brother. [10] And what he did was wicked in the sight of the LORD, and he put him to death also. [11] Then Judah said to Tamar his daughter-in-law, “Remain a widow in your father’s house, till Shelah my son grows up”—for he feared that he would die, like his brothers. So Tamar went and remained in her father’s house.

[12] In the course of time the wife of Judah, Shua’s daughter, died. When Judah was comforted, he went up to Timnah to his sheepshearers, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite. [13] And when Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep,” [14] she took off her widow’s garments and covered herself with a veil, wrapping herself up, and sat at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that Shelah was grown up, and she had not been given to him in marriage. [15] When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. [16] He turned to her at the roadside and said, “Come, let me come in to you,” for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. She said, “What will you give me, that you may come in to me?” [17] He answered, “I will send you a young goat from the flock.” And she said, “If you give me a pledge, until you send it—” [18] He said, “What pledge shall I give you?” She replied, “Your signet and your cord and your staff that is in your hand.” So he gave them to her and went in to her, and she conceived by him. [19] Then she arose and went away, and taking off her veil she put on the garments of her widowhood.

[20] When Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite to take back the pledge from the woman’s hand, he did not find her. [21] And he asked the men of the place, “Where is the cult prostitute who was at Enaim at the roadside?” And they said, “No cult prostitute has been here.” [22] So he returned to Judah and said, “I have not found her. Also, the men of the place said, ‘No cult prostitute has been here.’” [23] And Judah replied, “Let her keep the things as her own, or we shall be laughed at. You see, I sent this young goat, and you did not find her.”

[24] About three months later Judah was told, “Tamar your daughter-in-law has been immoral. Moreover, she is pregnant by immorality.” And Judah said, “Bring her out, and let her be burned.” [25] As she was being brought out, she sent word to her father-in-law, “By the man to whom these belong, I am pregnant.” And she said, “Please identify whose these are, the signet and the cord and the staff.” [26] Then Judah identified them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not know her again.

[27] When the time of her labor came, there were twins in her womb. [28] And when she was in labor, one put out a hand, and the midwife took and tied a scarlet thread on his hand, saying, “This one came out first.” [29] But as he drew back his hand, behold, his brother came out. And she said, “What a breach you have made for yourself!” Therefore his name was called Perez. [30] Afterward his brother came out with the scarlet thread on his hand, and his name was called Zerah.

SERMON: “The Justice of God” (Advent 2025)

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, says Andy Williams, along with every shopping mall this time of year. I went to a cycling class this past Friday, which was Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. And the instructor started drawing a Christmas tree on the wall. This was immediate — the day after. And it’s reflected all around us, this immediate jump from Thanksgiving to Christmas. But it’s a weird time for me, and I’ll explain. Because I like to consider myself as both sensitive to cultural contextualization as someone in vocational ministry, in the vein of Tim Keller, while simultaneously a liturgical creature who follows the cyclical patterns of the liturgical church calendar. And the tension for me is that this season between late November to late December is in our culture the time when the year is ending. With extended breaks and end of year celebrations and parties. The general sentiment is that of being uplifted and elated. But in the liturgical church calendar, it’s the time when the year is actually beginning. And this isn’t the only convergence that amounts to a tension from what’s culturally experienced and liturgically mapped out. Because we’re in the holiday season from a cultural experience, what Tish Harrison Warren calls the compulsive jollification of the Christmas season. But with the liturgical church calendar, Advent carries a different tune. It’s not so much happy, cheery, and jollybut more solemn, pensive, and anticipatory. Not so much — Yes, we’ve arrived! But more so — We’re waiting for one to arrive. Because what Christmas represents is the arrival of the infant king. And what Advent represents is the experience of waiting — of the generations of people (10 generations, meaning 400 years). Where this myriad of people were longing, were left waiting, were left wondering. When is he coming? And when will all this stop? And this — as in all the mess and the sadness and the brokenness that we perceive around and in us. The this that’s actually still here and still felt today.

And yet, what Advent provides for us is how we can, year after year, meet this wondering and waiting and pondering. Of how we can meet this sadness and brokenness and longing. Year after year, with tools to rhythmically engage in this corporate practice of waiting and longing together. Looking not just at our own problems but our sisters and brothers of the faith here. Leaning into one another’s sadnesses and hardships, and to be able to say — We’re living in the same broken world. But just as he came before, Jesus is coming again — and this time, to make all things new. This is the first Advent season for some of us in here without a certain family member. And so, it’s a new experience. But in the midst of all of this newness, we step into old habits together. For this pre-Christmas season, we don’t have to act like everything is okay and that our tears are unwarranted. We’re given permission to be sad and to express sorrow. Because in the Story of God, his people have always been given permission for that. And so, what Advent does is provide us tools to navigate the darker moments and the deeper valleys. And in our age of self check-out and drive-up orders, Advent teaches us the meaning and the depth of this nurtured and generational practice of waiting. It teaches us to travel through protracted seasons of waiting rooms and unreturned messages and rejection letters. And we do so by looking together at how God’s people had waited generations for Jesus to come. And by doing so with regularity, we build the patterns and muscles to engage in the purposeful posture of dependence on the promises of God. That even when things don’t seem to be going our way, we can trust that God will always be true to his Word.

So, for this Advent season, we’re looking at The Mothers of Jesus. And when you peruse the Old Testament stories, there’s something so delicate about the longing of mothers — in particular, barren mothers. Because there was something about pregnancy and child bearing that was an identity shaper for the matriarchs of the Old Testament. You think of names like Sarah and Hannah — those who longed for and prayed for children. And what meets this unique longing is the fact that God, in the Garden, told the very first mother Eve that the Messiah, the Savior, the King who would put an end to evil, sin, and death. He will come through a lineage of mothers who would equally need his salvation and his arrival. And so, this Advent season, we’re looking at the five women — we’ll touch upon Mary, the fifth woman on the list, with a briefer homily in our Lessons and Carols service on Christmas Eve. But we touch upon these five women in the list that’s in this genealogy in the beginning of The Gospel of Matthew — Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary. And what these women represent is not just the fact that they were in the lineage. But as we’ll come to see, something about them being on the list is a surprise. Having any women on any genealogy was already a surprise but these particular names were not the kinds of names you would volunteer as part of your family history. And yet, they’re there. Because as Tim Keller notes, one’s genealogy is like your resume. And here, Jesus is announcing — These are the kinds of people who belong on my list. These are the people I’m represented by. These are the people who help explain what kind of King I am.

And so, today we look at the first of five on this list — Tamar. And what we will be channeling in on is something that’s depicted through the naming of the child in the end of the story — Perez, which in the Hebrew means burst through or a breach. It’s about something that fills the spaces between fractures. And it’s into this fractured situation that we’ll be examining today where God’s justice bursts through and into, for the sake of his longing and waiting people. Because like Tamar, we are a people who live in a world of injustice, where we expect certain things to unfold differently than they have. Perhaps, we’re looking at our circumstances and looking at God and wondering — I thought you were fair, I thought you were for me, I thought you cared about my well-being. For us, as God’s longing people, we look toward the celestial city where there will not only be perfect peace but perfect justice. And so, we lean into the story of Tamar, as we begin our series in this Advent season. For here, through Tamar, we look into the courage of waiting, of how we long for the coming King. For a dozen plus years, for ten generations, for however protracted period of time where we feel the gaps, and wonder when will God burst through, fill the space between the fractures. When will God’sjustice burst through and into this fractured mess?

The story of Tamar is laced with injustice and slanted realities and experiences. God, throughout the Scriptures, is a God who identifies with the powerless and helpless and needy. Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation, we read in Psalm 68:5. In his holy habitation, dwelling amongst his people. And here, we have a story of a woman who seems to know this about God — that he identifies with the orphans and widows. But in her story, it isn’t necessarily being played out. And yet, she’s trusting that her God will pull through. Because something that we see throughout the Scriptures. And it’s written out for us many years after this story plays out. But the precedence is here. And it’s something that we know as the Law of Levirate Marriage. And this is the law instituted by God in order to organize justice and protection for society’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged, which in these days were widows and orphans. And we’ll get more into how this is exactly spelled out in more detail in a couple weeks, when we reach the Story of Ruth. But in brief, this was about providing financial protection and security for widows, who didn’t have the social means to provide for themselves without a husband. And so, the Law of Levirate Marriage was where the closest kin, in most cases the brother of the now deceased husband. Where this brother or relative would provide an offspring for this widow, in order to provide an inheritance for this widow. But the catch is that it would often come at the disadvantaging of the one providing this commitment to provision. And in Tamar’s story, it involves Judah’s three sons — Er, Onan, and Shelah. Er was wicked and struck dead. Onan refused this act of provision. And he was subsequently struck dead. And with Shelah, Judah intentionally conceals him from Tamar, for self-preservation, leaving Tamar vulnerable and without means for social protection and security. And so, you consider Tamar’s situation here. There were means for her provisions that were instituted by God. But the people around her have not pulled through in enacting justice, as this institution called for.

You look at Tamar’s story today, and there are multiples acts or scenes. And between verse 11 and verse 12 is likely at least a dozen years. And from verses 6-11, all we get are events and moments where Tamar is experiencing hurt and abandonment and injustice from this family. And where she’s seemingly not seeing tangible evidences of God’s hand where his justice was expected. And I want us to sit on that for a moment. Because twelve years is a long time. If you hadn’t heard from somebody for twelve years — no texts, no calls, no in-person interactions, no messages, no letters. You would assume that the relationship was now over. But Tamar’s here waiting. And she’s eagerly responsive to something that merely hints at God’s movement toward her. The setting of the place of this second act, this second scene is told to us twice — once in verse 14 and once in verse 21. It’s the entrance or gate of Enaim. And that word means open eyes. And you consider what’s depicted here. In the midst of all the injustice and the hurt that this woman has experienced, God is not blind to it. And that’s something, in deep courage, that Tamar is holding onto. That while she may feel as if her hurts and experiences are unseen, they are not unseen by God.

You look into this situation, and it’s a complicated ordeal. There are all kinds of moving parts that make it really messy. Which is real life, isn’t it? Messy and complicated and unexpected, at times? And the first thing we’re told here in verse 12 is that Judah is grieving. And I don’t know how you all grieve, but sometimes, hurting people resort to self-medicating. He’s just lost his wife. And so, at the very least, he’s out of sorts. We tend to have a bit of revisionist historywhen we look at some of the women in the Bible. And that’s not to make less of prostitution in our modern context — sometimes, there are more circumstantial happenings that are more influential than individual mistakes or desires. But for the most part, in biblical times, and specifically in the Old Testament, prostitution was not so much a choice but a forced outcome due to the societal slant against women. And here, I want to repeat the words of Mika Edmondsonhere when he was preaching on the defiling of Dinah back several chapters in Genesis 34. And there, he says — The Bible does not give us room to blame Dinah. And I can say the same thing here with Tamar — that The Bible does not give us room to blame Tamar. That’s not to say that Tamar was without sin or fault, even. It’s not even to say that she didn’t do anything wrong or wasn’t being deceptive in this scenario. But the story is written out to present her, not as the perpetrator but as the victim. And we must never fall into the habit of making into villains those who have been victimized and exploited.

And so, here’s Judah who’s looking to cope with his pain. He finds Tamar, and he — maybe out of habit, maybe out of grief and hurt — decides to act on his sinful impulse. And here, he tells her — Come, let me come into you. To which she responds with thoughtful deliberation — What will you give me, that you may come in to me? As in, what’s your payment for what you desire out of my own expense? And to this, he tells her that he will give her a young goat. But she requires a guarantee, a pledge, a down payment. So, she asks him of his signet, his cord, and his staff. A staff that undoubtedly would have his name etched onto it. And Hebrew scholar Robert Alter says that this is the modern equivalent to his wallet, his driver’s license, and his credit card.

And here, of course, Tamar knows what she’s doing. But here’s someone who’s been let down by this family. And so, she’s looking for a guarantee, because she can’t trust in their word. But she’s out for more than just some payment. She wants justice. And so, the scene is set, where Judah gets word that his daughter-in-law has been immoral. And upon accusing her of wrongdoing, what does Tamar do? She takes out the signet, the cord, and the staff. The staff that undoubtedly had Judah’s name on it. And what does he say at that moment? In dramatic fashion, he owns it. And he says — She is more righteous than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah. That he didn’t commit to justice in the way she anticipated through the provisions of her God. And in this statement — She is more righteous than I. In the Hebrew, it’s not a comparative. But it’s literally — She is righteous, not I. Here, Judah stands up to say, in essence — Take her off the stand, and put me there instead. And it’s in this moment, where Tamar experiences justice. Not that this single statement from a man who once exploited her undid all the hurt and pain she experienced in her waiting for those long protracted twelve plus years. But this was Perez, this was breakthrough. For what Tamar experienced here is what she invites all of us to experience this morning.

Because here’s how we’ll begin closing our time. In our passage, the Hebrew word for pledge is written three timeshere in verses 18-20, making it emphatic as a necessary part of the narrative. It’s the only three occasions for that particular word throughout the Old Testament. And in the LXX, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, that word is translated as αρραβων, which is also translated as deposit or guarantee. And in the three uses of this in the New Testament, in 2 Corinthians 1:22 and 5:5 and in Ephesians 1:14, it’s the deposit, the guarantee of hope-filled pilgrims who are given the seal and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And do you know what the Holy Spirit is called in the New Testament? Not just the pledge but the Helper, who is also the comforter, the legal advocate. And because we’re uncertain of ourselves, he’s given to us, to turn us to a better word, a greater advocate who stands for us and in our place. For like Tamar, we are often uncertain, aren’t we? And when it comes to God’s promises, isn’t it the case that we don’t often find it feasible to take him at his word? After all, we’re talking about sinners who have offended a holy God. And we’re being told here that just by believing in this God of Advent, who comes to us, that we can have forgiveness? How are we to know that we can take him at his word?

Because there is a single pronouncement that has the power to cover and to heal years of pain and injustice. And it’s something Tamar can share with us. Because there would come one from the line of Judah, with Tamar as a distant mother. Where we read of his commitment in 2 Corinthians 5:21 of how on the cross, he put himself on the stand instead of the sinners he came to represent, saying — in that moment, They are righteous, not I. Where he was made to be sin, though he knew no sin, so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God. Here would be one who would be born into scandal and would experience the death of exchange. And here was this King from the line of Judah, who would die a sinner’s death with nails chiseled into his palms. And it wasn’t the staff of Judah but his own palms that would have names carved onto them. Just as Judah’s staff had his own name to mark his guilt, Jesus would have our names carved onto his palms in order to mark his guilt. That he took upon our guilt through his death, that we might be declared innocent. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands, reads Isaiah 49:16. And because God’s grace is deeper than our sin, we can be sure that what has been etched onto Jesus’ palms is far more powerful than anything we etch with our hands, our lips, our minds, and our hearts in our sinful enactments against our God. That this was his pledge, his guarantee — what’s reminded to us regularly, whenever we question the certainty of God’s Word. That yes, he has died, he has risen, and he will come again. That he has come for us once, and he’ll come for his people yet again. For Perez, for breakthrough. That God might burst through and into the story he wrote. Taking the scarlet thread held in the hands of the one representing the mother Jesus would represent and connecting it to and interweaving it with yet another scarlet thread held, a cord on a wall to the next Mother of Jesus that we’ll be introduced to next week in this great Story of Jesus in our Advent series.