1.
Why do I begin this way? I, a Levite, turned tax collector for the Romans, turned apostle. Why do I begin with this family tree? Because I know about faithfulness. I know the way that His faithfulness pursues, points the finger of grace and calls, in spite of everything. And because I know about shame and failure, like Judah, like David, like Manasseh. I have been ashamed. I have failed. And because I know what it is to have been grafted in. Like Rahab, like Ruth, like Bathsheba, I have been an outsider called unexpectedly in.
2.
All of us who followed him were caught up in a kind of whir of glory and shame. Glory like his star shining in the east, bidding magi to leave everything in pursuit of him; shame like the flight from a jealous tyrant, scared of a baby proving a truer king than he. And all of us knew we were caught up in something strange, marvellous, transformative, something that fulfilled words we had not even known were prophecies, satisfied longings we didn’t even know our hearts held.
The Consolations of Writing 