By the time I was in kindergarten, I had already spent more time in cemeteries than most adults do in their lifetimes. Many days my genealogist mother would call to my brother and sister and me to gather our toys. Today would be a cemetery day! She would pack a picnic lunch including Pop-Tarts, a dessert reserved for these outings. While we would swing on the swings of a church playground, peek into the windows of a vacant meetinghouse, or play with our Cabbage Patch Kids under a large pine tree, my mother would hunt for a particular person’s gravesite.

As soon as she found who she was looking for, she would call to us: “I found it!” We would come running to watch while she did a pencil rubbing of the stone. Then we would pose for a picture with the tombstone so that she could remember its dimensions. While we kneeled on the grass, she would tell us who the person was. “This man was your great-great-grandfather. He was a County Judge.” Or, “This person was one of the first preachers of our denomination. Prayer meetings were so important to him.” My mother took special care to preserve the story of each ordinary person we discovered in the sea of graven names.

In my Bible reading, when I come across a list of names of ordinary people, I can find meaning in these hard-to-read Bible passages by remembering those cemetery experiences.

Ordinary People and Their Hearts

As I got older and learned more about history, the dates on the tombstone allowed me to picture the person in time-period clothing. I imagined their living situation and their daily work. I pictured the 1800s women exhausted but hardy with flour-covered aprons tied around their waists. I imagined the men out in the fields or at work in the mills or mines or factories. They were hoping their children would get more education in hopes of a better life. If there were tombstones of many adult children nearby, I imagined their noisy, crowded dinner table. If there was a tombstone of an infant, I pictured the mother and father’s unquenchable grief.  

I use the same imagination when I read a list of names in the Bible. What would it be like to be one of the men or women listed in Ezra 2, whose heart was stirred by God to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple? How would I feel? Adventurous? Courageous? Terrified, but determined to obey anyway? I’m not tasked with rebuilding a temple, but I can identify with these feelings in other areas of my own Christian walk. It helps to know that ordinary believers for thousands of years have gone through the same emotions that I experience while walking with the Lord.

Ordinary People Wait in Faith

Even now, I will occasionally visit a cemetery and picture the lives of the people buried there. When I come across the tombstone of a person who died in 1775 or in 1944, I remember that the person died while waiting. They died not knowing whether or not the colonies ever gained independence from Britain or not knowing whether or not Hitler would be defeated by the Allies. Did they wait in hope, believing there would be victory? Or did they feel defeated and discouraged?

We know the famous faithful listed in Hebrews 11 were commended for waiting for the promise that they never got to see. But what about the people listed in 1 Chronicles 1-11? Did they wait for God’s Promised Land with hope? Did the promised Messiah encourage them to go on day by day? I like to imagine what it would have been like to be one of the ordinary people who were watching for the kingdom of God before the first advent of Jesus Christ.

Today ordinary Christians are still waiting. We don’t know when Christ will return, and many generations of believers have already died waiting for His second coming. Will I get to see Christ return with my own eyes? I don’t know, but like the ordinary believers who have gone before me, I will wait expectantly, with hope.

Ordinary People and Redemptive History

In addition to visiting the cemeteries filled with ordinary people, I have also visited the gravesites of famous persons. Oftentimes, their grave is surrounded by the burial plots of their non-famous ancestors or descendants. I wonder what it would have been like to have a famous relative. Would I feel overshadowed and forgotten? Or proud of my connections?

I wonder the same thing when I read the Bible’s genealogy lists. Take Obed, for example. His name is mentioned in Ruth 4, Matthew 1, and Luke 3. What do we know about Obed apart from his lineage? Nothing. But I can imagine what it would have been like to have an affectionate grandmother like Naomi. And I can imagine being the grandfather of the strong, impulsive, brave shepherd boy who killed Goliath. Obed probably chuckled every time he retold the story to the old timers that hung out at the city gates.

Obed, an ordinary man, is a crucial link in redemptive history. Redemptive history does not just feature the superstars like Abraham or David. Each person in Jesus’ family line is a crucial link. As ordinary people, each of us can be a crucial link in other people’s personal redemptive stories. Maybe that coworker of yours who seems so far away from Christ will be saved by Jesus after you prayerfully share the gospel. What if his grandson becomes the next Billy Graham? We don’t know. But we do know that God uses the faithful obedience of ordinary people to spread the good news of Jesus.

The next time we read a list of names in the Bible, we can read with imagination and with appreciation that God includes ordinary people in His purpose and His plans.

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