Friday, March 21, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Blood brothers
Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons.
Brothers in a family of twelve sons don’t necessarily get along day in and day out. Jacob neé Israel didn’t help this situation any.
When his brothers saw that their father loved him best, they hated him so much that they would not even speak to him.
Israel didn’t care, or maybe he didn’t have a clue. He threw Joseph into the arms of wolves, brothers in name only.
Your brothers are tending our flocks at Shechem. Get ready and I will send you to them. So Joseph went after his brothers and caught up with them.
And they watched him come across the plain. What should we do with this Joseph-come-lately? They saw that Joseph was wearing the coat of many colors his father had made for him. Joseph was proud of his coat, and of his standing in the family, and he shared two dreams he’d had with his brothers.
We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field, and my sheaf rose and stood upright. Then your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it. And then in another dream the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.
Even Joseph’s father and mother were insulted by this dream. Later Joseph’s proved true, but the future didn’t look very bright for him right now, as he waved to his brothers.
Let’s kill him and thrown into a cistern and say that a wild beast devoured him.
Reuben tried to save him and said, “Instead of shedding blood, just throw him in the cistern.” So they ripped off his coat of many colors and threw him into the empty hole.
Then they sat down to their meal.
From his hole deep in the ground Joseph shouted. His brothers ignored his shouts and chewed their food. Did they even look at each other?
This isn’t a story for the flannelboards in Sunday School. It’s the story of an ugly, bitter betrayal in the midst of a competitive, bitter, selfish family. This is what God has to work with?
A caravan heading for Egypt came down the road. Judah said, “Let us sell Joseph instead of killing him ourselves. After all, he is our brother, flesh of our flesh.” And his brothers sold Joseph for twenty pieces of silver.
Joseph’s story heads up the stories in the Bible, one of the very best, and at least some of it is fit to share with the children. Joseph absorbed his father’s admiration and love; because of it he held his head high even as a slave. God’s gift of prophecy and interpreting dreams saved Egypt from famine and brought his father Israel and brothers to bow down to the master of the grain, who knew them and loved them, harboring no grudge. Psalm 105 tells the story in poetry, as the book of Genesis tells the story in prose.
Remember the marvels the Lord has done.
Jesus must have looked like an arrogant Joseph to the religious leaders of Israel. He knew his rightful place as Messiah, but how could he make that claim to “brothers” who wanted glory for themselves? Joseph and Jesus saw beyond themselves to their Source. This second sight is available to us all.
The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;
By the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes.
(Genesis 37, Psalm 105, John 3, Matthew 21)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
#
