Saturday, July 8, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Homecoming
Judah approached Joseph and spoke: Our aged father told us to come back and buy more food. But we could not, only if our youngest brother could also go. So our aged father said, “My wife bore me two sons. One of them disappeared, he must have been torn to pieces by wild beasts. If you take this one away from me and some disaster befalls him, you will send me down to the nether world in grief!”
And so the circle turns. Joseph, reunited with his unknowing brothers, surely remembers his father and mother. They gave him a many-colored coat, which he treasured while his brothers envied him. He had dreams about his brothers and his father, which generally placed him at the top of whatever power struggle there was to be. For these dreams his brothers hated him.
But it was his dream interpretation that paved the way for him to become a governor in Egypt, in charge of all the food supplies. Now he stands before his brothers, full of power while they are full of shame. Joseph can stand the suspense no longer.
Joseph’s sobs were so loud that the Egyptians heard him, and the news reached Pharaoh’s palace. “I am Joseph. Is my father still in good health?” And his brothers were dumbfounded. “Come closer,” he told them. And then he said, “I am Joseph, whom you once sold into Egypt.”
So many stories of pilgrimage and exodus begin … here. Joseph paved an unlikely path for his family, soon to be called after Jacob’s second name, Israel. Any bad thing will eventually turn good. And any good things will eventually turn bad. Here we are, watching from a rarified distance, watching the bad turn good and knowing that in not so many centuries the good will turn bad. And then again, this time only forty years later.
Joseph said again to his brothers, “Now do not be distressed, and do not reproach yourselves for having sold me here. It was really for the sake of saving lives that God sent me here ahead of you.”
They wanted to believe this strange governor of Egypt, who called himself their brother. They had to believe him if they wanted food for their families. And anyway, didn’t he look just a little like their brother several decades earlier. His self-assurance reminded them of their arrogant Joseph. His emotional outbursts too, not that they admired them then, but they were grateful for them now.
Remember the marvels the Lord has done.
Jesus will be coming out of this lineage, and he will bring salvation to us all. Joseph the rescuer gives way to Jesus the Lord and King.
As you go, make this proclamation, “The Kingdom of heaven is at hand! Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and drive out demons. Freely you have received, so freely give.”
(Genesis 27, Psalm 135, John 10, Matthew 9)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
#
