Genesis 45

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1 Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, “Have everyone leave my presence!” So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers. 2 And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh’s household heard about it.

3 Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still living?” But his brothers were not able to answer him, because they were terrified at his presence.

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5 And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. 6 For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping. 7 But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.[a]

8 “So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt.

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Catharsis!

So- finally some good news, here in chapter 45 of Genesis. Joseph has removed the veil and revealed himself to his brothers.

I didn’t think that reading the bible one chapter at a time would ever be very problematic. Wrong. While not a terrible profound observation, it stands to be said every so often just as a reminder: the Bible wasn’t written in chapters and verses. In fact, what we call the first five books are really just five chapters of one book. The conventional divisions into 5 distinct books has to do more with the central theme of each section, but they are all dated at about the same time- and have their own name: Pentateuch. Sort of a subset within the bible.

Well, this is just another lesson in hermeneutics then- sometimes breaking a story up into artificial segments can be detrimental to how we understand the whole story. And nowhere has that been more evident in Genesis than right here, in Joseph’s story.

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Joseph has been gone for at least 9 years. For a decade, his brothers have been under the mantle of remorse. Or at least some of them have. Joseph’s father, the patriarch, Jacob, aka Israel, has been slowly deteriorating under the pain of losing his beautiful Joseph. Joseph has been a captains right hand, and the focal point of his derision. He’s lived in relative luxury and in a prison. He’s known the adrenalin rush of being pursued by a woman- and the fear of standing before the most powerful man in the world, Pharaoh. He’s been forgotten and he’s been the “father to Pharaoh.” And now he’s at the end of his considerable emotional rope.

His trials seem to have brought him wisdom.

This is no small victory. I’m not sure I’d be so fortunate. Joseph, by today’s standards has every reason to have lost trust in the most sacred things. He was betrayed and sold into slavery by his own family. Framed and abandoned by his employer. Left and forgotten by people he’d been charitable to in prison. His power would have corrupted a lesser person. A lesser person might have taken liberty with his power to acquire wealth and security- to prevent the pain and suffering he’d known up to this point from ever happening again. He might be jaded and permanently untrusting. He might be inclined to blame God for ten years of being abandoned by family and uncared about, forced to live in a foreign culture with no ties to home.

But no. In all this time, Joseph’s faith in God’s purpose has caused him to pursue a sort of soterical career. Even after his own abandonment by family and imprisonment, he is still pursuing other peoples’ peace.

He has spoken truth to the two fellow prisoners. He gave peace to the Pharaoh about his dreams by clearly giving meaning to the dreams he’d had, and then offers sound wisdom to offset the bad news. And now, Joseph is giving his brothers peace and forgiveness! He is telling them that they were doing God’s work by despising him, selling him to a band of strangers, and ultimately into slavery and all that happened to him here in Egypt. Why?

He’s giving God- this God that we have only heard about in the context of giving meaning to dreams, credit for using Joseph to save a nation’s worth of lives, as well as the lives of his own family.

This, I think, is an almost super-human ability! Especially when you consider how much time has passed. I can only speak for myself, but if I get a little down in the mouth for a couple months I start examining my life for places where I’ve let God down. Maybe that’s not bad, in itself, but when I do that, I start to get blue, and a little mean. I start thinking naughty thoughts about God- like He’s punishing me (which of course, He’s not, having fully extracted any punishment he must for me from Jesus), or that He’s changed His mind about me (which he doesn’t because nothing can take me from Jesus’ hand). In short- I get impatient very quickly with God.

Ten years! Ten years have passed in Joseph’s life. Have you waited ten years, faithfully, for something? Anything? I don’t know that I can honestly say that I have. At least not in obedience.

There’s plenty here about forgiveness. There’s plenty here about how family relationships are kinda messy, and sometimes require a frequent and potent bath in the bubble-potion of forgiveness. But God’s providence is what is on display, and Joseph’s unfailing dependence on it.

God is faithful. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, great comfort can come from the simple proverb: “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is God’s purpose that will prevail.”

This may seem obvious- but God has a purpose! This may seem less obvious at times: God’s purpose is for good! Joseph declares his joy in this when he tells his brothers not to be troubled by their evil plans, because God caused good to happen!

This is less obvious: If Joseph had sucked his thumb and pouted while he was in jail, God would have had a much more difficult time getting everything in order. Joseph set his pain, anger, betrayal down on the floor of his cell and “saw that they were troubled” and set himself to comforting the two fellow prisoners by interpreting their troubling dreams. Had he never done that- had he never inserted himself as a healer and a comforter into that situation- he would never have stood before Pharaoh to warn him of the coming prosperity that would buffet that following famine!

A simple act of selflessness, on Joseph’s part was a small key in an extremely large lock. A single act of selflessness was the spark that lit the tinder, that held the ember, that caused a campfire to turn into a forest fire. And it happened during a rainstorm. Heck, a monsoon.

That is God’s character.