(This sermon was first delivered on November 6, 2011 by Kate Birss at Look to the Cross in Edmonton, Alberta. For a further study of the ideas within this sermon, see the posts from October 31-November 4 in this blog. Also see the next entry for more of Kate's notes on Jacob's blessings of Joseph and his brothers.)
Genesis 49:22-26 ESV
22 "Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a spring; his branches run over the wall.
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23 The archers bitterly attacked him, shot at him, and harassed him severely,
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24 yet his bow remained unmoved; his arms were made agile by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob (from there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel),
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25 by the God of your father who will help you, by the Almighty who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that crouches beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb.
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26 The blessings of your father are mighty beyond the blessings of my parents, up to the bounties of the everlasting hills. May they be on the head of Joseph, and on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers."
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Joseph’s story starts with his mother, Rachel, and his father, Jacob.
After Leah had her sixth son,
"God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb."
(Gen. 30:22)
When Joseph is born, Rachel says,
"God has taken away my reproach.” And,
“May the LORD add to me another son!”
And the LORD does, later, add to her another son – Benjamin – at which time Rachel dies in the throes of childbirth.
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But Benjamin is not born until after Jacob is renamed Israel and after Jacob, or Israel, is reunited with his brother Esau. For several very event-filled years before Benjamin comes along, Joseph is Rachel’s only son. He is the only son of Jacob’s beloved wife.
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We can look at the beginning of Joseph’s life and see the environment he was born into:
• We can see that there is strife between Leah and Rachel.
• There is strife between Jacob and his wives.
• And when Jacob’s sons are old enough, they are violent (Simeon and Levi, who murder every man in the city of Shechem), and rebellious (Reuben, who sleeps with his father’s wife). These sins cause strife between Joseph’s brothers and their father. Even Judah, from whom Jesus is descended, is deceitful and willing to burn his daughter-in-law alive for supposedly committing the same sin he himself was guilty of.
It should come as no surprise that by the time Joseph is seventeen, a young man, his brothers want to murder him but instead decide to just sell him into slavery and let their father believe that he is dead. --- Joseph, his beloved son.
Joseph is born into a messed up, jealousy-ridden family.
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But his father loves him. No doubt, as Potiphar, the jail-keeper, and Pharaoh later see, his father sees that the Spirit of the LORD is upon Joseph and this is why he gives his son authority in the household. Joseph is given great responsibilities because he is obedient to the LORD.
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So, Joseph is given great responsibility by his father.
Then, his brothers sell him into slavery in Egypt.
Joseph is given great responsibility by his new owner, Potiphar.
And Potiphar’s wife falsely accuses Joseph of raping her and he is thrown in jail.
Then Joseph is given great responsibility in the prison by the keeper of the jail,
But when he interprets the cup-bearer’s dream and asks him to remember him when he is released, the cup-bearer gives him the shaft, forgetting him until a couple years later when Pharaoh has a dream in need of interpreting.
Finally, Pharaoh promotes Joseph to be, basically, the ruler of Egypt only under himself. Pharaoh gives Joseph a new name, which we have learned is a very significant thing to do.
And Joseph is restored to freedom. He is no longer a slave. He is no longer a prisoner. He names his firstborn son Manasseh and declares, “for God has made me forget all the hardship and all my father’s house.”
Joseph is redeemed. But his story of redemption is different from that of his father’s story.
Unlike his father Jacob, Joseph goes through pain and hardship, but he remains with the LORD. He is not rebellious to God, even though he is in some pretty crappy situations. He is more like Job than he is like his father Jacob. He is more like David, close to the heart of God. He is more like Jesus, who is sold by his brothers yet is still humble -and faithful- to later rescue them in their need. Joseph is a way-stinkin’-better example of humble, Christ-like forgiveness for us to model than his father Jacob.
After Joseph is promoted by the Pharaoh, a great famine covers the earth, and his brothers come to Egypt in search of food. They are starving. Their families are starving. And, unknowingly, they come to their outcast brother, Joseph, for help.
And Joseph forgives them. He forgives the blood-thirsty brothers who sold him into a slavery which cost him thirteen years of his young life. He clearly was greatly hurt by them, for his first son is named “for God has made me forget all the hardship and all my father’s house,” but he gives them food. He invites them to come to Egypt to be taken care of by his own wealth.
Joseph is redeemed, and he offers redemption to his brothers.
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In Isaiah, there is a prophecy of Christ:
He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.
Joseph is certainly not Christ. He has some pretty obvious faults – he didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut when he was a teenager, getting all those dreams about being greater than all of his brothers and telling them about it. I mean, seriously, these are brothers who sleep with their step-moms and go into cities to violently murder every man there. I don’t think Joseph was perfect.
Nor do I think that Joseph took on his brothers’ sins as Christ took on ours on the cross.
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But Joseph is an example of Christ to us, as well as a picture of Christ for the people of his time. His story of redemption, of set-apart-ed-ness, of forgiveness and willingness to forgive, was told for many years before Moses and the law came along, before King David with his psalms describing God, before the prophets and their foretelling of Christ.
And we can look at Joseph’s story and see Jesus in Joseph’s life. Quite literally, Jesus wrestled with Joseph’s father while Joseph was just on the other side of the river as a little boy. Joseph saw his father’s limp. He saw his father’s changed countenance upon having seen the face of God and survived.
And Joseph was a man of great faith. He did not renounce the LORD while he was in slavery or in prison. He gave the LORD honor when he interpreted the Pharaoh’s servants’ dreams. He gave the LORD honor when he interpreted the Pharaoh’s dream. Like Jesus, he gave all glory to his father in heaven.
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When we remember Jesus and his redemption of ourselves, we may feel much like Joseph’s brothers did when they saw his face and realized that Joseph had complete authority over them- to allow them to starve to death even be imprisoned for the rest of their lives if he so had the inkling. But instead, Joseph chose to forgive them. He forgave them, and he provided them with food and shelter when they would have starved or become slaves themselves.
It’s a pretty amazing story. Joseph really is set-apart.
Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a spring; his branches run over the wall. The archers bitterly attacked him, shot at him, and harassed him severely, yet his bow remained unmoved; his arms were made agile by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob (from there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel), by the God of your father who will help you, by the Almighty who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that crouches beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb. The blessings of your father are mighty beyond the blessings of my parents, up to the bounties of the everlasting hills. May they be on the head of Joseph, and on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers.
Genesis 49:22-26 ESV
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