Occasionally on my day off in the summer I enjoy watching the coverage of the cycling grand tours, the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, or the Vuelta Espana. There’s something about watching the beautiful continental landscape slide by, with the gentle commentary passing the hours. However, the coverage in the UK is never on BBC, it’s always on a channel that carries adverts.
So, every half or so, I am disturbed from my reverie by the blare of people trying to sell me stuff. It’s sometimes a welcome break to make a cuppa or pop to the loo, but generally I just have to sit through it. And I have discovered that, on daytime TV, there are a lot of adverts for over-50s life cover and for funeral plans. And, quite a lot of the over-50s life cover ads seem to focus on the cost of funerals. It seems to me that advertising execs have a pretty strong idea that daytime TV is mostly watched by people who are waiting to die.
In our evening sermon series we have been looking at the lives of the heroes of faith mentioned in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. And, as a bit of a reminder, let’s look back to what point the writer of Hebrews is aiming to make by listing these people, which we find in first two verses of chapter 11, where we read “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.” So, as we’re investigating these characters over the weeks, we are looking at the examples they give of assurance and conviction, of the interplay between faith and hope. And, of course, because the whole of Hebrews is focussed on pointing to Jesus, we are looking to see how the stories of these characters point towards Jesus.
And today, as you might have guessed, we are looking at the story of Joseph. We first meet Joseph in Genesis 30:24, where we read of his birth to Rachel, the favoured wife of Jacob, who was one of Abraham’s grandsons. Jacob had fallen out with his brother, Esau, and had married his two wives, the sisters Rachel and Leah while he was away from home, living with and working for their father, Laban. Eventually Jacob decides to go home, and attempt to be reconciled with his brother. We read in chapter 33 of Genesis that he arranges the travel convey with Rachel and Joseph at the back of the convey – furthest away from any danger that might come from the meeting with Esau. The reunion goes well, and the brothers are reconciled. The next we hear of Joseph is in the list of the family of Jacob in chapter 35, just before we read of the death of Isaac, who “breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people, old and full of years. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him”.
In chapter 37 the focus of the narrative shifts, full onto Joseph. He is seventeen and full of himself. He told tales on his older brothers, and his father rewarded him with an ornate coat – showing clear favouritism to him, and his brothers hated him for it. He had dreams that suggested his brothers and father would one day bow down to him, and didn’t hesitate to share these dreams with his family. This did not improve the situation.
Eventually his brothers turned against him, and, out in the grazing fields, they seized him, stripped off that expensive robe and sold him to slave traders. They ripped up the coat, put goat blood on it and took it back to their father and told him that Joseph must have been attacked and killed by wild animals. Jacob was heart broken.
Meanwhile, Joseph was taken to Egypt, and sold to Potiphar, a commander in Pharaoh’s army. He was a smart lad, God favoured him, and soon he was entrusted with the running of Potiphar’s household. However, he wasn’t just smart, he was also handsome, and Potiphar’s wife took a shine to him. More than a shine in fact. She tried to persuade him to sleep with her. But, he refused. One day she cornered him and came on strong. He ran out, but she grabbed his cloak and pulled it off him as he fled. She kept the cloak as “evidence” screamed the house down, and told Potiphar, when he returned that Joseph had attempted to rape her. Joseph was thrown in prison. Back to square one.
But, again, God favoured him, and he prospered. He was put in charge of the other prisoners, and pretty much ran the place. And then the dreams started again. This time, they weren’t his, they were the dreams of two of the prisoners, one the Pharaoh’s baker, and the other his cup bearer. They told their dreams to Joseph and he interpreted them, correctly. The baker was going to be executed and the cup-bearer was to be released.
Joseph asked the cup-bearer to ask Pharaoh to release him as well, and despite promising to do so, he didn’t.
Two years later, and now it’s Pharaoh dreaming, a dream of seven fat cows and seven thin cows which ate the fat cows. None of his advisors could tell him what it meant, but now the cup-bearer remembers Joseph, and tells Pharaoh about him and his gift of interpreting dreams. Joseph is bought from the prison, and on hearing the dream he explains it.
The seven fat cows represent seven years of good harvests and plenty in the land. The seven thin cows represent seven years of poor harvests and famine, which eat up the prosperity of the seven good years. Joseph advises Pharaoh to start storing the excess of the good years to feed the people in the poor years. Pharaoh was impressed by the evidence of the Spirit of God at work in Joseph’s wisdom, and put him in charge of the scheme. In fact, he made Joseph second in command in the kingdom.
God continued to favour Joseph, and he implemented the plan successfully. He was married and had two sons, and was honoured throughout Egypt. The seven good years came, and store houses for grain were built and filled throughout the kingdom. And then the seven bad years came, and Joseph was in charge of the distribution of the grain to keep the people from starving.
However, Eygpt was not the only country hit with famine. So was Canaan, where Jacob and his other sons were still living. They heard that there was grain in Egypt, and came to try and buy some. They arrive in Egypt and are summoned in to see Joseph, but they do not recognise him. After some toing and froing – you can read all the details in chapters 42-44, the brothers all come together in front of Joseph in chapter 45, which we read a little while ago.
And here we find the reconciliation of the brothers. I wonder if in the back of their minds was the reconciliation between Esau and Jacob all those years earlier. Joseph forgave his brothers, and pointed beyond what they had all experienced, their guilt and his suffering, towards the purposes of God.
As Joseph says in a later conversation with his brothers, “you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”
It seems to me that there are many ways in which the story of Joseph points towards Jesus, and here, perhaps is one of the clearest. Joseph was sent ahead, by God, to prepare a way for God’s people. The whole family moved to Egypt, where they were fed and given land. Just as we read, in John, that Jesus was sent by God to prepare a place for God’s people. His friends and followers were scared and frightened by Jesus’ talk of death, but he reassures them that he is going to prepare a place for them.
The people who were plotting Jesus’ death had one set of intentions, but God had other purposes, and he calls his followers to trust, to faith, to hope, that in all the dark days, God’s purposes are being worked out, and that as they follow Jesus, the way, so they (and we) will come to that place, the place prepared for all who follow.
There are differences as well. We know that in the end the stay in Egypt turned bad and the people were enslaved. But there still God’s purposes were worked out as they were freed and brought to the promised land.
I wonder, if you had been writing Hebrews which of all the amazing things that happened to Joseph you would have picked out as being the most significant, the one that pointed to Jesus, the one that best illustrated Joseph’s faith and hope, his assurance and conviction?
Let’s read what the writer to the Hebrews actually chose, in Hebrews 11:22 “By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones.”
We can read these instructions in the last chapter of Genesis, chapter 50. Joseph believed that God had sent him to Egypt to prepare a place for the people, but he also believed that it was not going to be the final resting place of the people. He knew the covenant promise made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that God would give them the promised land for their home. He had faith and hope that God would bring the people back out of Egypt to the land that they had been promised. So, he instructs his sons to be ready to take his bones with them and bury them in the land of promise. He looks beyond his earthly life to the fulfilment of the eternal promises of God.
I started by reflecting on funeral planning adverts. I do think that it is important to make practical plans for our funerals, but even more important is for us to follow Joseph’s example and to look beyond our earthly life to the eternal promises and purposes of God. To follow Jesus, the way, in faith and hope, with untroubled hearts, trusting that in his death and resurrection he has reconciled us to God and opened up the way for us to live, in the promised life, with him, in glory for ever.
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