Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany: Old Testament, Genesis 45:3-15                

Genesis 45:3-15

If you love the Lord Jesus, then you must love the account of Old Testament Joseph. Much has been made of parallels existing between the great Prime Minister of Egypt and the Messiah he longed for. That’s not my place this morning. I would like to focus on Joseph’s words to his brothers. Brothers who had sent their brother’s life into a tailspin years before and now realized not just their plans had been thwarted, but coming to see that God himself had used their craftiness for his own purposes. And God was far ahead of them every step of the way.

Twice Joseph says God sent him to Egypt before his brothers for preservation. Once for life and once for the sake of guarding a remnant people. In other words their wickedness didn’t catch God by surprise. There was life bound up in the “death” of the brother of whom they were insanely jealous. 

Then he tells his brothers that God had made their brother a father to the great king of Egypt. And therefore he was over them and even their dear father back in the land. Indeed the dreams of earlier years had come to pass with bowing sheaves, sun, moon, and stars, (cf. Genesis 37). But Joseph was mastered by the God who had placed him in such a position. And because his heart belonged to the LORD, the love and mercy of God flowed through him to others. First, to his own family and then to “save the world.” Even in blessing his son’s at his death, Jacob reminds Joseph that he is under “the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel.” All God had poured into Joseph, through good and ill, came gushing out to bless the lives of many. A plan beyond our ability to comprehend, indeed. In that, Joseph does sound much like Jesus. God be praised!