Text: Genesis 50:20
Introduction: The legendary announcer for the Detroit Tigers baseball team, Ernie Harwell, died recently. He was 92 and unashamedly a Christian. In the closing hours of his life, while his family sat at his bedside, Ernie said, “The Lord is waiting for me with open arms.” A few hours later, Ernie was with our Savior.
Harwell worked until 2002, when he was 84 years old. His final game was the last game of that season. Yet he considered his retirement years to be the best years of his life.
I thought of Jacob’s life (and by extension Joseph’s) when I read Ernie’s story. Like the sports announcer, Jacob’s retirement years were probably the best years of his long life. After Joseph settled his extended family in Goshen, he took Jacob to meet the Pharaoh of Egypt, who asked, “How old are you?” Jacob’s answer summarizes his life. “The days of the years of my pilgrimage are 130 years; few and difficult have been the years of my life.” But retirement in Goshen was a different story. Those years were special because Jacob was reunited with Joseph and was able to spend time with him before he died. Plus he had the added joy of being with his newly discovered grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh. In Egypt, his family’s needs were met and in abundance.
But my main focus in this sermon is on Joseph’s story after the death of his father. Genesis 50:14-21 teaches us some significant lessons.
1. Some people struggle to believe that their sins are really forgiven (50:15-17). Joseph’s brothers had received nothing but kindness from him since they moved to Egypt 17 years earlier. And yet they suspected that with their father gone, Joseph would turn against them and seek revenge for their mistreatment of him. So real was their fear of revenge that they concocted a fictitious story supposedly originating from Jacob.
Some of you may resonate with fear like that of these brothers. In your story is a dark night of regret. If you could go back and erase those words or deeds, you would. You cannot get free from the notion that what you did was too bad for even God to forgive. You have heard sermons about God burying our sins in the depth of the seas, but your sins seem to keep washing ashore. Perhaps Joseph’s response will help you.
2. Joseph’s tears (50:17). Joseph was an emotional man. Seven times in his story we find him weeping. From pleading with his brothers for his life when he was in the pit to this cry of disbelief over the fear of his brothers, Joseph has shed “buckets of tears.” The idea of Joseph’s tears call up a variety of responses. Men’s responses to the tears of Joseph hinge mostly on our generation.
- Builders—This is the generation born between 1915 and 1945. They have been called the greatest generation because during those years two world wars and an economic depression took place. They have been trained to be tough and told that men don’t cry: “Wipe those tears away and be a man!” This generation struggles with Joseph’s tears, because they are the opposite of their training.
- Boomers—This generation was born between 1945 and 1975 in the economic boom after the war. They have had everything! During their life, the feminist movement grew. The glass ceiling that held back women from equal pay and job advancement shattered. The roles of men and women were in transition. Boomer men wrestled with an identity crisis. The appeal was for men to be both “tough and tender.” Joseph’s tears confuse them.
- Busters—This generation of young men, along with Generation X, are into reality. They dislike hypocrisy and prefer reality shows. They want to be real about their feelings and can detect phoniness immediately. They are not troubled at all over Joseph’s tears. They know he not only wept but also was a man of strength. He endured the pit and the prison and was strong enough to be the prime minister of Egypt.
Two men who have clarified the issues of manhood for me are Bill McCartney and John Eldredge. Bill founded Promise Keepers, which has been significant in defining biblical manhood. And John’s book Wild at Heart has helped many men to think through the issues of being a Christian man. The bottom line is: Who is your model? Jesus not only wept at the graveside of Lazarus but also made a whip from the cords on the courtyard floor and drove out the moneychangers from the temple. He is our model!
3. Joseph’s theology. In his talk with his brothers, Joseph teaches two great truths about our God.
- God’s justice—Joseph experienced a series of injustices in his life. It was wrong to be thrown into a pit and sold into slavery. It was wrong to be falsely accused of rape and to be thrown into prison. What was Joseph’s attitude about these unjust actions? Joseph anticipates the teaching of Paul by 6,000 years: “ ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord” (Romans 12:19). And that is just what he means, when he asks, “Am I in the place of God?” It is God who rectifies the wrongs of life in His way and time. Can we cast aside our dreams of revenge and turn unjust words and actions over to God?
- God’s providence—Joseph did not trivialize evil. What his brothers did to him was wrong. It was sin, and it hurt. He was not one to say, “Oh, it was nothing.” But his focus was on the big picture. God planned on saving His people. The wordprovidence means to look ahead. God looked ahead and got Joseph into Egypt with his God-given gift of dream interpretation and on God’s time schedule. This is the big picture.
The August 2009 issue of Christianity Today has the story of William Shuntz, professor at Harvard Law School, and his unbearable back pain, the death of one of his sons, and the death of his marriage. On top of this agony is his battle with cancer. In this article, he shares God’s gifts for hard times, and this includes some help from our Genesis 50:20 text. He writes, “God usually doesn’t remove life’s curses. Instead, he redeems them. Joseph’s story makes this point. Joseph was victimized by two horrible injustices: one at the hands of his brothers who sold him into slavery, the other thanks to Potiphar’s wife, who falsely accused him of attempted rape. God did not undo these injustices; they remained real and awful. Instead, God used those wrongs to prevent a much worse one: mass starvation. When Joseph later met with his brothers, he said this about the transaction that started the train rolling: ‘You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.’ That does not mean that slavery and unjust imprisonment are good; rather, the point is that they produced good, and the good they produced was larger than the wickedness that was visited upon Joseph.”
Joseph answered one of life’s terrific struggles with doctrine. No syrupy answer for these troubled brothers gripped with fear. It was a big-picture answer! And it is a great example of how to share truth that rescues from self-pity. It has helped me in those “Why me? Why this? Why now?” seasons in my life.
