Genesis 50:15-21
When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him.” So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this command before he died: ‘Say to Joseph, “Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.”’ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him. His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.” But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many peopleshould be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.
Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The Old Testament reading for Sunday, September 17, comes from Genesis chapter 50, verses 15 through 21. When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, it may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him. So they send a message to Joseph saying, Your father gave us this command before he died. Say to Joseph, please forgive the transgressions of your brothers and their sin because they did evil to you. And now, please forgive the transgressions of the servants of the God of your father. Joseph wept when they spoke to him. His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, Behold, we are Your servants. But Joseph said to them, Do not fear for a mind the place of God. As for you, you meant evil against me. But God meant it for good to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. So do not fear I will provide for you and your little ones. Thus, he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. Here ends the reading. There's a lot of story that is going on in the background behind this this particular passage. You know, the story of Joseph Joseph was one of the youngest of 12 brothers of Jacob. He got the amazing coat, and then the brothers got jealous they beat him up, threw him in a well sold him as a slave. He made it all the way to Egypt, where he was working in the house of PATA far when he was made the highest official, the part of his wife accused him of trying to rape her, so he went to jail. While in jail, he interpreted some dreams for Pharaoh's cup bearer and Baker. And then interpreting these dreams meant that eventually Josef's power to interpret dreams was brought to Pharaoh when Pharaoh had a dream. Joseph successfully interprets the stream, and Pharaoh raises him up to become the highest official in all of Egypt. When Joseph's family has troubled during the famine, they come to Egypt to buy food, and they go before Joseph to get that food. After all sorts of back and forth, Joseph tests them and tricks them and then eventually he reveals themselves to him. And they say, oh, no, Joseph is going to kill us. It'll be terrible. Joseph weeps, forgives his brothers and welcomes them back into Egypt. And Joseph's father Jacob travels all the way down and moves there. And Joseph cares to them grants them land, all sorts of cool stuff. This story begins when Josef's father dies, the brothers think Joseph has been kind to us, only out of love for the Father for Jacob. Now he's going to finally take his revenge. I have to say, can you imagine taking keeping a grudge for that amount of time holding on to that amount of anger all that long? Yikes. How much would that be a burden. So they say, when when the father dies, they say, Dad asked you to forgive us. Joseph had already done that. He already said that he couldn't, he had forgiven them. But he says this. He says, Am I in the place of God. That's really where the key for this is, is God is the one who judges God is the one who brings about justice. He is the only one who can condemn. What we see in Joseph is a mirror for Jesus a type for him, that Joseph went down into Egypt, he suffered, went into a prison, and then rose up to prominence so that he could save all of Israel, to bring Jacob down to Egypt. And from there, they grew into a mighty people. And he saved not just Jacob and the family from this terrible famine, but all of Egypt and everyone else. And so we see in in Jesus, something very similar, that he was beat up by his people. He suffered, He went into the prison of the tomb, came out and on the other end saves everyone who believes in Him. And it's because of Jesus that we can have the forgiveness that Joseph has and say, all of the evil of this world is part of God's plan. And God brings about good in it Our job is not to bring about vengeance or judge or anything like that, but to love as Christ has loved us. And so we follow the pattern of Jesus who forgave us, and so we forgive others as well. And so it ends up with Joseph comforting the family and saying, Don't do not fear, I will provide for you and your little ones. And that's what he does. And there the family grows until eventually it gets to be so large that the new pharaoh imprison them. And we get the whole story of the Exodus And Moses. That's the end of our reading for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai