As the children of Israel lay their father to rest, fear of retribution from Joseph starts to rise in the brothers, but Joseph offers mercy and forgiveness much like we are offered the same through Christ.

Transcript:

Burying his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, together with his brothers and all the others who had gone with him to bury his father. When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, what if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him? So they sent word to Joseph saying, your father left these instructions before he died.

This is what you ought to say to Joseph. I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs that they committed in treating you so badly. Now, please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father.

A reward is given to those who are worthy. They deserve, they are due what they receive. Those who receive a gift have no right to demand that it be given to them. Those who give it give it freely. Of all gifts, there would seem to be no greater gift than forgiveness. Forgiveness is the epitome of someone receiving a gift they don't deserve.

Many human stories that are told center on revenge. Getting back at those who have done us wrong. The Christmas story is the complete opposite of this. And so is the story of Joseph. Then, as now, is difficult for people to believe in the real possibility of forgiveness. But as we'll see, it is both real and necessary.

We turn to Genesis 50, starting in verse 1. You'll recall, if you were with us last week, that Jacob has just passed away. And so, upon seeing his father, now lifeless, says, Joseph threw himself on his father and wept over him and kissed him. Then Joseph directed the physicians in his service to embalm his father Israel.

So the physicians embalmed him, taking a full 40 days, for that was the time required for embalming. And the Egyptians mourned for him 70 days. When the days of mourning had passed, Joseph said to Pharaoh's court, if I have found favor in your eyes, speak to Pharaoh for me. Tell him my father made me swear an oath and said I am about to die; bury me in the tomb I dug for myself in the land of Canaan. Now let me go up and bury my father. Then I will return.

In these opening verses we see a very real glimpse of humanity. True sorrow and grief at the loss of one's father. And the preparations that are made for Jacob are both similar and different than the preparations that we often make for our own dead. Would have been unique across the rest of the world at that time, but not unique in Egypt.

In our own time, it's not uncommon for people to be embalmed once they pass, so the body might be preserved for some time. We can assume that this wasn't something that everyone had access to, but because of Joseph's position in Egypt, this was a possibility for his own father. It makes us wonder, why did he do this?

Why did he seek to have his father embalmed? It may have been out of some sensitivity towards the religious sensibilities of the Egyptians. They had very peculiar notions about the afterlife. They believed that basically the body needed to be preserved in order for it to kind of, kind of almost act as a home base for the afterlife.

And this is why when they crack open those tombs of the pharaohs they find all kinds of trinkets and things like that, because they supposed that they were taking these things with them to the afterlife. Now, it could be that there was a religious aspect to these physicians, but it may be notable that it says that physicians embalmed Jacob, not priests.

So it may have been that Joseph was trying to respect some of those sensibilities while not trying to adopt some of their religious notions. Perhaps there is a practical element, they wanted to preserve the body as they go on this journey to Canaan. Whatever the case, it was quite a process. And it's interesting to kind of look into the process of how they embalm these bodies.

Because it was very much a surgical procedure. They took out all the organs of the body, wrapped them up, took out all the brains. Kind of gross to think about. They took a hundred yards, a hundred yards of linen and wrapped the body very intensively. And so it took forty days to accomplish that.

And it says the Egyptians altogether mourned for him seventy days. So not just Jacob's family. But all of the Egyptians went to a state of mourning, which just underscores the importance of Jacob and his family at this point in Egypt. And so they went through this process of mourning, mummified him. As I think about this, this idea of mourning someone for 70 days, it kind of, I think it's an important reminder for us that it's okay to take time to grieve for those that we love, for those that we lose.

I think in our society, we're so quick to like, okay, we have to, and we, bam, we're done with that. Now we're going to be happy, happy, joy, joy afterwards. That's not natural. What's natural is us grieving those that are dearly loved. And that grief goes beyond just 70 days. I think about holidays. For many of us, it can be a difficult time.

And for myself, it's a difficult time. A year ago, I lost my grandfather. And the pain of that grief is not as sharp as it once was, but it's still there. We think about Pastor Bill and how we lost him a year ago now. It's okay to grieve for those that we love and not to be in any rush to kind of stuff that away.

So they, they, they give all sorts of honors to Jacob. And then Joseph makes this request that he would go to Canaan to bury Jacob per the oath that he made to his father. And, continuing on in verse six, Pharaoh replies, He says, Go up and bury your father as he made you swear to do. So Joseph went up to bury his father.

All Pharaoh's officials accompanied him, the dignitaries of his court and all the dignitaries of Egypt, besides all the members of Joseph's household and his brothers and those belonging to his father's household. Only their children and their flocks and herds were left in Goshen. Chariots and horsemen also went up with him.

It was a very large company. When they reached the threshing floor of Atad near the Jordan, they lamented loudly and bitterly, and there Joseph observed a seven day period of mourning for his father. So all these details that are being told here are just meant to communicate to us they were getting all the honors.

And, we see once they reach their destination, again, they engage in seven days of mourning. And all this ceremony was so noticeable that the Canaanites took note of it. In verse 11, it says, when the Canaanites who lived there saw the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, the Egyptians are holding a solemn ceremony of mourning. That is why that place near the Jordan is called Abel Mizraim. So Jacob's sons did as he had commanded them.

They carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre, which Abraham had bought along with the field as a burial place from Ephraim, the Hittite. So once Jacob is laid to rest, then everything else really begins. And in the case of Joseph's brothers, worry begins to set in.

Worry begins to fill their minds. Continuing on in verse 14, it says, After burying his father, Joseph returned to Egypt together with his brothers and all the others who had gone with him to bury his father. When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?

So they sent word to Joseph, saying, Your father left these instructions before he died. This is what you are to say to Joseph. I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly. Now, please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father. Now, if you haven't been tracking this story with us the whole way, you should know that Joseph's brothers did him real wrong.

First, they just wanted to straight up kill him. They threw him in an empty cistern when he went out to check on how they and their flocks were doing. And they said, we're just going to kill him out here and tell Dad that a wild animal got to him. One of the brothers thought better of it, Judah, saying, Well, it's not the nicest thing to have our brother's blood on our hands.

That might be kind of a bad omen for, for us. So we'll just do this. We'll just sell him into slavery and we'll get some money on the side from it. And so that's what they did. They sold their own brother into Egyptian slavery and told their father that some wild animals killed him. And many years later, though, they were reunited with Joseph, under very surprising circumstances.

Circumstances they would never have expected. They were starving, their whole family was starving because of a famine going on in the land. And so they had gone to Egypt to seek food. And lo and behold, the man who was second in command was their brother Joseph. Now, they didn't realize it at the time, and through a series of circumstances that would play out, in which Joseph tested his brot...