The Ending, the Beginning

Scripture: Genesis 50: 14-26

Sermon: The Ending, the Beginning

Topics: Beginning, Ending, Promise

Preached: November 26, 2017 Final in Joseph Series

Rev. Mike Abma

Preamble: Our passage today ends not only the Joseph story,

but the whole Book of Genesis. So I want you to think BIG this morning,

think BIG in terms of the Joseph Story,

but also think BIG in terms of the Genesis Story and the whole sweep of

salvation.

GENESIS 50: 14-26

¹⁴After he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt with his brothers and all who had gone up with him to bury his father.

15 Realizing that their father was dead, Joseph’s brothers said, ‘What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him?’ ¹⁶So they approached Joseph, saying, ‘Your father gave this instruction before he died, ¹⁷“Say to Joseph: I beg you, forgive the crime of your brothers and the wrong they did in harming you.” Now therefore please forgive the crime of the servants of the God of your father.’ Joseph wept when they spoke to him. ¹⁸Then his brothers also wept, fell down before him, and said, ‘We are here as your slaves.’

¹⁹But Joseph said to them, ‘Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God?²⁰Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today. ²¹So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones.’ In this way he reassured them, speaking kindly to them.

22 So Joseph remained in Egypt, he and his father’s household; and Joseph lived for one hundred and ten years. ²³Joseph saw Ephraim’s children of the third generation; the children of Machir son of Manasseh were also born on Joseph’s knees.

24 Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am about to die; but God will surely come to you, and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.’ ²⁵So Joseph made the Israelites swear, saying, ‘When God comes to you, you shall carry up my bones from here.’ ²⁶And Joseph died, being one hundred and ten years old; he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION JOSEPH AND GENESIS

The last words of Genesis are “in Egypt.”

The first words of Genesis are “in the beginning.”

So let’s go back to the beginning.

In the beginning there was Chaos.

But God brought order, and life, and goodness out of that chaos.

Then there was more chaos:

Adam and Eve’s disobedience,

Cain’s murder of Abel;

The wickedness of the people at the time of Noah;

The pride of the people at the time of the Tower of Babel.

Each time, God is busy bending things back in the direction

of order, of life, of goodness.

Then with Abraham there is a dramatic New Beginning.

God approaches one person with his deep promises.

God promises Abraham that his family will be a huge family;

God promises Abraham that his family will inherit the land;

And God promises Abraham that his family will be a blessing to all people.

God makes these deep promises.

And the rest of Genesis is all about God keeping those promises.

But chaos keeps finding its way into Abraham’s family:

There is the chaos between Abraham’s wives, Sarah and Hagar,

And there is tension between their children Isaac and Ishmael.

There is the chaos between Esau and Jacob,

the twin boys of Isaac and Rebekah.

Each time chaos strikes, God is busy bending things back in the direction

of order, of life, of goodness.

Here, at the end of Genesis,

we have the story of Jacob’s family,

and chaos abounds –

everyone seems to be holding deep resentments,

everyone is fighting.

Instead of order, and life, and goodness,

there only seems to be chaos, and death, and evil.

But somehow, God is behind the scenes bending things in such a way

that Jacob’s family stays together,

and they all end up re-united in Egypt.

But now Jacob has died.

And two BIG questions remain:

1. what will happen to Jacob’s family?

2. what will happen to the Promise?

THE FAMILY vs 15-21

In many ways, verses 15-21 tell the story of what happens to Jacob’s family.

When Jacob dies,

it is 17 years since the family first arrived in Egypt;

17 years since Joseph gave his brothers that first hug in chapter 45.

Now that father Jacob is dead,

The big question is, “will that forgiveness hold?”

The brothers are not sure.

Over that 17 years, Joseph has been very busy serving Egypt,

busy consolidating Pharaoh’s power,

busy buying all the land for Pharaoh

and turning the population into Pharaoh’s slaves.

The brothers knew that they remained totally at Joseph’s mercy.

So they fall at his feet, beg forgiveness,

And declare, “We’re here as your slaves.”

You know that after Genesis comes Exodus, right?

You can sense that there is a lot of foreshadowing here.

Slavery for the children of Israel is to come…..

but not yet.

Joseph is not the one to make the sons of Israel slaves.

Joseph asks, “Am I in the place of God?”

Here, at the end of Genesis,

we should think about the beginning of Genesis,

we should think about Adam and Eve

whose sin was trying to be like God.

Joseph does not go there.

He refuses to eat the tempting fruit of vengeance.

Instead Joseph let’s God be God.

And God is always working for the good.

From the beginning,

God created, God worked, and it was good.

Even when we humans kept messing things up,

God keeps working for the good.

And so, in the messy family of Jacob,

when the brothers intended to do harm to Joseph,

God bent it in the direction of good –

and that word “good”

is the same word that appears at the beginning of Genesis.

God is always working for the good.

That is God’s nature.

“In all things

God works for the good

Of those who love him

Who have been called according to his purpose.”

Romans 8:28.

Joseph has also learned this –

The only way to join God in combatting chaos

is not to respond to evil with evil – that just spreads chaos.

The only way to respond to evil is with goodness.

That is exactly what he does with his brothers and their families.

He pledges to protect them and to be kind to them.

So this family,

That could not say a civil word to one another in chapter 37

is now united, reconciled, and finding some family shalom at last.

THE PROMISE

That answers the question about the family,

but what about the Promise?

The promise that Abraham’s family would be huge

The promise that they would inherit the Promised Land

The promise that they would be a blessing to all people.

What about that Promise?

First a word about how that promise had been passed down

from generation to generation.

So far, it has been passed down from individual to individual:

From Abraham to Isaac,

From Isaac to Jacob.

Now here we are at Jacob’s death.

To whom does the Promise go?

It almost looks like the Promise will go to Joseph,

and Joseph’s younger son, Ephraim.

But here is the wonder of these last verses in Genesis.

Just before he dies,

Joseph speaks to his brothers about the Promise.

This may not seem like such a big deal

but up till now in Genesis this has never happened.

The amazing thing about this passage

is that, for the first time in Genesis,

a brother speaks the words of Promise to his brothers.

This shows that Promise is no longer attached to just one son of the family,

but now it is attached to all the sons,

All the sons of Jacob,

All the sons of Israel.

We also know that the first part of the Promise —

that Abraham’s family would become huge —

was already coming true in Egypt.

In Genesis 47:27 it says the sons of Israel settled in Egypt

and they became fruitful and multiplied.

Again, do you hear the echoes of Genesis 1:28 to be fruitful and multiply?

So if the first part of the Promise was being fulfilled,

What about the other two parts:

what about the Promise of the Land

what about the Promise to be a blessing to all people?

Here we see the limitations of Joseph.

Joseph could get his family into Egypt,

but he could not get them out.

In fact, over time the very wealth of Egypt, which saved them,

Would become a power which enslaved them;

Egypt, which began as a blessing,

Would become a curse.

Egypt was definitely NOT the Promised Land.

THE ENDING and THE BEGINNING

Here ends the Book of Genesis.

Abraham’s family truly growing huge,

yet trapped in the chaos of Egypt,

waiting at the end …..

waiting for a new beginning,

waiting for God to come

to once again begin something new,

something new filled with order, and life, and goodness,

waiting to be led out of Egypt

and to the Promised Land.

There is a sense of Advent Waiting at the end of Genesis.

God’s people are waiting for God to come to save his people.

Years and centuries later,

children of Abraham would again be trapped in a foreign land,

this time Babylon,

and they waited…waited for God to lead them back to the Promised Land.

Years and centuries after that,

the children of Abraham would be trapped in chaos again.

The Jews of the New Testament

had made their status as children of Abraham into an idol for

themselves, rather than a blessing for others.

Advent Waiting — waiting for God to show up,

And surprise of surprises,

One day he does show up in person,

He shows up as a child born in Bethlehem,

Born to lead all people everywhere

out of the kingdom of darkness

into his marvelous light.

Born to take what we humans intended for harm –

namely his cruel death on a cross —

and born to allow God to intend it for good –

so that the cross would become

the way of salvation and blessing for all people.

The Dream of the Promise

Of God’s family becoming huge

Of God providing a place for his people

Of God’s people being a blessing for all….

This Dream of the Promise was fulfilled

In the death,

The resurrection

And the ascension of Jesus, Our Lord.

CONCLUSION

I am sort of amazed that in this Sermon Series Bryant and I have not really referred to Andrew Lloyd Weber’s great musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

If you do not know that musical, it is a lot of fun.

But may I quibble with part of it?

The last stanza of the last full number called the Finale.

Do you remember how that goes:

May I return to the beginning

The light is dimming

And the dream is too.

The world and I

We are still waiting

Still hesitating

Any dream will do.

Any dream will do?

No, actually not.

Not any dream will do.

The only dream that will do is God’s dream.

The only dream that will do

Is God’s dream for us to be part of his family.

The only dream that will do

Is God’s dream that his world is fully restored and made new again –

A true Promised Land.

The only dream that will do is God’s dream, God’s promise

To make all things new

Through his Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Amen