Genesis 50: 22-26
Joseph has moved his whole family out of Canaan into Egypt, and has settled them in the most fertile and prosperous region of the land, Goshen.
Joseph was very highly respected and liked and honored by the Pharaoh and the Egyptians for his skillful management of the 7 years of prosperity and the 7 years of famine, to save their lives from starvation during that time.
So the sons of Israel prospered and multiplied and enjoyed good lives there in Egypt.
(22) Now Joseph stayed in Egypt, he and his father's household, and Joseph lived one hundred and ten years. (23) Joseph saw the third generation of Ephraim's sons; also the sons of Machir, the son of Manasseh, were born on Joseph's knees.
Joseph lived to a good old age, and enjoyed God's blessings of family, seeing his grandchildren and great grandchildren also prospering.
(24) Joseph said to his brothers, "I am about to die, but God will surely take care of you and bring you up from this land to the land He has promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob." (25) Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, "God will surely take care of you, and you shall carry my bones up from here."
Joseph was aware of his impending death, as his father Jacob and grandfather Isaac and great grandfather Abraham were of theirs, to give God's blessings to the next generation, to pass on to future generations.
But Joseph was not to bless his sons, his father Israel did that, in claiming them as his own sons in the number of the Tribes of Israel. And apparently Joseph had no more sons after Manasseh and Ephraim.
Joseph also wanted to be buried with his fathers, but he did not want to leave his family in Egypt. So he told his brothers to remember him through the generations to carry his bones with them back to the Promised Land when the Lord God would bring them all back to Canaan.
This is big. Joseph carried his father's coffin back to Canaan for immediate burial, but he was willing to wait as long as needed to go with his people back to that land, when they would own it as their own nation. This is what God had promised, and Joseph believed God, and wanted his bones to participate in its fulfillment.
(26) So Joseph died at the age of one hundred and ten years; and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt.
So, when Joseph died, he was embalmed, as was the Egyptian custom for persons of importance and standing. But he was not buried. We are not told where they kept his coffin, but it was cared for from generation to generation for the 400 years the sons of Israel would dwell in Egypt.
This may be the end of Joseph's life, but there is one more chapter to end his story.
And the last words of the book of Genesis are, "in a coffin in Egypt." This speaks of death and bondage. What began with "In the beginning God" with life and light and goodness, ends with the opposite. How far our sorry human nature carries us away from what is good and beneficial for us.
We need God! We all need the goodness our Lord God wants to lavish upon us. We all are desperate without His Holy Spirit in the New Birth to give us back that life and light and goodness that we lost through Genesis, through our own personal beginnings and passage through our lives.
We have all lost our way, we are all like a stained, uncleanable menstrual cloth before God, in our sinfulness (Isaiah 64: 6). Every one of us has inherited from Adam that damaged DNA that has marred our human nature, and causes every one of us to make a wrong choice or decision that we know is wrong, and do it anyway. We are born sinners, and we are all transgressors, committing sins.
But God has sent His own Son to be the Lamb of God (John 1: 29, 36), our personal Sacrifice (Leviticus 1), to cleanse us from sin by His Blood splattered on the sides of His altar, the Cross. Then His Holy Spirit can come in to that pristine soul, make our human spirit alive, and cut away, circumcise, the connection of our flesh to that new Life He gives us (Colossians 2: 11), breaking the power sin had over us.
"Genesis" means "beginnings." We must go to the end for the ending. Even Joseph's story still has a final chapter, and we all will have a final chapter to our stories, too.
Joseph lived his life so that his final chapter did not detract from it. How we live our lives, the choices we make every day we live, how we see and treat one another, what we've done with what God has given us, will all determine how our final chapter will read. What will be on our tombstone, in our epitaph.
O my Father, You have given us the final answer to everything we can ever ask. You have laid out our whole human story, from before the beginning until after the end. Father, You will not try to "clean" our flesh, but will replace our bodies with spiritual bodies (I Corinthians 15: 44, 49). The spiritual will swallow up the material, the eternal the temporal. And while we live in our flesh bodies now, You have them separated from the spiritual Life that dwells in us as Your children.
My Father, help us to learn every lesson we need to practice now while we live here on this Earth. Teach us to love one another as unconditionally and passionately as You have loved us! Show us how to share with others how much You love us, in the way each person can understand. Send out all Your children, Father, into every nation, so that every living person will be able to hear.
O Father, fill Your great house with all of Your uncountable family!
And every eye shall see, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is our Lord God Almighty, our Redeemer and Savior, sovereign King of the World and all Creation; to the everlasting glory of Almighty God the Father, forever and ever. Amen.
Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus!
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