Hello my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
How deep are your family roots in the city where you live? When a person moves to a new place how long does it take for them to consider that new place to be really home? If you consider yourself to be a Christian, a true follower of Jesus Christ, how difficult would it be for you if you sensed God leading you to move from where you currently live to an entirely new place, maybe even across the country, or to a different country? Today as we conclude our journey with our friend Joseph, we’re going to consider some important questions about how to both put down deep family roots but also be available to God if HE wants to relocate you to some far away place, for His greater purposes!
Genesis 50:22 gives us a remarkable summary statement of Joseph’s life after his father Jacob died. “Joseph stayed in Egypt, along with his father’s family. Joseph lived 110 years and he saw the third generation of Ephraim’s children…” Now let’s ponder the tremendous significance of this my friends. Joseph was brought to Egypt as a slave, sold by his brothers to a traveling caravan, when he was 17 years old. (Gen. 37:1) If he died in Egypt at 110, how long had Joseph lived in Egypt when he died? That’s right, 93 years!! Do you understand the profound significance of that? We know Joseph went from being a prisoner in Pharaoh’s dungeon to Prime Minister of Egypt when Joseph was 30 years old, (Gen. 41:46) so Joseph lived 80 years as royalty in Egypt! We don’t know when he stepped down from that official position, but we do know he remained in Egypt and we can imagine he was well cared for and highly respected until the day of his death. But do you see the problem with Joseph’s comfortable retirement years?
We also know Joseph invited his father Jacob, his brothers and all their families to move to Egypt in the second year of the great famine. (Gen. 45:6) That saved their families from starvation, but you may recall they had made it very clear to the Pharaoh that they were coming ONLY for the duration of the famine! (Gen. 47:4) Joseph would have been 39 years old the year of that temporary move. We know Jacob died after living in Egypt for 17 years (Gen. 47:28) and we’ve talked about Jacob’s leadership failure by NOT leading his family back after the famine was over. Jacob stayed in Egypt 12 years after the famine ended!! As part of his end of life plan, Jacob asked Joseph to NOT bury his body in Egypt, but rather take it back to his homeland and bury his body in the family cave where Abraham & Sarah, Isaac & Rebekah, and Leah were buried. (Gen. 49:29-31)
Yesterday we looked at Joseph and his entire family returning to Egypt AFTER Jacob’s funeral. Now think for a moment. As the funeral procession turned away from that burial cave and started heading south back to Egypt, what land were they traveling through? Yes, that’s right, the Covenant promised land which God had given to Abraham, and reconfirmed to Isaac and reconfirmed twice to Jacob and his descendants. They should have brought all their belongings with them in that funeral procession and resettled there, in that land of Canaan, after the funeral… but they didn’t. They returned back to Egypt, leaving both the family burial cave, but far more importantly, the whole Covenant land of Canaan behind them. Oh my what a mistake! Why do I say that? Because that land didn’t stay empty very long… squatters moved in and since Jacob’s family was nowhere to be found, they settled that land, they built houses and businesses and had children and grandchildren… while Jacob and then Joseph and all their family were in Egypt doing the same thing!! Do you see the problem my friends?
I have tremendous respect for Joseph and clearly God’s hand of great blessing was upon him all his life, but as I read of Joseph’s death, I am left with a haunting question: “Why did Joseph never return to Canaan, the land he knew was God’s Covenant land of promise for him and his family?” Oh I understand why Joseph remained in Egypt to accomplish the assignment God gave him as Prime Minister of all Egypt especially during those 14 years of bounty and then famine. But eventually Joseph retired, why did he not return to Canaan then? I think we all know the answer don’t we? Life was good for Joseph, his brothers and the three generations which followed them, for Pharaoh had settled them in the ‘best of the land of Egypt”, remember? (Gen. 47:5,6) All of us enjoy life when it is comfortable, don’t we? For Jacob and his large family, the ‘best of the land’ became like quicksand and it ensnared them. Their roots went down deep quickly, and soon children were born in Egypt. They prospered and before long those children married and grandchildren were born in Egypt…and the memories of Canaan faded into the distant past. Egypt was home and family roots were very deep!
The Genesis record concludes with these verses: “Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am about to die. But surely God will come to your aid and take you up out of this land, to the land He promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob…and then you must carry my bones up from this place.” (Gen. 50:24,25) Now let’s sit down in the middle of this family meeting for a moment. Old Joseph is 110 years old. That means all his brothers except Benjamin are older than him, and I have to believe several have died already and been buried in Egypt. Do you see my dear friends, that old Joseph is making the same mistake his father Jacob made?
Joseph had assumed the primary leadership role in his entire family when Jacob died. He was their financial leader assuring they were cared for, and he was their moral, ethical and spiritual leader too. Yet Joseph failed his family and his descendants by allowing them to remain in comfortable Egypt, putting their family roots down deeper and deeper as they had children and bought property and built homes and established businesses. By the time Joseph died, we can assume hundreds, maybe thousands of people had moved in and settled in the very place where Jacob and his family had lived in Canaan. God’s land of Covenant promise had been abandoned by God’s Covenant people as they fell in love with Egypt!
Sadly, it appears to me Joseph saw the error of his ways, the failure of his leadership, on his deathbed. And so asked his family to swear they’d take his body back with them to Egypt whenever they finally went. Oh what a sad ending to such a wonderful life! The very last verse of Genesis, the book of beginnings, grieves me deeply: “So Joseph died at the age of 110. And after they embalmed him, he was placed in a coffin in Egypt.” (Gen. 50:26) It’s safe for us to assume the funeral directors did for Joseph exactly what they had done for Jacob, taking 40 days to fully embalm his body, and then place it in a sealed, Egyptian sarcophagus. We’ve all seen pictures of those Egyptian coffins discovered hundreds of years after they were placed in their tombs, and now are kept in museums. I’ve often wondered how they decided whose house Joseph’s coffin would have as a home? Can you imagine living with a closet in your house having an Egyptian coffin in it…for years, and then when you are old, passing it along to your children to take care of?
My friends, as we now see first Jacob, and then his sons, and finally Joseph ALL failed their large, extended family by NOT leading them out of Egypt and back to Canaan! If we had been there at Joseph’s death and asked his large family how they felt about living in Egypt, I’m confident they would have told us how much they loved life in bountiful Egypt. They’d have taken us to see their fine homes, their huge areas of pastureland and their flocks. Probably by then many of them had begun other trades and businesses and they’d have been delighted to take us on tours. Over and over we likely would have heard them say “Look how God has blessed us! Our ancestors came here during a terrible famine, bringing their meager belongings in carts loaned to them by Pharaoh, and leading their scrawny starving sheep and goats and camels. But look now, oh my how God has prospered us….” And if we were to ask them, ‘But what about God’s Covenant promised land that you have abandoned? When will you return there and what will you do about the people who are now moving in and building their families and ranches there?” What do you suppose they would have said?
I think we would have heard them say ‘Well, I see no good reason to leave Egypt and go back there now. Maybe my kids or grandkids will do so.” And so generation after generation they procrastinated, and Canaan became only a story their grandparents had told them about. Egypt was their deeply rooted home. And that beautiful Egyptian coffin in the back room of the house? Well, I guess that will be for the great grandkids to worry about. For now… it’s time for dinner. And life went on and no one noticed things were changing in Egypt!
We’ll look at that tomorrow… for today, please consider all this as you look at your life. Are you too comfortable for God to invite you to join Him in being part of something in another place? Are you so comfortable God’s invite would be an interruption or inconvenience for you? May I ask you to ponder that my friends, and talk to God about that. . . as you listen to this song:
Today’s Scripture is Genesis 50:22-26.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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