Joseph’s Tears

Do we know that Jesus weeps for us? Do we know that our Lord Jesus desires to reveal Himself to us, just as Joseph desired to reveal himself to his brothers, the very brothers who sold him into slavery? Can we see our story in the story of Joseph…both as Joseph and as his brothers?

 

What a shame it would have been for Joseph’s brothers to have found food in Egypt without finding Joseph! Suppose Joseph had simply watched his brothers but never revealed himself to them? My dear friends, is it really enough that we give our congregations, and this world, food from our granaries to keep them satiated, but never unveil Jesus Christ to them? 

What is the point of having hungry people coming back and back on Sundays, and yet they have never seen the Glorious One who bids us eat His flesh and drink His blood, the One who calls us to live by His very Life? How many trips will the woman make to the well before she finds someone who calls her to leave her bucket and allow a fountain of Living Water to spout up within her…and then flow out from her to a thirsty church and world?

 

Can we see the progression of Jacob’s sons in our own lives? Are we moving from knowing Reuben, which means “See, a son,” to Benjamin, meaning “Son of the right hand”? Which son are we living as today?

 

When Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt a second time, this time with Benjamin, and Joseph has a meal with them, we read, “Joseph hurried out for he was deeply stirred over his brother, and he sought a place to weep, and he entered his chamber and wept there. Then he washed his face and came out; and he controlled himself and said, ‘Serve the meal.’” (Genesis 43:30 – 31).

 

Jesus intercedes for us, Jesus, weeps for us, that He might reveal Himself and the Father to us. “Therefore He is able also to save completely those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:25).

 

Just as Pharaoh gave Joseph all authority, can we hear Jesus saying, “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Luke 10:22)?

 

“He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him” (John 14:21).

 

“O righteous Father, although the world has not known You; yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:25 – 26).

 

O dear friends, it is not enough for us to be given food to simply help us along in this life, we need the Living Bread from heaven, from the Father: “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst…I am the bread that came down out of heaven…I am the bread of life…This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh’” (see John Chapter 6).

 

 Joseph shed tears for his brother Benjamin, indeed for all his brothers; he yearned to reveal himself to them – but had they changed? Had they repented of their betrayal? Had a greater hunger than temporal food grown in their souls? A hunger for forgiveness? A hunger for redemption? A hunger to be the men God had created them to be?

 

 What about us with our religious playthings? Is our heart’s desire to know Jesus Christ, to see Him unveiled? To make Him known to others? Or are we still seeking the transient, the temporal, the quick fix? Do we only come on Sunday mornings, do we only participate in small groups – to buy the grain of this earth, so that our problems will be smaller, so that our possessions will be larger, so that others will think better of us, so that our agendas will be fulfilled?

Are we propagating a Christless Christianity? A Christ without the Cross and a Cross that looks more like cotton candy than an instrument of death – not only the death of Jesus Christ but our own death to sin and self?

 

There were thousands of people buying grain in Egypt, but it was not given to the multitudes to actually “see” Joseph. Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt looking for one thing, but they found another. Even with us, we may engage with popular and cultural Christianity, looking for pragmatic fixes for our lives, but by God’s grace perhaps we will find Another, weeping for us, loving us, revealing Himself to us.

 

Can we hear Joseph say, “Serve the meal?”

 

Can we hear Jesus say, “Take, eat; this is My body…Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant…”

 

 Joseph wept for his brothers, Jesus weeps for us.

 

Are we weeping for others?