They made him cry

In his will before he died, Jacob included a note for his son Joseph to “Please forgive your brothers for all their wrongs against you, and for treating you so badly,” Genesis 50:16-17. 

But that was asking a bit much of Joseph, wasn’t it? His brothers had wanted to kill him. They’d swarmed him as a teenager, stripped off his robe and thrown him into a waterless cistern to die, and only on Judah’s advice did they decide to sell him as a slave to some Ishmaelite merchants for twenty shekels of silver. Then they inflicted years of mourning and distress on their father by telling him that Joseph had been eaten by an animal (Genesis 37).

But didn’t the Father ask a lot of Jesus too? He asked Jesus to become a human and have his fellow Jews hate him so much they’d want to kill him as well. And before they had him killed he was sold too, and for only ten shekels of silver more than Joseph. His fellow Jews also lied about him so he could be cruelly killed by Roman thugs. 

So here was another parallel between Joseph and Jesus. Jesus had horrible things done to him by his fellow Jews as the price the Father asked him to pay, not only for the forgiveness of those who’d caused his brutal death, but for “all the sins of the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter” (Mark 3:28). It was the same for Joseph; he too had horrible things done to him by his brothers, but here was his Dad asking him to overlook what his brothers had done as the price to pay for their forgiveness.

But why did God the Father and Joseph’s father ask this of both their sons? Well, when Joseph’s brothers realized what their Dad had asked of Joseph on their behalf, it created a huge change of heart in them – expressed in a personal plea to Joseph in Genesis 50:17, to “please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father.” And isn’t that the change of heart we experience on realizing what the Father asked of Jesus on our behalf, to please forgive us as humble, obedient servants of his Father now too? 

And look at Joseph’s response to his brothers’ plea: they made him cry (17). Could that also picture how Jesus responds when it dawns on us why the Father put Jesus through what he did for our forgiveness? Are we “Seeing Jesus’ love in Joseph” too, then?….(next blog)