Even Our Best Days Can't Compare

The Story Doesn’t End Here, Part II
(Genesis 43, Preaching: Pastor Nathan Snyder, August 30, 2015)

Last week we discussed how the bad things in our lives are not the end of the story if we are in Christ.  Neither our sin nor our loss has the final word.  This week I want us to see that even the good things that happen in our lives now aren’t the end of the story.  The best is yet to come.  Today’s chapter begins with Jacob clinging to Benjamin like his life depends on him.  He even said at the end of chapter 42 that if Benjamin was lost, it would bring his gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol.  Benjamin was, of course, God’s good gift to Jacob.  But Jacob is making an idol out of his son.  It almost seems he is willing to risk his whole family starving in the famine rather than risk losing Benjamin.  We can sympathize with Jacob knowing that he lost his son Joseph.  But he needs to trust God with his youngest son’s life.  Also, if Jacob would rest in the fact that he has God himself, he could hope in the fact that he cannot lose in the end.  Parents, sometimes you just have to let your children go and trust them into God’s good hands.  It can be difficult to do that if you have already endured tragic loss.  But God continues to be wise and good and powerful.  Are we more wise or more good or more powerful than God?

Judah attempts to talk sense into his father.  According to what the man in Egypt had said, they have to bring Benjamin or else they cannot go to get any grain.  This is truly the only way.  Judah makes himself the pledge of Benjamin’s safety.  (Judah is beginning to emerge as the Christlike hero in this story.  We will see him truly shine in chapter 44).  Finally, Jacob gives in, letting the brothers go to Egypt with Benjamin.  He calls upon God Almighty to grant the brothers mercy before the Egyptian official, and also submits himself to the will of God.  Yet he also recognizes that if God chooses not to grant protection over Benjamin, Jacob will simply have to accept this.  It is good to pray for our loved ones to the God who is limitless in power.  We also must submit to God’s sovereign plan.  And this is the best thing for us to do, because God’s plan will emerge as better than anything we could have come up with.

As it turns out, things go really well for the brothers during this visit.  They do not seem to be treated roughly at all like their previous time in Egypt.  The steward does not accuse them of stealing the money returned in their sacks, he releases Simeon to them, and the official who had previously accused them of being spies throws them a big meal.  Nobody sees Joseph when he runs off to weep.  It has been over twenty years since he has seen his little brother Benjamin.  The brothers look around in shock when they realize they have all been seated according to their birth order.  What are the chances of that for eleven brothers?  It must have seemed to them that the divine hand was truly blessing them – the same hand they recently believed to be dealing them retribution for their sin.  Life looks pretty good now.  Everyone eats and drinks and has a great time.  They get their grain and are ready to head back to their father with a spring in their step.  They do not realize that they are about to face another crisis on their return journey, which we will learn about in chapter 44.  They also do not realize yet that things are going to get way better than they even seem right now.  When things are pleasant for us in life, it is good to give thanks to God, but let us see such pleasures as merely a foretaste of better things to come.  No eye has seen nor mind perceived what God has in store for us in the new creation. 

Put the Word to Work: Do not look to God’s good gifts in this life as if they are the best we’re going to get.  God is orchestrating both the painful notes and the pleasant notes of our lives into a far more glorious climax than we could have imagined.

Memory Verse from the Psalms of Ascents: Psalm 132:16 – Her priests I will clothe with salvation, and her saints will shout for joy.

Gospel Reading: Matthew 25:1-13 – The parable of the ten virgins