Bones, Waiting for the Resurrection

The Story of Joseph's Bones

(Genesis 50:22-26, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, November 15, 2015)

(22-23) Joseph's long life and progeny

[22] So Joseph remained in Egypt, he and his father's house. Joseph lived 110 years. [23] And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation. The children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were counted as Joseph's own.

Joseph, his brothers, and their families remained in Egypt for many years. Joseph himself lived a good long life, and had the joy of seeing the beginning of the generations who would come after him in the tribes that bore the names of his sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. What more can anyone ask for?

(24) Joseph's faith

[24] And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”

But Joseph did look for more. He delivered to the people of Israel, “his brothers” in the broader sense of the word, an oracle from God. Joseph was about to die, but the promises of God would continue. Just as God had promised Joseph's great grandfather Abraham, though Israel would be servants in a land that was not theirs, “afterward” they would “come out with great possessions.” (Genesis 15:14) They would return to the land that the Lord had promised to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. At the end of Genesis, Joseph reminds Israel that “God will visit you and bring you up out of this land.”

(25) Joseph's dying wish

[25] Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.”

Joseph gave this prophetic Word as one who believed that he would somehow be a part of its fulfillment, despite his impending death. He would not be immediately buried in Canaan as his father had been, yet one day the descendants of Jacob would carry Joseph's bones out of Egypt. He would be there with them, in a sense, when they came home. Joseph made Israel swear to this just as his father had made him promise to bury his remains in the family burial plot in the Promised Land.

(26) Waiting on God

[26] So Joseph died, being 110 years old. They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

So what happened to Joseph's bones? For many years they simply remained in a coffin in Egypt. But then in Exodus13 we read:

[17] When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, “Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.” [18] But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. And the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle. [19] Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones with you from here.” [20] And they moved on from Succoth and encamped at Etham, on the edge of the wilderness. [21] And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. [22] The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.

(Exodus 13:17-22 ESV)

Then some years later in Joshua 24 at the end of Joshua we read:

[32] As for the bones of Joseph, which the people of Israel brought up from Egypt, they buried them at Shechem, in the piece of land that Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for a hundred pieces of money. It became an inheritance of the descendants of Joseph.

(Joshua 24:32 ESV)

What did the bones of Joseph do for all those centuries? Wait. They waited for the Lord of redemption to send a deliverer to bring the people of God out of bondage. Even after the bones of Joseph were carried through the wilderness for so many years, they were still waiting. Waiting for a better redeemer than Moses and for a better promised land than Canaan.

What does it mean to wait for the Lord? It means that we receive His Word as perfectly true and act in accord with the absolute certainty that God never lies.

While we wait, some will be interested to find evidence from other fields of study or from the experiences of life that corroborate what we read in Scripture. For instance, many have noted similarities between the Joseph of Scripture and one Imhotep of Egypt. Such evidence will always be debated. As fascinating as these findings are, they are not essential for a life of waiting upon the Lord. Waiting starts with the faith that God is true. This faith is a gift of God as is the obedience that proceeds from faith. Such waiting produces fruit that cannot come from mountains of corroborating evidence.

What kind of fruit? Isaiah 40:31 tells us, “They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” Waiting for the Lord is associated with a courageous heart and with an assurance of ultimate victory. We are instructed that those who wait for the Lord “shall inherit the land.” (Psalm 37:9,34) They shall experience divine deliverance. (Proverbs 20:22) Do you want that?

We have come to the end of a very important book of the Bible, but we are clearly very far from the completion of God's purposes. Israel is in Egypt, expanding in numbers and waiting for redemption. Even at the end of the Torah there would still be a long way to go. Sometime after the end of the Old Testament, Jesus was born, lived, died, and rose again. He established the first kingdom that would never fail. It is our privilege to believe His Word, to wait for Him, obeying His precepts. We look for the promised day when everything that has breath will praise the Lord. Until then we work, we watch, and we wait as those who know that the Word of the Lord is true.

Old Testament Reading—Psalm 150:6
[6] Let everything that has breath praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD!

Gospel Reading—Matthew 26:57-68 – Jesus before Caiaphas and the Council