Joseph: A Story of Reconciliation and Emotional HealingSample

Joseph’s brothers bear a heavy burden of guilt. Throughout their time visiting Egypt so far, in the moments when they feel the odds are against them, their immediate assumption is: “We’re being punished for what we did to Joseph.”

Think about a mistake you’ve made. Perhaps a wrong you’ve committed and concealed. The people you had to lie to along the way to keep your wrong covered, the sleepless nights, the way the memory of your wrong ripped you apart from the inside out.

We all share in this experience at one level or another, because we all share in the painful reality of sin. Every heart bears its mark, leaving none of us exempt.

Imagine the years of wear-and-tear the sin of Joseph’s brothers has inflicted upon their inner lives. Every time something goes wrong, they see it as punishment. Maybe that in itself is a kind of punishment.

The final phase of Joseph’s test for his brothers is now in play. He has given instructions for his own silver cup to be buried in his youngest brother Benjamin’s bag of grain. After the brothers leave, Joseph has them pursued and captured. Upon confronting them for Benjamin’s apparent thievery, Joseph offers to let the other brothers go and to keep Benjamin as a prisoner.

If they agree to this offer, Joseph will know that they haven’t changed since their betrayal so many years ago, when they were willing to sacrifice him to quench their thirst for vengeance and soothe their jealous rage. If they agree to this offer, they prove they’re still more interested in self-preservation than doing the right thing.

However, if they refuse the offer and choose to protect Benjamin—Joseph’s younger brother and Jacob’s new favorite son—they prove that over the long, hard years, their hearts have indeed changed.

Joseph awaits their answer.

Then, Judah steps forward and speaks. Remember Judah, the brother who had the idea of selling Joseph into slavery? Judah, whose self-interest kept him from doing right by Tamar and his two dead sons? Judah, whose eyes have been opened over the years to his own flaws and failures?

This Judah begs to take Benjamin’s place in prison, so Benjamin can go free. Judah knows that if he returns to his father without the only favored son he has left, Jacob would likely die of grief.

Judah is willing to sacrifice everything—to put his own life and well-being at risk—in order to honor the very person who wounded him the most: his father. Undoubtedly, he remembers the personal risk Tamar took in order to do the right thing, to protect the dignity of even a wicked, dead man. While Jacob clearly loved Judah less, Judah refuses to let that reality keep him from doing the right thing, from protecting his father from a tragic end in grief.

Joseph is overwhelmed, and he can’t hide his identity any longer. He weeps and the brothers embrace one another. He asks about his father. He releases them from the burden of their guilt, telling them not to be “distressed” or “angry with themselves” for selling him into Egypt. He even claims that God himself brought him to Egypt so that their whole family and the region could be delivered.

REFLECT

Where have you experienced the weight of guilt in your life? How can your experiences of confession, repentance, and forgiveness deepen your connection with God and with others?