1. Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word for this 16th Sunday after Pentecost is taken from Genesis 50:15-21, it’s entitled, “Forgiveness in the Christian Life,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. Sometimes, it’s very difficult to forgive someone who’s hurt you badly. We’re tempted to respond with avoidance, hate, or revenge. A co-worker takes credit for your work and puts you in a bad light with your boss. Later, that same co-worker struggles hopelessly with a project due tomorrow. What do you do? A fellow student bullies you mercilessly. Later, he’s accused of cheating on a test, but you know he’s completely innocent. What do you do? Your sister talks your aging mother into giving her a precious family heirloom that she promised you many years ago, and then she sells it. Now your sister needs help with groceries for her family. What do you do? Forgiving others who’ve hurt you is often difficult. The world tells us, “Don’t get mad; get even!” But, the Genesis narrative of Joseph and his brothers helps us understand why and how we can forgive those who have hurt us.
3. Our text today is the end of a long story. As the eleventh of twelve brothers, Joseph was given a colorful coat by his father Jacob and told dreams that made his brothers hate him. Joseph’s brothers conspired to kill him and throw him down a pit. Instead, Joseph was sold as a slave and taken to Egypt, where he was sold to Potiphar. The ten brothers of Joseph covered up their evil act by dipping Joseph’s coat in goat’s blood and bringing it to Jacob to identify. Jacob imagined that Joseph had been eaten by wild beasts, and he grieved for his son.
4. Meanwhile in Egypt, God was with Joseph as he served Potiphar, but Potiphar’s wife was attracted to Joseph and often tried to seduce him. Once, while alone with her, he rejected her advances. Spurned by Joseph’s rejection, she lied about Joseph to her husband, telling him that Joseph had attempted to take advantage of her. Enraged, Potiphar had Joseph thrown into prison.
5. But, even in prison God enabled Joseph to interpret dreams for Pharaoh’s cupbearer and baker. The cupbearer forgot to tell Pharaoh about Joseph. Finally, one night, Pharaoh had troubling dreams that he couldn’t understand, and the cupbearer remembered Joseph. He recommended that Pharaoh ask Joseph to interpret his dreams. God gave Joseph the interpretation of Pharaoh’s dreams: seven coming years of good crops to be followed by seven years of famine. Naturally, Pharaoh chose Joseph to oversee the 14 year plan to collect, save, and sell the grain.
6. Back in Canaan, also lacking food, Jacob sent 10 of his sons to Egypt to buy grain. They found Joseph, who recognized them, but they didn’t recognize him. After two trips, Joseph revealed himself to his brothers. So they went back and brought Jacob and all 70 members of his family to Egypt. Jacob was reunited with Joseph, and all of them lived 17 years in Egypt before Jacob died.
7. Our text today begins, “When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, ‘It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him’ ” (Gen 50:15). For over 20 years, those 10 brothers had lived in guilt about what they’d done to Joseph and their father, Jacob. Now Jacob and all 12 of his sons had lived together in Egypt for 17 years. But somehow in that time, there had been no real reconciliation between Joseph and the 10 brothers who’d sold him into slavery. While their father was alive, the brothers felt secure that Joseph wouldn’t harm them. But now that Jacob was dead, they thought their brother Joseph would take revenge on them.
8. Sometimes, instead of talking in our families and relationships, we have the idea that past hurts and sins will just go away. They’re never actually confessed and forgiven, just forgotten . . . for a while. But if the topic ever comes up later, it tears off an unhealed scab, and the bleeding starts again as badly as it did before. Nothing was healed. Instead of forgiving others, we sometimes just say, “That’s okay,” or “Don’t worry about it,” but that doesn’t actually heal the hurt or the relationship. Real confession and forgiveness need to take place.
9. To save their own skin, the ten brothers of Joseph make up a story. “So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, ‘Your father gave this command before he died: “Say to Joseph, ‘Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.’ ” And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father’ ” (Gen. 50:16–17). Did Jacob actually make this request of Joseph? Probably not. Joseph was at Jacob’s deathbed and heard his final words, another wonderful opportunity for Jacob to speak to Joseph about this matter. Knowing the history of the brothers’ deceit, this is probably just a desperate attempt to save their own lives.
10. When we confess our sins to God and to one another and hear the words “I forgive you,” we know the sins are truly gone! We can’t make up for some sin by doing something nice in return, either to God or to a person we’ve wronged. Hearing the words of absolution from the pastor in church, as well as remembering our Baptism and receiving Christ’s body and blood “for the forgiveness of sins,” is hearing the voice of God loud and clear that we’ve been forgiven by God, through the sacrifice, the cross, of our Savior Jesus.
11. After the brothers sent the request that Joseph forgive them, “Joseph wept when they spoke to him” (Gen. 50:17). Joseph had forgiven his brothers long ago and wasn’t under a burden of hate or revenge. Although his brothers didn’t sound too repentant, Joseph forgave them anyway.
12. After the message was brought to Joseph, our text from Genesis 50 says, “His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, ‘Behold, we are your servants’ ” (Gen. 50:18). Did any of them have a sudden case of déjà vu? Many years ago, God had given Joseph two dreams about his brothers bowing down before him, and now it’s happening, just as it had when the brothers first stood before Joseph, the ruler. But Joseph didn’t want servants who would fear him; he wanted brothers who would love him.
13. “Joseph said to them, ‘Do not fear, for am I in the place of God?’ ” (Gen. 50:19). By now, Joseph had had years of watching the plans of God unfold into a great blessing, and who was he to question God’s methods? “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” says the Lord (Rom 12:19). As our Lord’s parable in today’s Gospel tells us, we can and must forgive the debt of anyone who hurts us, because we are the servants who have had many great debts forgiven us by our Master.
14. Joseph explains to his brothers that God had a purpose in allowing evil things to happen to him. He says, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Gen. 50:20). Joseph repeats what he told his brothers when he first revealed himself to them 17 years ago, but they either had forgotten or doubted him. Earlier he had said to them, “Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. . . . So it was not you who sent me here, but God” (Gen. 45:5, 8).
15. Joseph saw God’s hand for good in the many years of hurt that he endured. God turns evil around to make good come from it, always for God’s divine purposes. Paul echoes this in Rom 8:28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Those who killed Jesus meant it for evil, but God meant it for good, the saving of many souls! All the evil that was done to Jesus—persecution, unjust treatment, thrown into a pit of humanity, having his clothes taken away, left in the prison of the grave for two days and emerging alive on the third day—it was all a part of God’s greater plan of ultimate good for you and me! Our sins are no more!
16. As Joseph speaks tenderly to his brothers, so does Jesus speak to us today: “ ‘So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.’ Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them” (Gen. 50:21). As Jesus’ brothers, we can forgive too. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.
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