Have you experienced living with the fear ‘of being found out’ for things buried deeply under piles of guilt in your heart? Do you yearn for a release from the pressure of keeping things hidden from God and others? We read of this same struggle in the story of Joseph and the secret sin of his ten step-brothers. The brothers who “could not speak a kind word to him” (Genesis 37:4 NIV), plotted Joseph’s murder and sold him into human slavery as a teenager, then amazingly received words of grace from his lips years later: “he reassured them and spoke kindly to them” (Genesis 50:21 NIV). What would it have been like for the brothers to live in fearful dark silence and then to receive such unmerited love and forgiveness? Today we look together to see the way of the cross for deep heart cleansing and healing.
45: 4 “Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me.” When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! 5 And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. 6 For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping. 7 But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.8 “So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt… 15 And he kissed all his brothers and wept over them. Afterward his brothers talked with him… 50:15 When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?” 16 So they sent word to Joseph, saying, “Your father left these instructions before he died: 17 ‘This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.’ Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father.” When their message came to him, Joseph wept.18 His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. “We are your slaves,” they said.19 But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. 21 So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.” Genesis 45:4-8; 15; 50:15-21 NIV
In this massive chronicle in Genesis 37-50 of God’s intricate dealings with Joseph and his family, it delights the heart to see Jesus Christ shining through this Old Testament passage as our better and greater Joseph, central to God’s rescue plan to save people from spiritual death. Both Joseph and Jesus were cherished sons of their fathers, robed in cloaks of honor. They were cast out with hate by their earthly brothers into the hands of captors, losing their rightful inheritance. Despite enormous personal suffering, they displayed grace to many undeserving others around them and were appointed head over all their peoples, gracefully showering them with gifts of nourishment and provision. Joseph rose from a position as a slave in Egypt to second-in-command next to Pharaoh, in charge of the grain stores that would save their people from famine. Poignantly, we see that Joseph’s and Jesus’ own sinful families, Joseph’s ten brothers and ourselves, turned to their lord in humility for salvation in their dire need.
Joseph’s brothers lived in the shadow of their father’s favoritism as Jacob “loved Joseph more than any of his other sons because he had been born to him in his old age” (Genesis 37:3 NIV). When a coat of ornate colors was presented to Joseph, an act that could not go unnoticed by any person, his brothers “hated him” (Genesis 37:4 NIV). After Joseph boasted about two dreams which showed he would rule over his brothers, they “hated him all the more” (Genesis 37:8 NIV) and were consumed with jealousy (Genesis 37:11) and thoughts of murder. Joseph’s brothers were caught in the downward death spiral of sin unable to save themselves by man’s failing strategies. We also see in the brothers’ story the importance that scripture imparts to the shedding of blood, and subsequently in Exodus 12 at the first Passover, in the yearly animal sacrifices to atone for sin in the temple (Leviticus 4:1-21) and culminating in Jesus’ sacrificial crucifixion, the centrepoint of human history (1 Corinthians 5:7):
“Let’s not take his life,” he said. Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him” Genesis 37:22 NIV [emphasis added]
We see the progressive hardening of the brothers’ hearts in the later chapters of Genesis as they tried to reason with their sinful thoughts. However, by doing so, they fell more deeply into sin, unsuccessfully trying to make peace in their consciences with minimizing strategies and external behaviors. In contrast Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God, removed man’s sin by becoming our sin:
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21
“What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood?27 Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him;” Genesis 37:26 NIV [emphasis added]
The brothers unsuccessfully attempted to hide and distance themselves from their sin by handing Joseph onto the slave traders. Jesus’ solution for sin is to wrap our sinful and undeserving hearts with His own cloak of saving splendor and immerse us in His full righteousness:
“For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness,” Isaiah 61:10
“He [the brother Reuben] went back to his brothers and said, “The boy isn’t there! Where can I turn now?”31 Then they got Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood.” Genesis 37:30-31 [words and emphasis added]
Sin built upon sin as the web of deceit widened. The brothers fabricated stories about Joseph’s disappearance by using an animal’s blood to deceive their father Jacob that his cherished son had been killed. With the fear of being found out swelling in their hearts, darkness blinded their eyes (1 John 2:11).
However, at the cross there is an abundance of grace for the forgiveness and overcoming of sins:
“Much more will those who receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”; “Where sin abounds, grace abounds much more” Romans 5:17, 20
“They said to one another, “Surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life, but we would not listen; that’s why this distress has come on us.” 22 Reuben replied, “Didn’t I tell you not to sin against the boy? But you wouldn’t listen! Now we must give an accounting for his blood.” Genesis 42:21-22 NIV [emphasis added]
Years passed and the bloodguilt for Joseph’s kidnapping (and likely death in their view) continued to grind like cut glass in the brothers’ souls and affect every aspect of their lives. They replayed the event repeatedly in their minds, recalling the distress of Joseph begging for his life. They regretted their decision for the consequences it brought upon them but it was worldly rather than godly grief which did not produce “repentance that leads to salvation without regret” (2 Corinthians 7:10):
The brothers recognized that there needed to be a reckoning for taking the life of another by their own death according to Genesis 9:5 (NLT): “And I will require the blood of anyone who takes another person's life”. Jesus’s one solution for sin was to shed His own blood unto death for another’s sin so that they may live forevermore:
“Sin pays its servants: the wage is death. But God gives to those who serve him: his free gift is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:23 Phillips
Can you relate to the brothers’ situation of being weighed down by the terrifying threat of punishment and guilt for their actions? Have you experienced guilt so dark in the far corners of your own heart that it pulls you down like an undertow of waves, leaving you gasping for air in anxiety and unable to find your footing? A sexual sin, a stolen item, a cruel word, a cheating act, a humiliating slip? From the depths of this silent undertow, we cry out in distress for a way to be lifted up from the waters, a yearning to be able to look with all of our hearts, unmasked and open, into the face of Another and feel welcomed and not distanced, loved and not terrified, accepted and not shamed.
The brothers of Joseph had this very experience after travelling back and forth to Egypt for grain in the time of famine, given out by their own brother unbeknown to them. Finally, Joseph ushered the trembling brothers near to him and nearer still (Genesis 45:4). He desired to close the gap that had kept them apart for so long, knowing the evil in their hearts but aching to cover them in his forgiving love and for them to know him intimately as a member of his family. He explained with extraordinary grace that even though he had been sold into slavery by them, God’s purposes were much higher “to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.8 “So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God.” (Genesis 45:7) and later he described further: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Genesis 50:20). Reconciliation washed through the brothers’ hearts as Joseph “kissed all his brothers and wept over them. Afterward his brothers talked with him” (Genesis 45:15).
Oh, do you see the heart of God through Jesus reaching out to you as well, dear friend, hungering to reveal His love to you, His treasure who was purchased by His Son’s lifeblood? Look up and see Jesus at the cross who has closed the gap between you and Your Father God once and for all by stretching out His tortured body at the cross for you and putting away all guilt and shame by His blood.
Jesus knows, as it were, we threw Him into the foul cistern of our sin, traded Him as worthless fodder on the Egyptian market, imprisoned Him by our evil, and tethered Him to our darkness. But Jesus became a slave for us so that we as slaves of sin could walk free and redeemed.
There is not a place too far, a corner too dark, or a sin so blushing or black that is not washed clean without any spot, stain or blemish as we look in faith and repentance to the powerful blood of Jesus. Our sins are not sanitized or diluted or minimized by Jesus. Our every trespass, unintentional or deliberate, has been nailed to His body, forgiven and forgotten, and the penalty paid to the last penny.