Christmas 2
Gen
46:1-7
1/2/22
“Few and
evil have been the days of the years of my life.” That’s what the aged Jacob told Pharaoh when
he met the Egyptian king. It certainly is a pessimistic assessment. Jacob had indeed experienced many hardships.
Of course, some of these he had brought upon himself.
Jacob had
swindled his twin brother Esau out of his birthright as the first born for a
bowl of soup when Esau was famished.
Later he stole Esau’s blessing from their father Isaac by tricking the
old man into thinking that he was in fact Esau.
Rebekah his mother coached Jacob, her favorite son, about how to do
this. When it became clear that Esau
intended to kill Jacob, she had Jacob sent back to Haran, in what is today
southern Turkey, to live with her brother Laban.
Jacob left
from Beersheba, the place mentioned in our text. During his journey he had a dream in which he
saw a ladder that went from earth to heaven. The angels of God were ascending
and descending, and God stood above it.
Then God said, “I am the LORD, the
God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie
I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be
like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to
the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring
shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” Yahweh repeated the
patriarchal promise he had spoken to Abraham and Isaac, as he promised the land
of Canaan, many descendants, and that in Jacob’s offspring all people would be
blessed. Then he added, “Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever
you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave
you until I have done what I have promised you.”
Jacob met his great love in Rachel, but tricked by his uncle he
also had marry her sister Leah. Through
these two women and their handmaids, God blessed Jacob with twelve children – eleven
sons and a girl. In spite of Laban’s
schemes, God blessed Jacob with flocks and wealth.
Finally, after twenty years, Yahweh told Jacob that it was time
to return to Canaan. Though Jacob was still fearful of Esau, he returned and
found that his brother had forgiven him. When back in Canaan, God changed
Jacob’s name to Israel and said, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and
multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings
shall come from your own body. The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I
will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.” Again,
Yahweh promised to give Jacob numerous descendants and to give him the land of
Canaan.
Life back in Canaan was not all roses. Jacob’s beloved Rachel died giving birth to his
son Benjamin. His three oldest sons did
things that brought shame upon the family.
But the worst thing was that the blatant favoritism Jacob showed toward
Joseph – the son of Rachel – caused his other brothers to despise him. Their animosity finally prompted them to sell
Joseph into slavery and to fake his death.
Jacob was utterly crushed by the loss of his favorite son.
Of course, Joseph was not really dead. Instead through a series of events God had
continued to bless him. Having
interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams about how seven years of plenty were going to be
followed by seven years of famine, Joseph was now second in charge in Egypt. The
years of famine had arrived, and it affected the whole region. Jacob had sent his sons to Egypt to buy food,
and in the course of these interactions Joseph had revealed himself. Jacob had learned that his son was alive, and
was a man of great power in Egypt. At
Pharaoh’s bidding, Joseph had now sent wagons to bring Jacob and his family to
Egypt where they would have no shortage of food.
Yahweh had promised to give Jacob many descendants. He had promised to give him the land of
Canaan. And he had promised that in his
offspring all nations would be blessed.
Jacob was not a great nation. All told, there were seventy people he
could count to his name. He did not
possess the land, and now he was in fact being told to leave it by going
to Egypt. And how all families of the earth would be blessed in his offspring
was a mystery.
We learn in our text that at that moment God spoke to
Jacob. He said, “I am God, the God
of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I
will make you into a great nation. I myself will go down with you to
Egypt, and I will also bring you up again, and Joseph's hand shall close
your eyes.” Just as God had spoken a
reassuring promise when Jacob first left Canaan to go to Haran, so now he said
that in Egypt he would make Jacob into a great nation. In words that are
emphatic in Hebrew he assured Jacob, “I myself will go down with you to Egypt,
and I will also bring you up again, and Joseph's hand shall close
your eyes.”
At that moment, all Jacob really had was the promise of
God. He numbered all of seventy people
and was being told to leave the very land he was supposed to
possess. Clearly, Jacob was hesitant
about the idea of leaving, because Yahweh says in our text, “Do not be afraid
to go down to Egypt.”
Our lives are often characterized by the need to trust in Scripture’s
promise of God’s loving care. We see
this when we face health concerns that make life challenging, or even threaten
life itself. We see this when we face
uncertainty about our schooling or career.
We see this when we face setbacks that we did not expect, and our plans
are called into question.
At these times, our trust in God wavers. Doubt creeps in about his
care. Faith begins to give way to fear.
Now these seem like very natural responses, but they are natural only to the
old Adam. And so we must confess them
for what they are – sin in our life.
In accordance with his timing, God kept his promises. Jacob’s descendants did turn into a numerous
people – the people of Israel. God did
bring his people back to the land of Canaan, and he enabled them to conquer it and
make it their own. He turned them into a
mighty kingdom under David and Solomon.
But just like us, the nation of Israel did not always trust
God. Faith gave way to fear as they
sought out other gods upon whom they could trust. While Israel as God’s servant
was meant to be a light to the nations, they instead profaned his name. They
were unfaithful, and as God had warned they received the punishment of exile.
But God never forgot his promise repeated to Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob that in their offspring all nations would be blessed. Matthew begins his Gospel with the words, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus
Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” He sets forth that Jesus is the offspring of
Abraham. Conceived by the Holy Spirit in
the virgin Mary, when Joseph took Jesus to be his own, he made him part of the
line of David. He made him the Christ.
In our
Gospel lesson we hear about how an angel warned Joseph in a dream that Herod
the Great was seeking to kill Jesus. He
told Joseph to flee to Egypt with the child and his mother. Just as Jacob and his family went down to
Egypt, so did Jesus. And then when the time was right, after Herod had died, an
angel told Joseph to take Jesus back to Israel.
Matthew tells us, “This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the
prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.’” These words in Hosea chapter
eleven describe the experience of the nation Israel. But we learn here that as the Christ and the
Son of God, Jesus fulfills what the nation was meant to be. He is Israel
reduced to one. He will pass through the water of his baptism into the
temptations of the wilderness. But where
the nation of Israel failed, Jesus will be faithful.
Because our trust in God
wavers; because doubt creeps in; because faith begins to give way to fear,
Jesus Christ walked the path set forth by the Father in complete faith and
trust. When the angel explained to
Joseph why Mary was pregnant he said, “She
will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save
his people from their sins.” Jesus came
to bring forgiveness – a forgiveness that is for all people. He announced how he would do this when he
said “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give
his life as a ransom for many.”
Jesus
offered his life on Good Friday. He took
our sins and was forsaken by God as he received the judgment we deserved. Our Lord knew the suffering and sacrifice
that was ahead of him. But he also knew the victory that the Father would
provide through him. As they prepared to
enter Jerusalem he told the disciples, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will
be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn
him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and
flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”
God the Father raised Jesus from the dead on Easter. He defeated death, and demonstrated that he
is faithful in keeping all of his promises.
Baptized into Jesus, you have the assurance that you are the forgiven
child of God. Because of what God has
done in his Son, Jesus Christ, we see that God can be trusted in the midst of
all circumstances. He has given us his
Spirit – the Spirit of Christ – to sustain us in that faith as we live each
day.
In our text today, God says to Jacob, “I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I
will also bring you up again.” God
promises to be with Jacob. During this
season of Christmas we celebrate the birth of the One whom Isaiah described as
Immanuel – God with us. Jesus has been
God with us in the flesh as he lived in this world and died on the cross for
our sins. He is God with us because he
has risen from the dead.
He is God
with us now through his Means of Grace as the One who has all authority gives
us forgiveness for the times and ways we have failed to trust and believe in
God. Through these means his Spirit strengthens us in faith to face the
challenges of trusting and believing in this fallen world. And because Jesus is
the risen and ascended Lord, we live with hope because Jesus will be God with
us in glory on the Last Day.
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