Most of us know what it is to carry something we did that we might regret today. For Joseph’s brothers, that moment had followed them for twenty years. What they do not know is that the very man they wronged is standing in front of them, understanding every word.
“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.” 23 They did not realise that Joseph could understand them, since he was using an interpreter. 24 He turned away from them and began to weep, but then came back and spoke to them again. He had Simeon taken from them and bound before their eyes. 25 Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain, to put each man’s silver back in his sack, and to give them provisions for their journey. After this was done for them, 26 they loaded their grain on their donkeys and left. 27 At the place where they stopped for the night one of them opened his sack to get feed for his donkey, and he saw his silver in the mouth of his sack. 28 “My silver has been returned,” he said to his brothers. “Here it is in my sack.” Their hearts sank and they turned to each other trembling and said, “What is this that God has done to us?” (Genesis 42:21-28)
V21 wasn’t necessarily the brothers regretting or, even better, repenting. This is more of an acknowledgement that they are in this predicament because of what they did. Fate or God is punishing them.
“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.”
Little did they realise that Joseph, using the interpreter, was part of a plot to deceive them; he was hearing their every word.
There’s always someone who says in such a situation, “I told you so.” This is Reuben. “Didn’t I tell you not to sin against the boy?” Words can be true and useless; these were just that.
And then Joseph turns away. He weeps.
If the Bible is so much more than a collection of stories. If it is a revelation of who God is, then the tears of Joseph are a foreshadowing of the tears of Christ.
Joseph knows his brothers will be restored. And Jesus knew Lazarus was about to walk out of that tomb. Both wept. The grief of both is not ignorance but solidarity. Jesus wept not because death had won, but because the people he loved were broken by it. He entered the pain rather than bypassing it. That is the scandal and the power of the incarnation: God choosing to feel what we feel, even when he holds the resolution in his hands.
Joseph, the man who holds every legal and political power over these men, chooses, quietly, not to use it. He wipes his face and returns with what we can only describe as grace, as he secretly returns every coin they paid.
Did you spot their response when they find such grace? Unresolved guilt makes us unable to receive grace without suspicion.
The brothers were yet to understand that forgiveness had already happened in Joseph’s heart, long before they ever said sorry. A lesson right here for all of us.
Which is, of course, the shape of the gospel itself. We do not repent our way into grace. We encounter grace and are undone by it.
Missions Paul 