WEBVTT 00:00:00.300 --> 00:00:04.202 Let us ask the Holy Spirit's grace on the reading of God's word. 00:00:05.358 --> 00:00:09.517 God of mercy, you promised never to break your covenant with us. 00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:16.357 Amid all the changing words of our generation, speak your eternal word that does not change. 00:00:17.384 --> 00:00:21.784 Then may we respond to your gracious promises with faithful and obedient lives. 00:00:22.539 --> 00:00:24.835 Through our Lord Jesus Christ, amen. 00:00:26.473 --> 00:00:31.390 A reading from Genesis 44, verse 14 through 45, verse 3. 00:00:32.884 --> 00:00:39.327 Joseph was still in the house when Judah and his brothers came in, and they threw themselves to the ground before him. 00:00:40.210 --> 00:00:43.472 Joseph said to them, 'What is this you have done? 00:00:44.291 --> 00:00:48.051 Don't you know that a man like me can find things out by divination?' 00:00:49.449 --> 00:00:50.991 'What can we say to my lord?' 00:00:51.040 --> 00:00:51.409 Judah replied. 00:00:51.506 --> 00:00:53.236 Replied, 'What can we say? 00:00:54.085 --> 00:00:55.768 How can we prove our innocence? 00:00:56.649 --> 00:00:58.812 God has uncovered your servant's guilt. 00:00:59.550 --> 00:01:05.318 We are now your lord's slaves—we ourselves and the one who was found to have the cup.' 00:01:06.664 --> 00:01:10.334 But Joseph said, 'Far be it from me to do such a thing! 00:01:11.231 --> 00:01:15.157 Only the man who was found to have the cup will become my slave. 00:01:15.974 --> 00:01:19.730 The rest of you, go back to your father in peace. 00:01:20.198 --> 00:01:24.504 Then Judah went up to him and said, pardon your servant, my lord. 00:01:24.956 --> 00:01:26.666 Let me speak a word to my lord. 00:01:27.238 --> 00:01:31.748 Do not be angry with your servant, though you are equal to Pharaoh himself. 00:01:32.637 --> 00:01:36.420 My lord asked his servants, do you have a father or a brother? 00:01:36.872 --> 00:01:42.904 And we answered, we have an aged father, and there is a young son born to him in his old age. 00:01:43.731 --> 00:01:50.063 His brother is dead, and he is the only one of his mother's sons left, and his father loves him.' 00:01:51.298 --> 00:01:56.046 Then you said to your servants, 'Bring him down to me so I can see him for myself.' 00:01:57.233 --> 00:02:00.746 And we said to my lord, 'The boy cannot leave his father. 00:02:01.435 --> 00:02:03.826 If he leaves him, his father will die.' 00:02:04.868 --> 00:02:10.932 But you told your servant, 'Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you will not see my face again.' 00:02:11.926 --> 00:02:17.734 When we went back to your servant my father, we told him what my lord had said. 00:02:17.831 --> 00:02:21.144 Then our father said, go back and buy a little more food. 00:02:21.888 --> 00:02:23.714 But we said, we cannot go down. 00:02:24.258 --> 00:02:26.612 Only if our youngest brother is with us will we go. 00:02:27.569 --> 00:02:31.367 We cannot see the man's face unless our youngest brother is with us. 00:02:32.739 --> 00:02:38.368 Your servant, my father, said to us, you know that my wife bore me two sons. 00:02:39.263 --> 00:02:46.492 One of them went away from me, and I said, he has surely been torn to pieces, and I have not seen him since. 00:02:47.535 --> 00:02:54.986 If you take this one from me too and harm comes to him, you will bring my gray head down to grave and misery. 00:02:56.045 --> 00:03:03.656 So now, if the boy is not with us when I go back to your servant my father, and if my father, whose life is 00:03:03.769 --> 00:03:09.003 closely bound up with the boy's life, sees that the boy isn't there, he will die. 00:03:10.173 --> 00:03:14.420 Your servants will bring the gray head of our father down to the grave in sorrow. 00:03:15.318 --> 00:03:18.635 Your servant guaranteed the boy's safety to my father. 00:03:19.485 --> 00:03:26.040 I said, if I do not bring him back to you, I will bear the blame before you, my father, all my life. 00:03:27.322 --> 00:03:35.159 Now then, please let your servant remain here as my lord's slave in place of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers. 00:03:36.137 --> 00:03:39.021 How can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? 00:03:39.102 --> 00:03:39.278 me. 00:03:39.664 --> 00:03:43.664 No, do not let me see the misery that would come on my father.' 00:03:45.769 --> 00:03:52.989 Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, 'Have everyone leave my presence.' 00:03:53.861 --> 00:03:57.609 So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers. 00:03:58.613 --> 00:04:03.633 And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh's household heard about it. 00:04:04.588 --> 00:04:07.166 Joseph said to his brothers, 'Brothers, I am Joseph. 00:04:07.619 --> 00:04:08.946 Is my father still living?' 00:04:09.966 --> 00:04:14.886 But his brothers were not able to answer him because they were terrified at his presence. 00:04:16.035 --> 00:04:17.378 This is the word of the Lord. 00:04:28.877 --> 00:04:31.515 The test of Joseph's brothers continues. 00:04:33.558 --> 00:04:41.483 Last week we considered how Joseph is like a master chess player, designing all of his schemes and 00:04:41.483 --> 00:04:49.295 strategies for his brothers to be put in the same situation they were in before when they abandoned him 00:04:50.211 --> 00:04:52.044 and sold him off as a slave. 00:04:53.507 --> 00:04:58.973 And when they abandoned Joseph, they have now the opportunity to abandon another brother, 00:05:00.735 --> 00:05:02.228 Simeon, who's been left in prison. 00:05:03.364 --> 00:05:10.993 And just like when they abandoned Joseph 22 years before, they're given bread and silver and they go on their way. 00:05:12.810 --> 00:05:17.550 They say they're honest men, Joseph had thought, but can they be trusted? 00:05:18.768 --> 00:05:23.520 What you just heard Rebecca read is the climax of the entire Joseph story. 00:05:23.633 --> 00:05:30.586 We sort of jumped right into the center of it, but connecting the dots from last week's text to this week's 00:05:30.925 --> 00:05:35.630 text, we see that the testing continues all the way through. 00:05:36.946 --> 00:05:42.186 Joseph's brothers come to their home in Canaan and they explain everything to their father Jacob. 00:05:42.640 --> 00:05:48.708 They've left their brother Simeon in prison with the Pharaoh's servant Joseph. 00:05:50.241 --> 00:05:53.501 The man, the lord of the land, they tell Jacob, spoke harshly with us. 00:05:53.646 --> 00:05:54.824 He accused us of being spies. 00:05:56.214 --> 00:05:58.771 'And we said, "No, we're honest men; we've never been spies. 00:05:58.869 --> 00:06:01.572 We are 12 brothers, sons of one father. 00:06:02.553 --> 00:06:06.038 One brother is no more."' They don't explain that part. 00:06:07.329 --> 00:06:09.394 'And the youngest is at home with our father. 00:06:10.889 --> 00:06:18.618 But then the Lord of the land said, "Here's how you will prove that you are honest men and not spies: when you go back to 00:06:18.618 --> 00:06:24.026 Canaan, bring your youngest brother with you."' 'And then I will know that you're true to your word.' 00:06:25.999 --> 00:06:33.868 And as they tell their story, each man opens his sack at home in Canaan, and they find that the silver that they thought they had left in 00:06:33.917 --> 00:06:35.821 Egypt has been packed with them. 00:06:36.321 --> 00:06:41.812 I like to imagine it was 20 pieces of silver, but we're not told how much. 00:06:43.446 --> 00:06:48.504 And meanwhile, Jacob the father refuses to accept this news. 00:06:50.003 --> 00:06:51.928 You have bereaved me of my children. 00:06:52.914 --> 00:06:54.176 Joseph is no more. 00:06:54.532 --> 00:06:56.149 I know that you guys have nothing to do with that. 00:06:57.836 --> 00:06:58.548 Simeon is no more. 00:06:59.470 --> 00:07:00.992 And now you want to take Benjamin? 00:07:02.060 --> 00:07:04.310 All of this has come against me, Jacob says. 00:07:06.196 --> 00:07:07.806 Reuben, the eldest brother, chimes in. 00:07:08.949 --> 00:07:15.455 Remember that Reuben is on the outs with his father because he's slept with his father's concubine, Bilhah. 00:07:16.050 --> 00:07:16.630 Gilgal. 00:07:16.808 --> 00:07:23.799 We're not sure why, but since then we see that his leadership is ineffective and slipping through his fingers. 00:07:25.366 --> 00:07:31.512 And here Reuben makes a terrible suggestion: "If I don't bring Benjamin back, you can kill both of my children." 00:07:33.442 --> 00:07:35.356 More sons of Jacob to be killed? 00:07:36.498 --> 00:07:38.483 Jacob doesn't even entertain the suggestion. 00:07:39.710 --> 00:07:40.936 "My son will not go with you." 00:07:42.508 --> 00:07:47.453 His brother is dead, and he is the only one I have left. 00:07:48.756 --> 00:07:56.304 Here are 9 of Jacob's sons standing before him, and Jacob says Benjamin is the only one that really matters. 00:07:57.756 --> 00:08:03.386 Benjamin is now the new favorite son, the only surviving son of Rachel. 00:08:04.340 --> 00:08:08.419 The answer is no, according to Jacob. 00:08:08.891 --> 00:08:09.900 But the famine gets worse. 00:08:10.926 --> 00:08:12.000 They eat up all their bread. 00:08:13.392 --> 00:08:16.008 And finally Jacob tells them, "You must go down to Egypt." 00:08:17.687 --> 00:08:21.014 And now Judah enters the story once more. 00:08:23.036 --> 00:08:30.500 Remember that every action we've seen from Judah up to this point in the story is selfishly motivated and 00:08:30.532 --> 00:08:31.164 aggressive. 00:08:32.428 --> 00:08:35.116 He has been the effective the protective brother in his leadership. 00:08:35.165 --> 00:08:39.908 He's been the powerful brother in the story, but he's been the violent and selfish brother. 00:08:40.505 --> 00:08:43.853 And every action he's had has led to devastating results. 00:08:45.916 --> 00:08:53.520 Judah was the one who heartlessly suggests to his brothers, "Why don't we sell Joseph because there's no 00:08:53.584 --> 00:08:54.839 profit in his death?" 00:08:56.546 --> 00:08:58.061 And he puts it slightly different. 00:08:59.060 --> 00:09:00.139 We can't kill him after all. 00:09:01.600 --> 00:09:02.697 Our own flesh and blood. 00:09:04.766 --> 00:09:12.603 Judah was the one who denied his daughter-in-law Tamar the right to have children after 00:09:12.717 --> 00:09:13.429 her husband died. 00:09:14.756 --> 00:09:21.937 And then, after mistaking her for a prostitute, he hypocritically condemns her to be burned to death 00:09:22.600 --> 00:09:23.796 for being sexually immoral. 00:09:25.122 --> 00:09:28.501 And when Tamar was brought out to be burned, do you remember what she was carrying with her? 00:09:28.586 --> 00:09:28.862 with her. 00:09:29.901 --> 00:09:37.722 3 objects that were given as a down payment, a pledge by Judah for her 00:09:37.722 --> 00:09:38.320 services. 00:09:39.871 --> 00:09:45.768 And when Judah sees this, the down payment, his heart breaks. 00:09:47.226 --> 00:09:51.607 When he sees the pledge, he has a change of heart and realizes his guilt. 00:09:51.882 --> 00:09:53.708 It's the turning point for Judah. 00:09:54.742 --> 00:10:01.981 He realizes Tamar's righteousness, and since then Tamar has saved Judah's line 00:10:02.805 --> 00:10:03.922 by bearing him two sons. 00:10:06.047 --> 00:10:07.686 And that was the last thing we heard from Judah. 00:10:08.805 --> 00:10:10.379 So what kind of man is he now? 00:10:11.628 --> 00:10:15.514 We saw repentance in that episode, but will that repentance last, we ask? 00:10:15.822 --> 00:10:18.235 Did he really have a change of heart when he was humbled? 00:10:19.818 --> 00:10:27.708 All right, spoiler Spoiler alert: when we read the rest of the Bible, friends, we learn that it's Judah's family that is going to be the one through whom 00:10:28.290 --> 00:10:30.320 the Messiah comes, the King. 00:10:31.727 --> 00:10:38.958 We call this the Joseph story that we've been reading, but really it is as if the Joseph story is a vehicle 00:10:39.558 --> 00:10:43.351 through which Judah's line comes to prominence. 00:10:45.336 --> 00:10:47.996 Judah will become the centerpiece of this whole narrative. 00:10:48.512 --> 00:10:50.383 Indeed, today we're coming to the very center of the book of Genesis. 00:10:51.339 --> 00:10:52.728 of the Joseph story. 00:10:52.808 --> 00:11:00.300 It's the pivotal moment and the point of tension, and all of it surrounds a long speech given by Judah 00:11:01.111 --> 00:11:02.215 that we just heard in full. 00:11:03.286 --> 00:11:06.109 One of the longest speeches in the entire Genesis scroll. 00:11:08.346 --> 00:11:09.365 And now back to the story. 00:11:10.686 --> 00:11:13.702 Jacob's sons and family, they're out of bread. 00:11:14.795 --> 00:11:15.871 It's time to head to Egypt. 00:11:17.714 --> 00:11:18.766 And now we hear from Judah. 00:11:21.195 --> 00:11:25.388 Dad, just a reminder, can't go to Egypt without Benjamin. 00:11:27.116 --> 00:11:28.987 Why did you tell that man that you had another brother? 00:11:29.391 --> 00:11:29.859 Jacob asks. 00:11:31.021 --> 00:11:34.377 Because the man asked all sorts of questions, the brothers chime in. 00:11:34.474 --> 00:11:35.474 Is your father alive? 00:11:35.539 --> 00:11:36.088 He asked us. 00:11:36.346 --> 00:11:37.078 Do you have another brother? 00:11:38.412 --> 00:11:40.588 In fact, Joseph asked no questions like this. 00:11:41.189 --> 00:11:44.654 The brothers in their nervousness Reuben just overshared a little too much. 00:11:46.612 --> 00:11:47.857 And then Judah says, 00:11:49.936 --> 00:11:57.639 "Send the boy with me so that we will live and not die, both we and you 00:11:58.709 --> 00:11:59.385 and our little ones." 00:12:01.458 --> 00:12:09.047 Rather than Reuben's suggestion of killing the little ones, Judah is defending 00:12:09.081 --> 00:12:14.954 this protection as bringing future life to their little ones and the next generation. 00:12:17.676 --> 00:12:19.563 Now Jacob is in a familiar position. 00:12:20.756 --> 00:12:22.617 He's seen it before in his own family. 00:12:24.010 --> 00:12:24.382 Abraham, 00:12:26.276 --> 00:12:29.304 he has already lost a son, the older of two. 00:12:30.646 --> 00:12:34.851 As Abraham lost Ishmael, so Jacob lost Joseph. 00:12:36.371 --> 00:12:38.548 And he was the youngest one who was left. 00:12:39.192 --> 00:12:46.734 And now he's faced with the decision that will mean life or death, a willingness to let that son go. 00:12:49.344 --> 00:12:53.701 As the brothers journey to Egypt, they are journeying to a new Mount Moriah. 00:12:54.347 --> 00:12:59.561 They're taking the youngest beloved son with them, not knowing if he will return. 00:13:01.304 --> 00:13:02.865 But we know what happens at Mount Moriah. 00:13:03.987 --> 00:13:05.678 We've read that story of Abraham and Isaac. 00:13:06.752 --> 00:13:11.655 Isaac is not sacrificed because there was a substitute instead. 00:13:14.874 --> 00:13:18.545 Here Judah offers himself as a substitute. 00:13:20.615 --> 00:13:28.352 I will be the down payment, the pledge for Benjamin's 'If I don't bring him back to you, 00:13:28.931 --> 00:13:30.763 let me bear the blame forever.' 00:13:32.387 --> 00:13:40.243 The down payment items that had been the point of change of heart for Judah has changed him so 00:13:40.259 --> 00:13:47.973 much that now it's produced a willingness for him to become the down payment for his brother out of love for his family. 00:13:49.646 --> 00:13:51.464 It's a substitutionary sacrifice. 00:13:54.101 --> 00:14:01.356 When ancient Jewish readers meditated on the Genesis scroll for centuries, Judah was clearly the prominent line. 00:14:01.837 --> 00:14:04.738 His family was going to be the line that the Messiah comes through. 00:14:05.138 --> 00:14:07.991 The Lion of Judah, he was called. 00:14:08.583 --> 00:14:13.839 The family of kings, the holder of the scepter, and the one who bears the throne. 00:14:14.496 --> 00:14:17.685 The family of God's chosen and anointed Christ Messiah. 00:14:17.846 --> 00:14:20.116 Messiah who would be called the Son of God. 00:14:20.248 --> 00:14:21.367 They all knew the prophecies. 00:14:22.506 --> 00:14:30.281 And there were some marvelous expectations attached to Judah that were more than enough for worshipers of the Lord to anticipate. 00:14:32.163 --> 00:14:39.906 But the idea of a substitute, a pledge of a life for another, that 00:14:39.906 --> 00:14:44.551 theme in the Bible seemed to have nothing to do with the Messiah 00:14:46.213 --> 00:14:46.845 prophecies. 00:14:47.104 --> 00:14:54.055 How could the strong lion of Judah become a substitute sacrifice and still be the strong lion? 00:14:56.129 --> 00:15:03.689 But the Jewish men and women who lived in Galilee centuries later, they steeped 00:15:03.689 --> 00:15:08.341 themselves in these Bible passages like Genesis about substitution. 00:15:09.499 --> 00:15:17.303 And they saw these Bible passages vividly fulfilled in the life and death and teaching of a 00:15:17.303 --> 00:15:18.125 local rabbi. 00:15:19.616 --> 00:15:26.959 They believed that Jesus of Nazareth was the King and Messiah and the substitute, 00:15:27.666 --> 00:15:35.616 just as Judah becomes the chosen line because he was willing to substitute himself as a loving sacrifice. 00:15:37.258 --> 00:15:44.492 A man named Paul writes, For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, 00:15:45.103 --> 00:15:47.472 so that we might become the righteousness of God. 00:15:48.728 --> 00:15:54.980 God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 00:15:56.706 --> 00:16:04.632 A man named John Mark writes about the substitute when he quotes Jesus saying, for even the Son of Man came not to be served, but 00:16:04.680 --> 00:16:08.780 to serve and give his life as ransom for many others. 00:16:10.929 --> 00:16:18.770 A fisherman named Peter writes, Jesus himself bore our sins in his body on the tree so 00:16:18.770 --> 00:16:22.701 that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. 00:16:25.971 --> 00:16:33.500 And have we noticed how many popular stories we've read or seen or been raised in that have an 00:16:33.694 --> 00:16:37.231 undeniable compelling element of substitutionary sacrifice. 00:16:38.297 --> 00:16:45.094 When one character steps into the gap to give his or her life for another character, and we see that as praiseworthy. 00:16:46.308 --> 00:16:48.011 From Terminator to Titanic. 00:16:49.104 --> 00:16:51.209 From Hunger Games to Harry Potter. 00:16:52.157 --> 00:16:54.520 From Star Wars to Seven Pounds. 00:16:56.006 --> 00:16:57.668 And why are these stories so compelling to us? 00:16:59.333 --> 00:17:03.163 Because they're pointing out to us the real story underneath every one of them. 00:17:05.586 --> 00:17:05.799 C.S. 00:17:05.864 --> 00:17:09.224 Lewis calls this the true myth of Christianity. 00:17:10.786 --> 00:17:13.004 He recounts his own conversion to Christianity. 00:17:13.856 --> 00:17:14.081 C.S. 00:17:14.193 --> 00:17:17.745 Lewis had two friends named Hugo Dyson and J.R.R. 00:17:17.810 --> 00:17:19.839 Tolkien that led him to Christ. 00:17:21.456 --> 00:17:29.227 And one day recounting his conversion, Theology of Persuasion, he writes to a friend about a long afternoon where he sat with Dyson and Tolkien, 00:17:29.663 --> 00:17:35.387 and they spoke for hours about the story of the Bible, comparing it to the stories that they love. 00:17:37.176 --> 00:17:38.144 And here's what Lewis says: 00:17:40.340 --> 00:17:48.001 Now, what Dyson and Tolkien showed me was this: that if I met the idea of sacrifice in a non-Christian 00:17:48.001 --> 00:17:50.164 story, I didn't mind it at all. 00:17:51.336 --> 00:17:58.949 Again, if I met the idea of a God sacrificing himself to himself, I liked it very much because it was mysteriously moving 00:17:59.222 --> 00:17:59.608 to me. 00:18:00.908 --> 00:18:08.425 The reason was that in non-Christian pagan stories, I was prepared to feel the myth as 00:18:08.537 --> 00:18:16.455 profound and suggestive of meanings beyond my grasp, even though I could not say in 00:18:16.487 --> 00:18:18.358 cold, told prose what it meant. 00:18:19.294 --> 00:18:25.959 So Lewis is saying something happened inside of me that was compelling, but I couldn't put it into words why it was compelling. 00:18:27.650 --> 00:18:35.362 Now, the story of Christ, he goes on, is simply a true myth, a myth 00:18:35.717 --> 00:18:42.396 working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really 00:18:45.252 --> 00:18:45.478 happened. 00:18:45.751 --> 00:18:53.513 Friends, the idea that your guilt can be transferred onto someone else who loves you and is willing to pay for it 00:18:54.286 --> 00:18:55.009 is a true myth. 00:18:56.436 --> 00:19:03.299 The hope that perfect innocence can be yours without cost is the real story. 00:19:04.776 --> 00:19:11.953 The fact that someone loves you enough to give their life for you is exactly what the events of history show. 00:19:13.163 --> 00:19:15.244 This is how we know what love is. 00:19:16.526 --> 00:19:22.873 Jesus Christ laid down his life for you, and now we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 00:19:24.586 --> 00:19:32.411 Here Judah is offering his life as a substitute for a brother, and it is this gesture of love 00:19:34.041 --> 00:19:35.416 that causes his father Jacob to 00:19:37.525 --> 00:19:37.590 agree. 00:19:37.638 --> 00:19:38.605 Okay, he says. 00:19:39.846 --> 00:19:44.731 So the brothers go down to Egypt with Benjamin and with a generous offering. 00:19:46.296 --> 00:19:53.885 For some reason, we see the same items that the Ishmaelite slave traders were carrying with them— gum 00:19:54.467 --> 00:19:58.429 and balm— being taken down as an offering to Joseph. 00:19:59.011 --> 00:20:00.014 We've seen this before. 00:20:01.356 --> 00:20:02.294 And they enter the house of Joseph. 00:20:05.645 --> 00:20:09.827 Joseph receiving the brothers who betrayed him and sold him into slavery. 00:20:11.135 --> 00:20:12.185 He washes their feet. 00:20:13.396 --> 00:20:16.554 He feeds their animals and he serves them a meal. 00:20:18.958 --> 00:20:26.804 But even though we, the readers, have a hint of Judah's selfless love toward his brothers, Joseph has not yet 00:20:26.804 --> 00:20:27.224 seen this. 00:20:28.346 --> 00:20:30.198 He's still testing them to see what is in their hearts. 00:20:31.442 --> 00:20:32.022 Place cards. 00:20:32.199 --> 00:20:39.543 So he sets the place cards out on the table and the brothers, to their amazement, see that the place cards are set in 00:20:39.801 --> 00:20:44.011 perfect order of birth, descending from oldest to youngest. 00:20:45.344 --> 00:20:52.350 Will Joseph see the same jealousy and rivalry and contention over who is the greatest and who gets the inheritance? 00:20:54.194 --> 00:21:00.663 He tests them even more by giving the youngest greatest brother a portion 5 times larger than all the other brothers. 00:21:02.526 --> 00:21:03.503 That doesn't seem to do anything. 00:21:04.431 --> 00:21:05.180 So what's next? 00:21:06.141 --> 00:21:06.906 They start drinking. 00:21:08.198 --> 00:21:09.259 And they continue drinking. 00:21:10.432 --> 00:21:12.426 You know how to really find out who a person is? 00:21:13.020 --> 00:21:16.685 You get them talking without inhibition, and a little wine is the lubrication. 00:21:18.409 --> 00:21:21.698 But nothing of the older brother's treachery seems to come out. 00:21:23.336 --> 00:21:24.821 So it's time for a final test. 00:21:26.326 --> 00:21:27.906 Joseph takes his servant aside. 00:21:29.116 --> 00:21:34.891 "Send them away with as much food as they can carry and put their money back in the mouth of their sack. 00:21:35.522 --> 00:21:40.479 But take my cup, the silver cup, and put it in the sack of the youngest one." 00:21:41.960 --> 00:21:43.634 And the servant does exactly what he's told. 00:21:45.110 --> 00:21:51.424 The next morning, he runs after the brothers and yells out, 'Why have you repaid evil for good? 00:21:53.323 --> 00:21:55.921 Why have you stolen what my lord drinks from? 00:21:56.928 --> 00:21:58.989 Don't you know that my lord practices divination? 00:21:59.086 --> 00:21:59.956 He knows what you've done.' 00:22:01.341 --> 00:22:03.080 'Absolutely not,' the brothers say. 00:22:03.531 --> 00:22:08.729 'If someone has stolen my lord's cup, let him be killed, and the rest of us will become servants.' 00:22:09.806 --> 00:22:10.900 'Good,' the servant says. 00:22:11.334 --> 00:22:14.170 'The one who has the cup will become a servant, and the rest of you can go I'm free. 00:22:14.526 --> 00:22:16.323 Did you notice that? 00:22:16.680 --> 00:22:19.513 It's like, yes, exactly what you said, just not. 00:22:21.452 --> 00:22:22.682 And then a search was made. 00:22:23.573 --> 00:22:30.521 The tension in the passage shows the oldest brother opening his sack and then the second oldest, all the way down to the youngest. 00:22:32.016 --> 00:22:34.238 And meanwhile, Joseph waits at home 00:22:36.007 --> 00:22:39.154 asking the question, who's going to return to my house? 00:22:40.968 --> 00:22:45.547 I've told my servant that only the one with the cup will be my slave. 00:22:45.612 --> 00:22:46.441 The rest are free. 00:22:47.535 --> 00:22:52.182 Will the servant only come back with Benjamin, or will the brothers stay loyal? 00:22:54.882 --> 00:23:02.546 The text tells us that Judah and his brothers came to Joseph's house and fell on the ground. 00:23:03.975 --> 00:23:11.096 This is now the third time Joseph's brothers The brothers have bowed down before him, the number of completion. 00:23:14.066 --> 00:23:19.620 The brothers have proved their humility before Joseph, but Judah now needs to say something. 00:23:21.606 --> 00:23:28.254 Having one of the longest speeches in the book of Genesis right here at the center of the story, he says, "What shall we say? 00:23:29.300 --> 00:23:30.710 What shall we speak to my lord? 00:23:30.759 --> 00:23:32.501 How can we clear our ourselves. 00:23:32.762 --> 00:23:34.145 God has found our guilt. 00:23:35.040 --> 00:23:37.905 Speaking to you is like speaking to Pharaoh himself. 00:23:38.396 --> 00:23:40.993 You have complete power to do whatever you want to us. 00:23:42.405 --> 00:23:50.331 But when we return home without our youngest brother, our father will die from sorrow because his 00:23:50.444 --> 00:23:53.223 life is bound up in the boy's life. 00:23:55.542 --> 00:24:00.983 I have become a down payment A pledge, a substitute for my brother. 00:24:02.161 --> 00:24:04.323 I will bear the blame if I do not return him. 00:24:05.206 --> 00:24:11.041 Now please let me remain here as your slave and let the boy return. 00:24:13.585 --> 00:24:16.410 It is this moment where the story breaks. 00:24:17.572 --> 00:24:22.221 It's this moment of substitutionary sacrifice where Joseph unmasks. 00:24:23.086 --> 00:24:29.189 He's convinced finally, and he begins weeping and crying, "I am Joseph. 00:24:30.305 --> 00:24:31.670 Is my father still alive?" 00:24:35.028 --> 00:24:40.459 See, at this moment, Joseph's hidden hopes of peace with his brothers, 00:24:42.564 --> 00:24:50.521 his exposure and a willingness to embrace them, his complete honesty before him, before them, 00:24:51.475 --> 00:24:52.737 is now finally possible. 00:24:54.030 --> 00:25:00.897 He surrenders all of his schemes, all of his chess playing, and he throws himself toward his mystified family. 00:25:01.899 --> 00:25:02.076 Why? 00:25:03.498 --> 00:25:09.112 Because he is convinced by a compelling substitute, a sacrificial love. 00:25:11.342 --> 00:25:16.798 Brothers and sisters, our hopes of perfect peace with with one another. 00:25:18.023 --> 00:25:25.626 Our hopes of total vulnerability with the God of the universe and one another, our hopes 00:25:25.951 --> 00:25:32.962 of reconciliation with neighbor and enemy, our hopes of reunification are realized. 00:25:34.396 --> 00:25:34.608 Why? 00:25:36.449 --> 00:25:39.995 By the same mechanism, a substitutionary life. 00:25:40.676 --> 00:25:41.907 loving sacrifice. 00:25:43.400 --> 00:25:44.861 It is the story under the story. 00:25:46.276 --> 00:25:48.052 It is the myth come true. 00:25:49.969 --> 00:25:50.162 Amen. 00:25:51.721 --> 00:25:52.058 Let's pray. 00:25:58.550 --> 00:26:00.394 Heavenly Father, we praise you for Jesus. 00:26:03.234 --> 00:26:05.476 And we thank you for how compelling 00:26:07.268 --> 00:26:08.140 This story is. 00:26:09.868 --> 00:26:17.008 Because it is unveiling the reality of Jesus Christ and what you've done all through the cosmos by his sacrifice. 00:26:18.253 --> 00:26:26.105 We thank you for your willingness, O God who loves us, to step into the gap, to take the sacrifice that should have 00:26:26.137 --> 00:26:30.557 been our death, our alienation from you. 00:26:32.173 --> 00:26:38.049 But Lord, in your goodness, you wrote the end of the story before we even knew what kind of situation we were in. 00:26:40.304 --> 00:26:48.290 So Lord, we marvel at this gracious gift, and we pray that just as every compelling story should be, 00:26:49.033 --> 00:26:55.182 this story would be in our hearts and on our lips to declare it to a world that has not yet heard it. 00:26:57.548 --> 00:27:00.531 And we give you praise in the name of Jesus our Savior. 00:27:01.513 --> 00:27:01.802 Amen.