The Conclusion

Dear Christa—

From Genesis to Now: The Conclusion

Gen. 50

Every life must eventually come to an end. So, as with Abraham and Isaac, Jacob, too, came to the end of his days. In many ways his life had been just as he’d expressed to pharaoh—“few and difficult.” Some of those difficulties had been the result of his own hands and some had not. Joseph and his brothers did just as Jacob had requested, carrying his body to the cave near Mamre to be buried.

Afterward, the brothers were once again fearful of Joseph. Oh, the things we do that can come back to haunt us—foolish and rash decisions that devastate and hurt others. These had been done at an early age of adulthood, but we can be just as guilty at anytime in our lives.

It’s true that Joseph could have been waiting for revenge. People do. They can wait and calculate, nursing the wrongs with retribution for the future, but not Joseph.

Joseph accepted the events of life as from the hand of God. What a wonderful thing it is when we are able to look back on hardship and see the plan of God. Joseph accepted his life as from the plan of God.

These brothers had nothing to fear because Joseph recognized that what people had meant for harm, God intended for abundant blessing. So, the brothers and Joseph and their descendants lived in Egypt in the land of Goshen for hundreds of years until they became a large nation, no longer classified as one family.

Revealing Creation, the Fall, God’s chosen people, and the positioning for the salvation of the world, Genesis is a foundational narrative in Who God is, His omnipotent power, and his interaction with individuals and the world—both God followers and those who aren’t.

—the parishioner who doesn’t do anything