Leave Your Load Of Guilt

If you’ve been around the Bible much, you know this story well. Joseph’s brothers, out of envy, anger and hatred, sold Joseph into slavery to nomads travelling to Egypt. A decade or two later, unknown to the brothers, Joseph has made an improbable rise to power, and now sits as second in command of the most powerful nation on earth.

Now forced to scrounge for food in Egypt during a severe famine, the tables are turned on the brothers: they stand face-to-face with Joseph, first bowing before him (a fulfillment of Joseph’s dream, the one that originally got him into hot water with the brothers), then begging for food, and ultimately begging for their very lives. And all the time their minds cannot fathom that it is actually Joseph before whom they are pleading.

There are so many things we could say about this chapter and its larger context: We could talk about the sovereignty of God that allowed Joseph’s mistreatment in prior years as the very means to preserve his family down the road. Or we could focus on how God always squeezes good out of evil for his children. Or we could highlight how Joseph remained faithful and useful to God even when the evidence suggested that God had abandoned him. Or we could admire how Joseph left retribution, revenge and judgment in God’s hands, even when the best of men would have been tempted to exact a pound of flesh from these ornery brothers once Joseph had them dead to rights.

And don’t miss the application in all of those relevant truths: God will do that for you, too, if you will trust him with your life—both in the good times and especially in the bad when the evidence seems contrary to a loving God who is supposed to be in control.

But the one feature of this particular part of the story that intrigues me is the load of guilt this family carried for all those years.  Obviously they were paralyzed by regret, the fear of receiving their just deserts and the onerous sense that they will have to pay an impossible price to make up for their evil actions in the past:

Their hearts sank and they turned to each other trembling and said, “What is this that God has done to us?” (Genesis 42:26)

Their father Jacob said to them, “You have deprived me of my children. Joseph is no more and Simeon is no more, and now you want to take Benjamin. Everything is against me!” (Genesis 42:36)

Then Reuben said to his father, “You may put both of my sons to death if I do not bring Benjamin back to you. Entrust him to my care, and I will bring him back.” (Genesis 42:37)

So does the story of these messed up brothers serve as a cautionary tale for you and me?  And if so, what are the lessons we can learn from them?  Three things:

First, as it relates to the brothers, no sinful action is worth the satisfaction or pleasure it falsely promises—ever! The guilt, harm and forfeiture of God’s blessings are a horrible crop to reap at some point down the road, either sooner or perhaps later,.

Second, as it relates to Jacob and his lingering dread, no child of God needs to fear a horrible harvest for past sins. God specializes in crop failures. Sure, there are consequences for sin sometimes, but God promises to turn even those to our good if we “have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

Third, as it relates to Reuben’s assumption that he could assuage divine punishment, no personal sacrifice for sin will be needed for the child of God to cancel his punishment since God sent his very own Son, of whom Joseph was a type, to once and for all pay the price to satisfy God’s righteous wrath rightly directed at our sin. (Hebrews 10:8-14)

I’m so glad to be a follower of Jesus and not a child of Jacob, aren’t you? God’s unlimited, unmerited grace, purchased by Christ’s sacrificial death and guaranteed by his glorious resurrection, is a far better way traverse the ups and downs of life.

“The law works fear and wrath; grace works hope and mercy.” ~Martin Luther

Reflect and Apply: If you are living under a load of guilt and fear, or the sense that somehow you must make it up to God, meditate on and pray these truths back to God: Guilt—Romans 8:1-4; Fear—I John 1:9, Human effort to appease God—Hebrews 10:8-14.