Jacob buried at Machpelah

It is interesting to think of the span of Jacob’s life. The fleeing from Esau. The years of working for Laban. The marrying of two competitive sisters. The coming of children. The loss and rediscovery of Joseph. The salvation of Egypt. But then this – the desire to return to the cave at Machpelah near Mamre.

The consolation of returning home.

I have this. A free plot at an ancestral cemetery near my families ancient homestead. I have felt the urge to be buried there, where my line extends through five generations. Harry, Edwin, Henry, Levi and Andrew; all tied to this one location. Though I have never lived anywhere near this place, somehow my life has meaning in this context of generations. I lived and will die like my fathers before me.

In that place, my story and their story merge into an epic continuum. We think in this way. Recognizing in the arc from humble German Anabaptist preachers to whatever one might call what I’ve become. I find some meaning in this. It is a kind of grounding for my children and for theirs after them.

A waypoint on the path to authentic community, Jacob lived like this.

Judah the Lion

Wonder what was that was like? All the brothers standing together in one room hearing their father’s prophetic anticipation for each son as he prepares to die.

Judah and Joseph have emerged from this extraordinary contest – each peculiarly transcendent.

The righteous and the redeemed. Salvation from the righteous. Leadership from the redeemed.

What could this mean?

“Follow me as I follow Christ” Who is really willing to accept this mantle – and live it?

Something About Death

Something about death. Ancient grudges become unimportant in light of this universal, mortal adversary. The urgency for healing with the approach of irreversible breach.  People tend to set aside grudges at death’s door.

Not so, Jacob. Being called out by your father on his deathbed. My heart grieves for Reuben and Simeon and Levi. They will overcome the blow. But no one could envy this humiliation – the lancing open of these old, festering wounds. Painful as it is, this infection cannot pass into another generation unrecognized.

Israel will be a nation. It’s not petty retribution. Just the unvarnished truth. Hard to hear. Damning insinuation.

But the nation needs moral clarity. No amount of history can absolve the destructive power of these unwanted and destructive dispositions.

Get rid of it – not for some arbitrary claim of moral purity that no one cares about. No one cares about your claims of moral purity.

Instead, find the freedom to deliver value into a nearly bankrupt world.

Manasseh and Ephraim

Joseph is vexed. Perhaps the only flash of unrighteous indignation we ever see on his face. A remarkable irony that he should take up the cause of his first-born son Manasseh when his brothers despised him largely because Jacob preferred him though he was eleventh born.

Expectations are a curious thing. The perfect narrative of how things “should be”. We measure ourselves and our circumstances in this way.

Rightly used, we call these “standards”. We can’t live without this, both for ourselves and for those around us.

But where do these expectations come from? And what to do when our circumstances fail to meet our expectations?

The Anticipated Canaan

Joseph lives a transcendent life because of his relationship with God. Jacob, his father, seems to realize that Joseph can never be the beneficiary of his legacy. He dwells on another plane. Though he is no longer “dead”, Jacob curiously no longer has anything to offer Joseph. Instead, there is the almost unnatural case where the son is a benefactor to the father. Jacob, and all the rest of his sons, would be dead without the largesse of Joseph.

Despite the splendor and salvation of Egypt, this isn’t Jacob’s life. It’s not what God has called him to. He wants to return to the land that God forbid his father, Isaac, from ever leaving.

This is his legacy to his sons. As one whose life has transcended this legacy, Joseph can never return to this simplicity. Joseph could travel back to Canaan, but he could never return to this previous way of life. He will participate in the legacy of Israel only vicariously through the lives of his sons.

He will participate in the legacy of Israel only vicariously through the lives of his sons.

Tithe to Pharaoh

The people sell their land to Pharaoh and become Pharaoh’s slaves in exchange for food. Going forward, they agree to give to Pharaoh one-fifth of all the produce of the land. Twice the tithe that will be required by God in the exodus.

But, in exchange, they and their families eat and live – and they gladly accept these terms.

“My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Israel lived in Goshen. The children of Israel grew and multiplied, even in the famine. They acquired land at the very moment that the Egyptians were being enslaved by Pharaoh.

The outcome of God’s wisdom expressed through Joseph’s life.

Savor of God

The wealth of the nation is being consolidated in the hands of Pharaoh. The prospect of death is so imminent that the people gladly trade their animals, possessions, land and even their liberty in exchange for the food necessary to survive.

How strange. An unexpected seven-year famine might have broken the power of Pharaoh. Had he not prepared in response to Joseph’s interpretation of his dreams, he might not have a nation to rule. But as it is, Pharaoh’s power over the people is consolidated. His authority is stronger than ever.

The interplay of covenant community and social contract. They never seem far apart. The savor of a covenant relationship with God is never far away from anyone.

The wisdom of God…

One More Powerful King

There remains this tension between the social contract of Egypt and the covenant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Pharaoh is a powerful king. Perhaps at this point, the most powerful in all the world. The social contract is fickle. The power and the maturity of a social contract waxes and wanes, and ends. Social contracts always break eventually. They always end.

Joseph recognizes this vulnerability and that the children of Israel can never integrate.

So the lever of power in this world is social contract. This power recognizes the value of the wisdom of covenant without embracing the covenant itself. Co-exist. Like modern Amish in America, there is a faint appreciation for quaint anachronism. But a community of covenant always retains a counter-cultural determination to centralize God. And every social contract will eventually find this inconvenient.

Jacob’s Satisfaction

Jacob Is satisfied. I’m thinking about this.

Judah has proved trustworthy. Not only has he brought home Benjamin, but also news that Joseph is alive. Jacob trusts him to lead the tribe and sends him ahead on the road to Goshen.

Joseph is alive and all the dreams have come true. Though Jacob never bows before Joseph, all of Egypt has bowed before him.

Jacob has a satisfaction so deep that he is content with his life. His hopes, his dreams, his life work has all been achieved.

I long to experience this satisfaction. To hear God say, “well done good and faithful servant”. Not only to hear – but to actually be a good and faithful servant.

Enter the Children

It’s interesting that the author records the children of Israel not in birth order, but rather in birth order by mother beginning with the least loved wife Leah.

Sisters still contending in the children and their children’s children. Deference to tradition. But really, the tradition is disruption. It’s three generations that the first born has failed to enter into the primogenitor privilege.

They say God has no grandchildren.

It’s always been about faith. It’s always been about one person responding to the possibility of relationship with another.