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‘Joseph my son is yet alive!’
Gen_45:28
II. Let us apply this to our Lord and to ourselves. Jesus Christ, the true Joseph, remembers us in His prosperity and He sends an invitation to us by the desire of God the Father, Who loveth us. He does not bid us come to Him in our own strength, relying only on the poor food which a famine-struck land yields—does not bid us toil across a burning desert, prowled over by the lion, without provision and protection. There are sacraments and helps and means of grace, which He has sent to relieve the weariness of the way, to carry us on, to support us when we faint, to encourage us lest we should despair.
III. Let us not despise the means of grace. We may not ourselves want them, but others do. Go in your own wagon, or on your feet if you can and dare, but upbraid not those who take refuge in means of transport you have not tried, or do not require. Those sacraments, those means of grace, those helps, ever new, yet old as Christianity, have borne many and many a blessed one along to the ‘good land,’ who is now resting in Goshen and eating the fat of the land.
Rev. S. Baring-Gould.
Illustration(1) ‘It is as a liberated man that Joseph is most signally the type of our Redeemer. Set free from prison, Joseph became the second in the kingdom, even as the Redeemer, rising from the prison of the grave, became possessed in His mediatorial capacity of all power in heaven and earth, and yet so possessed as to be subordinate to the Father. Joseph was raised up of God to be a preserver of life during years of famine. Christ, in His office of mediator, distributes bread to the hungry. All men shall flock to Jesus, eager for the bread that came down from heaven.’
(2) ‘How tenderly our Joseph considers our needs; wagons for the aged and children; corn, bread, victual, raiment; loving messages of welcome. Oh to trust Him, Who will supply all our need according to his riches in glory, till we see Him as He is!’
(3) ‘The effect of Joseph’s glory, as described by the brethren to the old man, was very marked. At first he was incredulous, it seemed too good to be true; but afterwards, when he saw the wagons, the spirit of Jacob, their father, revived. So would sad and fainting hearts revive, if they once realised what is involved for us all in the Ascension of Christ.
Tell them that He is glorified as our High Priest, not that He glorified Himself thus, but by the appointment of the Father (Heb_5:5); tell them that He is able to save to the uttermost; that the power which raised Him waits to raise us; that from His glory He sends the wagons to carry us home, according to His great request: “Father, I will that those whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory.” ’
(4) ‘One of the Olney Hymns is on “Joseph made known to his Brethren,” as illustrative of the forgiving love of Jesus. The last two stanzas are—
“I am Jesus whom thou hast blasphem’d
And crucified often afresh;
But let me henceforth be esteem’d
Thy brother, thy bone and thy flesh:
My pardon I freely bestow,
Thy wants I will fully supply:
I’ll guide thee and guard thee below
And soon will remove thee on high.
Go, publish to sinners around,
That they may be willing to come,
The mercy which now you have found
And tell them that yet there is room.”
Oh, sinners, the message obey!
No more vain excuses pretend;
But come without further delay
To Jesus, our Brother and Friend.’