An Emotional Meeting

Genesis 45:14-15

How often we see accounts of the son or daughter returning from Iraq or Afghanistan and we see the hugs, the tears, and the expression of joy on the faces, but we are not part of the intimate conversation.  What is being said after the few moments of TV coverage?  Is the wife or husband telling about the loss of friends on the battlefield, the condition of the people they were trying to protect?  About some child or family that they had gotten to know and love.  What about the ones who stay home, how many stories do they have to tell?  What about the baby girl who is seeing her daddy for the first time and is not sure she wants anything to do with him, or the son who has had no one to play ball with or wrestle with on the living room floor.  It is catch-up time, and it is going to take time to rebuild relationships. 

We may wonder what is being said or not being said, after those brief moments of TV coverage, but it is not our family, and we don’t know what is going on in real life.  As we look at the two verses above, my mind tries to imagine what they were talking about?  “Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, and Benjamin wept upon his neck.  And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them.  After that his brothers talked with him.”  I wonder which brother broke the silence, and what do you say to a brother you sold into slavery?  Did it go like this; “Little brother, do you remember that dream, you know the one that made us so mad?  Well guess what, you were right!  Where did those nice Midianite traders take you?”  I’m sure that Joseph would have told about being sold to Potiphar and that the wife of Potiphar tried to get him into her bed, and how he ended up in prison, but God was protecting him and he won the favor of the keeper of the prison, who saw the hand of God on him and put him over the other prisoners.   One day he was instructed to take special care of two new prisoners; the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, and how God used a dream they both had to rescue him.  I am sure that Joseph had many questions about their families and what had taken place back home, about his father and his health.

These two verses leave much to wonder about as the return of those soldiers on TV and the families we see gathered around them.  However, Joseph is not the lost sheep in this story, no the brothers had been living a lie for many years, a lie that Benjamin was excluded from, and now the healing process can begin.  Joseph never played the guilt or blame game with his brother’s; do you remember what he told them in verses 4-5? “So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.”  And they came near.  And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.  And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice