He Came Down to Us

Genesis 37:4 (ESV) But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him.

Genesis 37:13 (ESV) And Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.” And he said to him, “Here I am.”

Genesis 37:16 (ESV) “I am seeking my brothers,” he said. “Tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock.”

Joseph was hated by his brothers. The text gives us a detail early on. From the moment his father showed favoritism, they could not speak peacefully to him. Think about that. They COULD NOT do it! Even if they wanted to. That means every time Joseph had a conversation with his brothers it went poorly. He knew he was the outcast and he felt the pain of their persecution every time they spoke. 

To put it in clearer perspective... note these two verses later on in the story:
Genesis 37:23-25 (ESV) So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the robe of many colors that he wore. 24 And they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it. 25 Then they sat down to eat... 

Later, during Joseph's test, they confess more of the facts of this event:

Genesis 42:21 (ESV) Then they said to one another, “In truth we are guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us and we did not listen. That is why this distress has come upon us.”

This is human cruelty at its worst. They were planning on killing him, but they needed to eat first. And so they ate while he screamed for mercy.

That's how much these boys hated Joseph. But notice though they hate him, when his father sends him to seek them, he doesn't hesitate. He goes from Hebron to Shechem which is about a day's journey in search of them. Then he travels to Dothan - a valley plain halfway between Hebron and Shechem. To see this typographically, when Joseph arrives where his brothers are, they would have seen him descending from the heights and coming down to them. What a picture of Christ. And perhaps even more reason for their stirred anger as they see him walking DOWN to them.

Joseph is the picture of the Lord Jesus. He is the one who came down to us. He is the one who obeyed His Father perfectly to seek us. He is the one who testified to strangers, "I have come to seek and to save that which was lost." 

Who are we in this story? We are the brothers. We are the ones who reject God. Yet Jesus comes down to us! 
Matthew 27:31 (ESV) And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him.

Jesus Christ not only came to Earth, He descended into the hell of the crucifixion. It's hard to ignore just how fare DOWN He came to get us. But when you're saving the kinds of people Jesus saved, that's where you have to go. 

How are we to live as a result? Grateful and gracious. Grateful to His love for us. Gracious to those who may hate us. For how can we who were His enemies boast over anyone else He may soon win over?