The Bones of Joseph
The book of Joshua ends by harkening back to Joseph.
Joshua 24:32 (ESV) As for the bones of Joseph, which the people of Israel brought up from Egypt, they buried them at Shechem, in the piece of land that Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for a hundred pieces of money. It became an inheritance of the descendants of Joseph.
How strange is this? The bones of Joseph were carried up from Egypt after 400 years of slavery, they were carried through two bodies of water (Red Sea and Jordan), they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, they also waited for 7 years as Israel took possession of the land. That's a lot of bone carrying if you ask me.
For Israel, it points to the sacredness of their history.
It was Joseph himself who made certain this would happen:
Genesis 50:25–26 (ESV) Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.” 26 So Joseph died, being 110 years old. They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.
Exodus 13:19 (ESV) Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones with you from here.”
This is what Jews are known for to this day, their ability to hang tight to the story that formed them. While other nations were building monuments to their kings/dictators or rulers, Israel was writing their story and teaching it to their children and honoring their ancestry.
Israel honors Joseph here in a kind of counter-action of the original brothers. Remember they had sold him into slavery to a caravan headed toward Egypt. Now the descendants of those vicious brothers were honoring him with a proper burial and fulfilling the promise made by those brothers who were changed by Joseph's kindness. Israel (and the rest of the world who reads the Bible) had a connection to an amazing story and they told the world about it, warts and all. Instead of deifying their past, they were honest about it. Instead of worshipping their ancestors they learned from their mistakes and became partakers of God's promise to them.
This passage speaks of the importance of knowing your sacred history and being a participant in a larger story than just your own personal life. This is what Israel hid deep in their hearts. They knew they were only one generation of several working toward the same goal - Promised Land and Presence of God.
This concept is something utterly healthy for humanity and sadly, utterly lost today. So many broken homes and families keep people from feeling connected to where they came from. Consider the endless stream of commercials for discovering your ancestry. What do those commercials offer? Another way for you to celebrate you, just you, alone! Another form of self-absorbsion. We have adopted a very unhealthy obsession with knowing ourselves and not much else. No wonder we are so depressed.
We have to reach further back beyond us and see the bigger picture of God's great story and how we fit into it. We have to honor the bones of those who came before and personally contribute. You say, "I don't know much about my genealogy." But you have one in Christ! And this one is more important than your physical one. You see in Christ you become adopted into the family this story is about. You are now their ancestors. You are those stars in the night sky Abraham saw as God asked him to look up and count (Genesis 15). Israel was not just a physical nation, it was to be a heavenly nation. In Christ, we are participants in what God has been doing for millennia. And someday soon a homecoming is happening that's far more significant than your genetics.
Joshua 24:32 (ESV) As for the bones of Joseph, which the people of Israel brought up from Egypt, they buried them at Shechem, in the piece of land that Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for a hundred pieces of money. It became an inheritance of the descendants of Joseph.
How strange is this? The bones of Joseph were carried up from Egypt after 400 years of slavery, they were carried through two bodies of water (Red Sea and Jordan), they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, they also waited for 7 years as Israel took possession of the land. That's a lot of bone carrying if you ask me.
For Israel, it points to the sacredness of their history.
It was Joseph himself who made certain this would happen:
Genesis 50:25–26 (ESV) Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.” 26 So Joseph died, being 110 years old. They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.
It was Moses who knew of them and made certain they were carried up upon leaving Egypt.
Exodus 13:19 (ESV) Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones with you from here.”
Israel honors Joseph here in a kind of counter-action of the original brothers. Remember they had sold him into slavery to a caravan headed toward Egypt. Now the descendants of those vicious brothers were honoring him with a proper burial and fulfilling the promise made by those brothers who were changed by Joseph's kindness. Israel (and the rest of the world who reads the Bible) had a connection to an amazing story and they told the world about it, warts and all. Instead of deifying their past, they were honest about it. Instead of worshipping their ancestors they learned from their mistakes and became partakers of God's promise to them.
This passage speaks of the importance of knowing your sacred history and being a participant in a larger story than just your own personal life. This is what Israel hid deep in their hearts. They knew they were only one generation of several working toward the same goal - Promised Land and Presence of God.
This concept is something utterly healthy for humanity and sadly, utterly lost today. So many broken homes and families keep people from feeling connected to where they came from. Consider the endless stream of commercials for discovering your ancestry. What do those commercials offer? Another way for you to celebrate you, just you, alone! Another form of self-absorbsion. We have adopted a very unhealthy obsession with knowing ourselves and not much else. No wonder we are so depressed.
We have to reach further back beyond us and see the bigger picture of God's great story and how we fit into it. We have to honor the bones of those who came before and personally contribute. You say, "I don't know much about my genealogy." But you have one in Christ! And this one is more important than your physical one. You see in Christ you become adopted into the family this story is about. You are now their ancestors. You are those stars in the night sky Abraham saw as God asked him to look up and count (Genesis 15). Israel was not just a physical nation, it was to be a heavenly nation. In Christ, we are participants in what God has been doing for millennia. And someday soon a homecoming is happening that's far more significant than your genetics.
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