Reading: Genesis 48-50, Psalm 16

I love serialized stories and I love stories set in outer space. When I was twelve years old, I sat in the living room with a plate of nachos and watched the pilot movie of what would become the television series Babylon 5. I already loved space opera, having spent the previous six years faithfully watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. But I could tell Babylon 5 was going to be different. The story had a beginning and end, but there were interesting loose strings everywhere. When the series launched the following year I watched and got progressively more hooked as some of the strings resolved and others developed, then some of the ones you thought we resolved reappeared at unexpected times. Setups from the pilot movie and the first season were picked up in the third and fourth season of the show. Much of the first season of the show is less than great, but unlike Star Trek: The Next Generation, which suffers from the same problem, the stories mattered. Stories that lacked depth in the early seasons of the show were changed by revelations later on that made them far better. This is why I love this kind of storytelling. As the story goes on, it gets better.

Jacob, at the end of his long life, brings his children to him to pronounce his blessing on them. But before he brings in the crowd, he blesses Joseph’s two sons as if they were his own. This did two things. First, it replaced the “double portion” inheritance that by tradition would go to the firstborn, Reuben. We’ll get to why in a minute. Second, he placed the younger child ahead of the older. This has become a bit of the theme in the family of Abraham. Isaac ahead of Ishmael, Jacob ahead of Esau. Now Ephraim ahead of Manasseh. And this isn’t the end of the displacement of the first.

Having blessed Joseph’s children, Jacob goes into a poetic blessing of the remainder of his sons. The word “blessing” seems a little loose, as some of these read more like a curse, or at very least ambivalence. They are all interesting, but the key ones for our story are the first four sons. Reuben is acknowledged as the firstborn, but we’ve already seen his “double portion” birthright given to Joseph, and now his leadership is revoked due to his inappropriate sexual actions with his father’s third wife Bilhah. Simeon and Levi, next in line to lead the household, are disqualified due to their deceitful and violent actions in the story of Dinah and Shechem. Judah the fourth son, is given the authority and leadership of the people of Israel. While Israel will not have a king for quite some time, it is clear in the story which son of Israel the ruler must come from.

Having wrapped up his blessing, Jacob insists he must be buried in Canaan with Leah, his parents, and grandparents. Then all of Egypt turns out to mourn his death. The Egyptians throw him a state funeral and journey to Canaan in a massive train to weep at his grave for a week. The locals are stunned at how much grief the Egyptians are suffering at the death of this man. Once Jacob fled for his life from his own family. Now he is being celebrated and mourned not only by his people, but by an entire foreign nation. Jacob, called Israel, was not who he thought he was. He struggled with God and man, but in the end he was far greater than he ever could have predicted.

Then his sons return to Egypt. And they are again afraid of Joseph, allowing him to reiterate one of the key points of the Genesis story: you meant this for evil, but God meant it for good. Selling Joseph into slavery was an evil act, meant for selfish and evil purpose. But God took that awful story and pulled it inside out. God makes Joseph the slave into Joseph the ruler of Egypt. The lowest becomes the highest. Joseph tells his brothers: the story is better than you think it is. There is no reason to fear him, because he sees what God has done instead of looking at what these humans intended.

Finally, Joseph dies in Egypt. But following the example of his father, he makes the family promise to (eventually) bury him in the land of Canaan with his ancestors. Joseph, for all his power and authority in Egypt, at the end of his life recognizes this is not where he belongs. He believes God will come through on his promise to give the land of Canaan to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He believes one day all the families of the Earth will be blessed through them.

The book of Genesis has launched an epic story. It begins with the creation of everything by an involved and concerned God. It tells us of the human problem– the declaration of independence by his crowning achievement, which results in death and a terrible curse. It shows us how the human problem spirals out of control until evil dominates the world and God hits the reset button. And then it shows us how God starts another plan, a plan founded in his own promise to restore the human heart and undo both death and curse without destroying all life and starting over. It begins a story of humans, who constantly go off track, being used by God to achieve his purpose anyway.