What did Jacob send Joseph to check on his brothers at
Shechem? He had been the bearer of bad
tales about them in the past and one has to wonder why now he is sent. Shechem was the place where God made the
covenant with Abram but it was also the place where Jacob's daughter Dinah had
been raped by the king's son and thus where his sons, Simeon and Levi, had
avenged her by killing all the men. Perhaps,
Jacob was concerned about where they were and what they might be up to. When Joseph arrives at Shechem he is told the
brothers have gone to Dothan. The brothers
see him coming from afar and determine first to kill him, this
"dreamer." Who will bow to
whom? Reuben, the first born son of Jacob,
thinks better of this plan and suggests instead that they throw him into a
handy pit. We are told, however, that
Reuben intended to rescue Joseph later. They
strip him of the robe his father had given him, the robe they despised, the one
that made him special in his father's eyes, and threw him into the pit. At least there was some progress since Cain
killed Abel.
After His baptism, temptations in the wilderness, and John's
arrest, Jesus begins His ministry with the same proclamation John was making,
"the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” There was a twist, however, Jesus' message
was that the time was fulfilled, meaning it is here now. Thereafter, Jesus calls his first disciples
at the Sea of Galilee, the fishermen, to come and follow and they, for whatever
reason, perhaps they had been with John the Baptist at the baptism and seen the
sign, immediately leave their nets and their father and follow after
Jesus. In Capernaum they are first
astonished at the authority of His teaching, not like scribes who cite their
own rabbi as the authority, and then with the authority He took over the
unclean spirit that presented itself in the synagogue. Word was beginning to get out about this man.
The cross is indeed a great stumbling block to faith. Our testimony that this was God dying on that
cross and that He truly died there but was resurrected to life again on the
third day is unbelievable. It can't be
true, such things don't happen and that you believe that is God incarnate makes
you ridiculous. That is the message,
however, we have to offer the world and it doesn't make us smart or enviable in
the eyes of the world to make such statements.
Paul knew that we had to literally become foolish in order to believe
and to proclaim Jesus. Joseph wanted to
be king over his brothers, the dreams appealed to him at a base level. Little did he know that the path to the perch
began in a pit. Our call is to follow in
faith, not make the message more palatable to the world, it begins and ends
with a cross.
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