When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, "What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?" So they sent word to Joseph, saying, "Your father left these instructions before he died: 'This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.' Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father." When their message came to him, Joseph wept. His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. "We are your slaves," they said.
- Genesis 50:15 – 18

When one takes a close look at the bible, Joseph's story did not really have as glorious an ending as it should. After being sold into slavery by his brothers due to jealousy, becoming a slave, being thrown into prison and eventually, being a man with authority only second to Pharaoh. Kept safe and taught much by God throughout, Joseph's story paints a portrait of divine providence.

Although it was not mentioned, throughout everything, Joseph had to bear with the burden of carrying a past. A past that was, to said it simply, hurtful (Gen 37:18-36). A sort of past that would probably linger back and forth with questions in moments of mental idleness, which being a slave and a prisoner allow quite a lot of.

Of course, Joseph had emerged from all his experience as a man who has thought deeply over the mystery of God's sovereignty and human responsibility. His gentle response in return to the brothers' plea reflected this-

But Joseph said to them, "Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your children." And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.
- Genesis 50:19 – 20

Such a response was shown due to his brothers' fear of Joseph's vengeance being unleashed on them after his father's death. Perhaps it was guilt or maybe it was out of fear of losing their lives, or the lives of they're family. But.. why must they think like this? Why did they have consider it in terms of a matter of debt?

I suggest that when Joseph wept, that might have been the question that he was yelling out in his head. He was not weeping because he was sorry for their state and sympathetic to their plight. He was possibly weeping because it meant that nothing was resolved. He wept because it showed that the relationship they had was still so stunted as if they were strangers. He wept because the burden of the past that he had to carry and go through had came back to strike him in a different form. He had wept because they were brothers. And yet...

And that was how Joseph's story had ended:/

At a Christian group retreat, the group I was with was doing this activity where you had to pick a card to answer the question written on it and choose someone else to answer it (Questions ranging from "How did you get your first crush?" to "Which book of the bible would you like to know better?") Mine was (at least I felt it is) a cliche - "What is the first thing you are going to ask Jesus when you are in heaven?"

My mind had raced through the dozens of the unanswered. Questions that could be picked in philosophy, history, evil, science, the human condition and although I eventually did say a question (one that was more personal to me), it occurred to me that actually, a question is not really the first thing that would be said.

I mean we always want to say something. The last word, a fitting legacy, a retirement speech, even a proper and clean handing over.

But in front of God, there would be "nothing" we can say.

Just like Joseph who had left many things unsaid, I guess its another way of showing that sometimes you really don't need to.


"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which." - George Orwell, Animal Farm

Labels: Life, muse

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