Wait... Until High Noon

I turned 41 last Thursday. As I considered that blessed event, as I measured the years it took to reach that milestone, and then as I thought about the days in each of those years, and then the hours in each of those days, and then the seconds in each of those hours...

Y'all, I felt old. 

I dissected each day into morning and evening. How many sunrises have I seen? How many sunsets? How do I keep track of all my life experiences up until the present, all the knowledge I've gained and the (possibility of) years of learning yet to do?

Pictures of sunrises and sunsets I've witnessed slowly flipped through my mind. There have been spectacular mornings I've viewed from my own front deck, seen through the black web of bare wintry branches across the road, backlit by the rosy brilliance of morning. There were the desert sunsets I watched from a few mountain peaks in Phoenix, Arizona, where the golden ball dipped below the horizon while the saguaro cacti lifted their arms in praise. Once, I stood in the warm waters off the western coast of Florida and watched the sun set over the Gulf, and the waves became flames that splashed over my feet. 

Or there was that time I navigated the rocky beaches of Northern Ireland (yes, the first picture is the picture I took, and believe me, the camera didn't capture half of the beauty) and watched the sun peer beneath the blanketed sky and blaze a blinding path across the world, so brilliant that everything in its light turned into black silhouettes, and the only colors were a fiery rose-pink and black.

What a Creator! What a Maker!

Proverbs 4:18 was the first verse that caught my eye this morning when I opened my Bible: "The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day."

I love the journey that is evident in just a few well-chosen words. In a single sentence, the passage of time from morning to noon, high noon - the most brilliant point - takes place, and in that same sentence, you see the increasing magnitude of light. "First gleam of dawn" transitions to "ever brighter," which climaxes at "full light of day." 

Beauty and the Beast (the cartoon, not the live-action remake) is one of my favorite movies of all time. I grew up singing the songs, and I loved the funny furniture-people in the scary-intriguing castle where Belle eventually finds herself. In the night-time dance scene, Mrs. Potts, the endearing tea-kettle, serenades the couple as they sweep across the floor: "Certain as the sun rising in the east..."

The sun is certain; since the creation of the world all the way to today, it has never once not risen. Delayed only one time by the same powerful hand that put it into position (Joshua 10:12-14), the sun has brought seasons faithfully into place, no matter the chaos or upheaval or destruction that tracks mankind throughout history. God's promise to Noah in Genesis 8:22 remains true: "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never cease."

Today, Joseph, favorite son of Jacob, steps out into prominence in the pages of my Bible in Genesis 37. This kid, still a boy of seventeen in this chapter, is possibly one of my favorite Bible characters. I'd be hard put to choose between him, his father Jacob, Moses, Daniel, Ruth, David, Esther, or Paul. Or really, just... all of them. These people fascinate me.

Here, Joseph shows the first hint of personality that we've seen from him yet. Jacob distinguishes him from his brothers by giving him a richly-ornamented robe (my footnotes compare the robe to a robe like one that a king might have gifted to a favored child). Of course, this action makes Joseph's brothers insanely jealous of him.

To add insult to injury, somewhere around that time, Joseph has a prophetic dream concerning his brothers and their eventual allegiance to him. I debated a lot this morning about the motivations present here: is Joseph acting according to this... extreme exigency to get this dream off his chest and into the minds of the people the dream concerned? Or is he being just a little bit snooty and reactive to his brothers' (likely) poor treatment of him as the favored son of their father?

I don't know. Either way, both of his dreams will come true (as we learn later). Here, we see only the reactions to the dreams and the favoritism. 

Joseph ends up at the bottom of a dry cistern, an event orchestrated by his brothers. Subsequently, he is sold to merchants and traders (Ishmaelites, at odds with Israel's sons) who are caravanning their way to Egypt, carrying balm from Gilead (lots of interesting side-parallels there), spices, and myrrh. Might as well add a slave to the mix; it'll bring more income.

Judah, one of Joseph's older brothers, has thus far played a backseat role. And even here, he's not specifically mentioned. But I'd just like to touch on the likelihood that Judah would have been one of the leaders in this plan. Genesis 49:8 is a glimpse into Judah's leadership qualities: "Judah, your brothers will praise you; your hand will be on the neck of your enemies; your father's sons will bow down to you."

An interesting parallel to Joseph's dreams about his brothers bowing down to him: Joseph's dreams are fulfilled when he becomes second-in-command in Egypt, and his siblings do indeed bow down to him. Judah's fulfillment happens in the future course of events as his descendants become the royal line of David, and then much later, his descendant Joseph takes Mary, the mother of Jesus, as his wife. So... the Scepter, the Royal Priesthood, the Holy One of Israel... Jesus, the Son of God... is the fulfillment of this prophecy.

Reuben's story, also, takes an interesting turn here. He is Jacob's first-born, and he uses what leadership he thinks he possesses to try to save Joseph. He keeps the brothers from killing Joseph by suggesting they put him in the cistern, and he intends to pull him out later when the brothers aren't looking and take Joseph back to their father. Before he can do so, though, Judah and the other brothers sell Joseph to the Ishmaelite caravan. 

Reuben is destined to mismanage. Why? Because in Genesis 35:22, "While Israel was living in that region, Reuben went in and slept with his father's concubine Bilhah, and Israel heard of it."

In that culture, the firstborn son has the right to inherit his father's concubines after the death of his father; however, Jacob/Israel is still very much alive, so this act amounts to incest and a premature claim on an inheritance that is not yet his - an abomination to his father and to the surrounding culture.

And so, Reuben is stripped of the rights of the firstborn, the rights of primogeniture (is anyone noticing a theme over the last several chapters?!), and his inheritance passes to Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. 

There are a lot of threads here, so let's take a step back and look at these three key players, one of whom is not even mentioned by name. What can we learn?

This is what I learned. Each of these men has a story beginning, and not one of them opens their story at the climax. Not one of them begins their story at the end of their book. Not one of them rides across the pages of history as a flash in a pan and is gone in another second. 

They each hold a legacy that begins like the first gleam of dawn, and then expands and increases and waxes more brilliant as God brings their stories to fruition. 

Joseph... y'all, his story is incredible, and I'm excited to unpack it in the next several days. Trust, patience, faith, waiting, waiting, waiting, overwhelming fulfillment. 

Reuben: his story reminds us that the choices we make have lingering effects that sometimes grow and consume our other choices. 

Judah: his story shows a gradual transformation, a tale of hatred turned to sorrow, changed to self-sacrificial giving (we'll get there, don't worry).

I'm a little sorry to leave Jacob's story behind. He'll stick around for a bit, but he won't be the main character anymore, and I've gotten attached to him. 

Meanwhile, application. Your story, my story, is not anticlimactic. As we drag into winter and look at long cold nights and short chilly days and the everlasting gray that seems to characterize the upcoming January... in a year where a virus has taken a heavy, heavy toll on our emotions and our relationships, it's easy to fizzle. Grow tired. Bend beneath the weariness. The weight of lifting one heavy foot after another to make any progress in our story is just too much.

Joseph doesn't know the climax and resolution of his story. All he can see are the cold, gray stones of a cistern prison or the unknown faces that make up a stranger's caravan.

Reuben doesn't know the climax and resolution of his story. All he can see is the failure of his leadership, the unending consequences of his choices, his ineptitude and his ineffectiveness.

Judah doesn't know the climax and resolution of his story. All he can see is anger and blind hatred for his snooty, punk brother who only gets to be his father's favorite because of the identity of his mother.

Proverbs 4:18: "The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day."

There's a journey in there somewhere, a march across the sky. Even if you don't enjoy every step, keep your focus on the growing pains. It means more effective effectiveness. It means more brilliant brilliance. It means more vivid vividness. 

Wait until high noon. You'll see.