Slices
Prepare
‘In [God’s] great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead’ (1 Peter 1:3). Thank God for Christian hope.
Bible passage
The death of Jacob
29 Then he gave them these instructions: ‘I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite, 30 the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre in Canaan, which Abraham bought along with the field as a burial place from Ephron the Hittite. 31 There Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried, there Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried, and there I buried Leah. 32 The field and the cave in it were bought from the Hittites.’
33 When Jacob had finished giving instructions to his sons, he drew his feet up into the bed, breathed his last and was gathered to his people.
50 Joseph threw himself on his father and wept over him and kissed him. 2 Then Joseph directed the physicians in his service to embalm his father Israel. So the physicians embalmed him, 3 taking a full forty days, for that was the time required for embalming. And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.
4 When the days of mourning had passed, Joseph said to Pharaoh’s court, ‘If I have found favour in your eyes, speak to Pharaoh for me. Tell him, 5 “My father made me swear an oath and said, ‘I am about to die; bury me in the tomb I dug for myself in the land of Canaan.’ Now let me go up and bury my father; then I will return.”’
6 Pharaoh said, ‘Go up and bury your father, as he made you swear to do.’
7 So Joseph went up to bury his father. All Pharaoh’s officials accompanied him – the dignitaries of his court and all the dignitaries of Egypt – 8 besides all the members of Joseph’s household and his brothers and those belonging to his father’s household. Only their children and their flocks and herds were left in Goshen. 9 Chariots and horsemen also went up with him. It was a very large company.
10 When they reached the threshing-floor of Atad, near the Jordan, they lamented loudly and bitterly; and there Joseph observed a seven-day period of mourning for his father. 11 When the Canaanites who lived there saw the mourning at the threshing-floor of Atad, they said, ‘The Egyptians are holding a solemn ceremony of mourning.’ That is why that place near the Jordan is called Abel Mizraim.
12 So Jacob’s sons did as he had commanded them: 13 they carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre, which Abraham had bought along with the field as a burial place from Ephron the Hittite. 14 After burying his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, together with his brothers and all the others who had gone with him to bury his father.
Explore
Jacob ‘breathed his last’ (49:33) and Egypt was tipped into mourning (50:3). Death is quite rightly an occasion for tears (50:1). The outworking of a deep sense of loss often comes into sharp focus at the point of final farewell (50:10).
Without in any way diminishing the importance of grieving, it is noteworthy that Jacob casts his death in a somewhat positive light! He expects to be ‘gathered to my people’ (49:29), and perhaps that explains his desire to be buried with his ancestors (49:29,30).
Jacob does not know what we know: that the God he serves will one day raise his own dead Son to new life, or that the promise of life without end will be extended to all who believe in him (John 3:16). Christians can view Jacob’s hopeful death through the lens of Jesus’ resurrection and amplify it into joyful expectation: ‘Where, O death, is your sting?’ (1 Corinthians 15:55).
The twentieth-century martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes death as ‘the gateway to our homeland’,* an image that Jacob hopes to be true, and Christians know to be so. Joseph and his brothers ensure their father’s wish is fulfilled (50:13).
Respond
In 1 Thessalonians 4:13, we read that Christians need ‘not grieve like the rest of humankind, who have no hope’. When comforting people who are bereaved, how do we strike the right balance between tears and hope?
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: Numbers 2,3; Acts 14
Pray for Scripture Union
Please pray that the Red House team find a way to involve more girls in mission through sports. (Today's prayer relate to this article.)
