Reunited
by Dianne Eckermann
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Then Joseph prepared his chariot and went up to meet Israel his father in Goshen. He presented himself to him and fell on his neck and wept on his neck a good while (Genesis 46:29).
Like many families in the last two years, we have been separated due to travel restrictions caused by the pandemic. It has been almost as difficult to see family from interstate as it has been to see those who live overseas. Phone calls or video link-ups are fine, but nothing is better than being able to hold and touch someone in person. Conversations are much easier face to face and are much less confusing than communicating remotely. Calculating time zones also becomes redundant – another blessing.
Joseph’s meeting with his father after 22 years, during which his father believed he had been killed, was even more bittersweet than post-pandemic airport reunions. It is hard to gauge the various emotions in this reunion: joy at being able to hold each other; sorrow for the missing years; a sense of unreality that Joseph lives; awe that he arrives in a chariot and has become a man of considerable means. We are told Joseph wept for a long time. He certainly had been separated from his father for a long time, and there was, therefore, great regret and great joy during this reunion.
Pictures of family reunions in our media give us a good idea of how this reunion between father and long-lost son might appear. Small details, such as Joseph weeping on his father’s neck, indicate he is now a fully grown man, not the seventeen-year-old he was when his brothers sold him into slavery.
Perhaps more important than dwelling on what was missing during those years is what it was that Joseph actually achieved. His life was not at all an easy life. It would not be an exaggeration to say that his family was quite dysfunctional. Sibling rivalry is not unheard of, but selling a brother into slavery is almost unequalled. His subsequent life in Egypt may have been comfortable by the time he was reunited with his father, but it had not been at all an easy path for a former slave to reach such heights.
Joseph’s life, with its many ups and downs, is an example of how God had always been in control and by Joseph’s side. Just as God was by Joseph’s side when he was finally reunited with his father, God remains at our side and brings us together through him and in him. Just as Joseph trusted that God would keep his promises to him, we too can trust that God will keep his promise to us. Finally, if there was much joy when Joseph and Jacob were reunited, and if we feel the same sort of joy when we are reunited with friends and family after a long time, we can be sure that our joy in being together with God will be much greater and much more than we could ever have hoped.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for our families and for the times we are together, as well as for the times we are apart, so we feel the joy of being reunited. We thank you also for the ways in which you stay by our side and comfort us during the ups and downs of our lives. Amen.
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