What complex animals human beings really are! Sometimes when you watch a TV program you're struck by the thinness of the characters – the writing lacks depth and you have the impression that you're looking at purely two dimensional people whereas you know in the real world people are far more complicated than that.

Humans are a right mix of their background, their emotional make-up, their plans, hopes and aspirations, not to mention their deepest held beliefs and convictions. And when we look for help on how to live our own lives we are suspicious of advice or of proffered helps that don't take into account this rich complexity of our lives. We're suspicious, and rightly so, of those adverts that promise wonder cures if only we wear some copper bracelets or promise that we'll be speaking a foreign language like a native in less than a fortnight.

So it is a real comfort when we take down our Bibles to find that the Bible doesn't deal with men and women as anything other than complex individuals. As we read through the stories in the Bible we find that man is considered from a whole variety of angles – his relationship to God of course is primary, but his relationships with other humans are important too. His thinking and understanding is vital and is often addressed but we are not left with the impression that the Bible sees man as just a big brain with an intellectual life and nothing more. How good to see that the Bible understands us so well.

Here in ch.45 of Genesis as we reach the moment for which the preceding few chapters have been preparing us, the moment when Joseph finally makes himself known to his brothers, we are confronted with a vast array of human emotions. The Bible takes us seriously and because it does we are encouraged to take its message seriously too.

We'll begin this evening by considering the different emotional reactions that Moses recorded for us and then once we've done that we'll move on to examine Joseph's understanding of just what God has been doing and why.

Emotions

Every normal human being has emotions and emotional reactions to the events that take place in his or her life. A person who never experiences any sort of emotion is not merely unusual but rather abnormal with some sort of psychological disorder.

Of course there are some people who are out at the extreme opposite end of the spectrum who are totally dominated it would seem by their emotions.

It is right for us to have emotions: In the Garden, before the Fall, Adam was 'alone' and this wasn't good. Although God was there Adam knew a certain loneliness because of the absence of a suitable helper. When God created Eve Adam responds joyfully "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh" Gen.2:23.

A healthy emotional life is part of the nature of created man – emotions are not the result of the Fall and are not to be attributed to sin. This is confirmed when we consider our Lord Jesus in the NT who, sinless that He was nevertheless experienced emotions – we read of Him grieving over the hardness of men's hearts, weeping at the graveside of a departed friend, moved with compassion as He looked out on the crowds who flocked about Him as sheep without a shepherd.

So then emotions are good. The goal of the Christian life is not somehow to eradicate all human feeling and to make us cold and heartless. Nevertheless in a fallen world sin touches every part of what makes us human and our emotional lives are not immune from the effects of sin. God's grace will enable us progressively to give a true and proper expression to our emotions without those emotions running away with us and leaving us helpless victims of their fickleness.

1. Joseph vv.1-4, 14-15.

We've already seen Joseph struggling to keep his emotions under control as he met with his brothers. On two occasions previously he has had to withdraw in haste from their presence in order to weep in private returning to them only once he had got control of himself again.

Now he has just listened to Judah's touching pleas and is fully convinced now that his half brothers have indeed undergone significant change in their lives since that time when they treated him so shabbily. Reconciliation is possible and the emotion of it all wells up once more within him.

This time he has no need to hide his emotion from his brothers as the time has come for him to reveal his true identity to them. Nevertheless, he still has sufficient control of himself to ensure that when he does speak to his brothers he will do so in private and he orders everyone else to leave the room.

Now his tears may flow and he weeps so loudly that his cries are heard by those outside as well.

Tears are an emotional safety valve and having wept in the presence of his brothers Joseph is able not simply to move on to tell his bothers just who he is but he is able to speak words designed to calm and to sooth the fears that his self-revelation provoke in his brothers.

Joseph had long been separated from his family but now wants the intimacy and the closeness that has hitherto been impossible. He longs to have news about his father too.

He gives those explanations which are designed to calm his brothers but he hasn't done with emotion yet! Firstly he falls on the neck of his full brother Benjamin weeping. Then he turns to the others and kisses them too accompanied by a further flow of tears.

2. Joseph's brothers vv.3, 5,15, 24

The reaction of Joseph's brothers is that of stunned silence. We're told in v.3 that they were troubled/terrified, dismayed/distressed at his presence.

Did they believe him when he simply declared to them that he was Joseph? Perhaps they feared themselves to be in the presence of a madman – maybe this vizier of Egypt was deranged and deluded – in any case they were struck dumb.

When Joseph continues to speak to them it seems as though he goes out of his way to give them information to prove to them that he is who he said he was – he was their brother Joseph whom they had sold into Egypt!

The brothers remain speechless! After all they have every reason to be fearful – this man standing before them has every reason imaginable to wish them ill and he had the power and authority to do them all the harm he could envisage. And so they listen to what Joseph has to say – no questions, no excuses they just listen. Then when Joseph is done he falls on Benjamin's neck weeping – this they could understand after all Benjamin was his full-brother and innocent of any wrong-doing against him. But how will he really react towards them?

They now don't have long to wait as Joseph turns to them with kisses and embraces!

Now and only now are we told that his brothers began to talk with Joseph!

It won't be long before the brothers will be sent home to bring their families back to Egypt and Joseph is concerned that arguments and recriminations not be allowed to break out on the journey.

3. Pharaoh v.16

It is a good thing to be able to rejoice with others when they rejoice though we don't necessarily all do it very well. Pharaoh hears the news that Joseph's brothers have come and he doesn't remain indifferent – he is pleased. Not only is he pleased but he acts in a positive and generous way to confirm the plans that Joseph already has for his wider family!

He even goes a stage further than Joseph and issues Joseph with a command designed to facilitate the coming of his family to Egypt – he tells Joseph to send wagons for them. These wagons will play a significant role even before that journey takes place.

4. Jacob vv.26-28

The brothers return and share the news with their father and Jacob too is absolutely stunned by what he hears – it numbs him. The news is so great and so unbelievable that he doesn't believe it!

His sons continue to speak to him, telling him of all that Joseph had said to them and gradually Jacob softens. He is finally convinced by the evidential value of those wagons of Egypt – they back up the story he has been told.

And Israel is now ready to go down not to Sheol/the grave to meet his son but to Egypt where his son is alive!!

God has been at work

When Joseph speaks to his brothers he urges them not to give way to anger or dismay – they are not to go on living in the past. Yes, they had sold him into slavery in Egypt and that was wrong their intentions had not been good. But they must realize that God had in no way allowed their actions to get out of control.

God had in fact used their sin to further His plan of protecting and preserving His own people.

This does not excuse of justify what the brothers had done. Nor does it mean that God approved of their treatment of Joseph. It does mean however that we are able to look above and beyond human sinfulness to a greater actor who will not allow human wickedness to thwart His plans.

It means that the brothers are not to be locked into recriminations and arguments over a past that they are now powerless to change. We too are thereby encouraged to look beyond the actions of mere men to see what God is doing!

It is so easy for us to focus on the actions of men – after all that is what we see with our eyes and that is what fills our newspapers and TV screens. Man likes to think of himself as the all important actor on the stage and while his actions are important what God is doing is in no way dominated by man or limited by man. God is sovereign.

God knew of the coming famine and purposed to save His people. And no knee-jerk reactions were needed on His part to cobble together a solution. Joseph's brothers sold him some 12-13 years before the beginning of the 7 years of plenty came to pass in Egypt. 7 years before the famine struck God had His man in place storing up the grain that would keep His chosen people alive.

You see how Joseph insists upon God's active role in all this:

vv.5-8 "God sent me before you to preserve life. For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are still five years in which there will be neither ploughing nor harvesting. And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt."

The same line is rigorously pursued as Joseph instructs his brothers in what they are to say to their father when they return to Canaan to fetch their families:

v.9 "God has made me lord of all Egypt;"

Of course as we turn to the NT we find that the same teaching is reiterated. God used the evil deeds of men to accomplish His plan of salvation. Judas was fully responsible for his wicked betrayal of Jesus but God uses it to accomplish salvation and Jesus accepted the betrayal as part of "the cup the Father has given me" Jn.18:11.

Here in Genesis 45 we learn that it was God that sent Joseph into Egypt in order to preserve His people saving them from famine. In the NT we learn that God continues to send:

Jn.3:16-17 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."

In Genesis we have seen on a number of occasions how God exalted Joseph and how his brothers came to bow the knee before Him. In the NT the One who was sent to save His people from a greater evil than food famine will also be exalted so that not only His brothers will bow the knee before Him but all will do so!

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,

Phil.2:10-11 "so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."