God Loves Selfless Service

Often times in the weeks leading up to Christmas, people will try and figure out how to get themselves in the Christmas spirit. We, however, are no longer preparing for Christmas, an extremely important event, but we are preparing for Holy Week, an event that is even more important. Are you in the Holy Week spirit yet? I, for one, have been asking this of myself lately. Part of my problem, and it may be your problem too, is I sometimes forget what the word “spirit” means in this context. Getting ourselves into the spirit of an event is not just about the emotional connection we have to it, although this usually is a part since we are emotional creatures. Getting into the spirit of Holy Week is mostly about understanding the truth of the event and applying it to your life.

Our lessons chosen for us today have done a masterful job of displaying one of those key truths of Holy Week so we can apply it to our lives. God loves selfless service.

As we look at the family of Jacob, we realize that they were a mess. Reuben had slept with one his father’s concubines (yes, he had more than one!). Judah had slept with his daughter-in-law who was posing as a prostitute. Simeon and Levi had abused God’s precious covenant of circumcision to murder all the men in a city out of revenge. And now, we are introduced to even more problems. Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. 2 This is the account of Jacob. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them. 3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made a richly ornamented robe for him. 4 When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

One day Joseph went out to tend to the flocks with some of his brothers. After doing so, he noticed that his brothers had done something evil, but we aren’t told what it was. Afterwards, Joseph reported to his father what they had done. Growing up, I was always angry at Joseph for doing this since I pictured him as a tattletale. I viewed him as this stuck-up snob who was out to hurt his brothers. Looking at the text, though, it gives no indication that this is true. Perhaps Joseph simply gave this report because he valued his father’s reputation and wished to see justice upheld.

Anyways, Jacob didn’t do too much to help matters out. Even though he had seen the nasty side of favoritism as a boy, he carried on the family tradition and did it himself. He ended up loving Joseph more than any of his other sons because he was the oldest of his favorite wife, Rachel. To make a bad situation worse, he gave Joseph a certain coat that symbolized how he was the most loved. We’re not sure what it exactly looked like, but you could imagine the kick in the gut the other brothers would’ve received every time they were forced to see Joseph in it. It was a constant reminder of how they were not as loved or as important in their father’s eyes. And for this, they hated Joseph and could not speak kindly to him.

Sadly the situation did not get better for a long time. 5 Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. 6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: 7 We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.” 8 His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said. 9 Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” 10 When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” 11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.