Episode 9: Reunions, Reconciliation, and Redemption

Katie Laitkep: No matter how deep your hurt, there’s always hope for reconciliation. Here’s Erin Davis.

Erin Davis: To be like Joseph is to extend toward our families—our broken, sin-filled, dysfunctional families—extravagant generosity and grace.

Katie: This is The Deep Well with Erin Davis. I’m Katie Laitkep, along with you as Erin continues this series called “Dysfunction.”

Erin: I’ve learned something about myself in the past year or so, and that is that I am an aggressive reconciler. I have pretty big relational antennae, and I’m always trying to search the environment for signs of strife. 

When I come to passages like Ephesians 4 which elevate, “one body, one Spirit, one hope, one faith, one baptism, one God,” I want to be an agent of that oneness! (vv. 4–6).

But I’m also learning another lesson which is that when I pursue healing relationships in my timing, in my way, I miss out on an opportunity to see God do things in His timing and in His way. We’ve been inching our way through the life and times of Joseph, looking for signs of dysfunction. And if you’ve been following along, you know that we’ve found them.

We’ve seen brother against brother, we’ve seen sister against sister, we’ve seen wife against husband, we’ve seen deceit, we’ve seen violence, we’ve seen abandonment, we’ve seen grief, we’ve seen trauma. It’s all there hanging from the branches of Joseph’s family tree. 

In the last episode we left off in Genesis chapter 43 where twice Joseph was moved to tears at the sight of the brothers that he’d been separated from. I don’t want to skip Genesis 44, because “thar’s gold in them thar hills!” (actually, it was silver). Because for the second time, (first time was in chapter 43) Joseph ordered that treasure be snuck into the grain sacks of his brothers.

In chapter 43 it was coins. They got home and realized the money was there. They were devastated and afraid, and they came back to Egypt. This time, according to Genesis 44:2, Joseph commanded the steward of his house to place his silver cup—an object of great worth and prominence—into the sack of Benjamin.

If you’ve been following along, Benjamin is the baby, the only full brother of Joseph. So the brothers were sent home again, presumably to return to their father in peace. Except, almost as soon as they left, Joseph said to his men, “Chase after those brothers!” 

Let me read to us Genesis 44:6–13: 

When he [the “he” there is the steward of Joseph’s house] overtook them, he spoke to them these words. They said to him, “Why does my lord speak such words as these? Far be it from your servants to do such a thing!” (vv. 6–7)

The servant had accused them of stealing from Joseph, and they said, “No, we didn’t!” As far as they knew, they hadn’t.

“Behold, the money that we found in the mouths of our sacks we brought back to you from the land of Canaan. How then could we steal silver or gold from your lord's house? Whichever of your servants is found with it shall die, and we also will be my lord's servants.” (vv. 8–9)

They were so sure that they had not stolen anything from the palace of Egypt that they said, “If you find anything that belongs to you, kill us all! Verse 10: 

He said, “Let it be as you say: he who is found with it shall be my servant, and the rest of you shall be innocent.” Then each man quickly lowered his sack to the ground, and each man opened his sack. And he searched, beginning with the eldest and ending with the youngest. (vv. 10–12)

Can’t you picture them, the brothers all lined up in a row, oldest to youngest, maybe staggered by height. 

First there was Reuben, whom we’ve talked a lot about in this series. He was the firstborn. I don’t know if he really was this, but I picture Reuben as very tall, very strong, and with a very big beard. And then came Simeon—we know Simeon—and then came Levi, and then Judah, and then Dan, and then Naphtali, and then Gad, and then Asher, and then Issachar, and then Zebulun—nothing in any of those sacks—and finally Benjamin, verse 12–13. 

And the cup was found in Benjamin's sack. Then they tore their clothes, and every man loaded his donkey, and they returned to the city.

Can’t you imagine the brothers!? They had to have their shoulders slumped! Maybe some of them were angry. They had to have felt defeated and powerless. They were convinced (Scripture tells us this) that everything they were now facing was a consequence of the sin that they had committed so long ago when they sold Joseph as a slave.

Genesis 44:14 tells us that the brothers came back to Joseph’s house under guard, and they fell in front of their brother and bowed before him on the ground looking for mercy. Now, that should sound familiar! 

Remember the dreams that ignited this family feud? (Look at you, pulling all the pieces together! That’s what we do on The Deep Well!) It comes from Genesis 37:5–11. Remember, Joseph had two dreams.

In the first dream, Joseph was a sheaf of wheat. He stood tall and upright, and the brothers were sheaves of wheat bent down around Joseph’s sheaf. In dream two there were the sun, the moon, and eleven stars who bowed down to Joseph.

And what did the brothers say about the dream? “Are you indeed to reign over us?” or “Are you indeed to rule over us?” (v. 8). He did, in fact, rule over them, and they did, in fact, bow before their brother.

As the brothers bowed, Judah begged. That’s a fun ride for you to take: look at who Judah was in Genesis 38. He was the father-in-law of Tamar. And here in Genesis 44:18, through the end of the chapter, we see Judah as a changed man. Now, God doesn’t change, but He sure can change us!

So, Judah pleaded for the lives of his brothers! He says, “Please, spare us for the sake of our father!” He told Joseph—who he didn’t know was Joseph—the story, in part, of how Jacob had already lost one of his sons.

I want you to hear the end of that passionate speech. I’m going to pick it up in verse 30: 

“Now therefore, as soon as I come to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us, then [he’s talking about Benjamin], as his life is bound up in the boy's life as soon as he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die, and your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant our father with sorrow to Sheol. For your servant became a pledge of safety for the boy to my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame before my father all my life.’”

“Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers. For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father.” (vv. 30–34)

Judah was a man with nothing else to lose—except his dad. Finally, we see the brothers living out something that they had been trying to erase all these years! The ties that bind, the family that God has placed us in, that’s not just something we can erase or disregard, even when we want to.

So as we turn the page to Genesis 45, once again Scripture describes Joseph overcome with emotion. Genesis 45:2 tells us that Joseph cried so loud, “that the Egyptians heard it.” Have you ever had a cry like that? I think Joseph was having a heaving, full body cry!

Hold onto your seats and listen to verse 3: 

“I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence.

Let’s sit in the emotion of all of this for a minute. This family had endured so much, some of it self-inflicted, some of it just the product of living in a broken world.

They had been separated from each other for so many years. There were so many moments when it felt like God was never going to fix this situation, and now—under the hand of Providence, in circumstances that none of them could have orchestrated—the brothers are face-to-face again . . .

Joseph is overcome with emotion, and he announces to his brothers who he is. They can’t get any words past the lumps in their throats—they were terrified! They should have been! The brother they had sinned against was now a man of great power, and he could have done anything he wanted to them!

Let’s keep reading. This is better than any soap opera! Verse 4: 

So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.”

I hope you’re writing in your Bibles, girls—I am. That is a powerful verse for you to underline. I can think of a hundred times when I was a little girl, or even as a teenager, I knew I was going to be in trouble, and I knew I probably should be in trouble! I was one of those kids who wanted to do the right thing but just never could quite seem to!

Over and over I would prepare a speech. I would tell my parents I was sorry. I would get the sob-sobs. You know that, where it’s like [gasping to draw a breath] and you just can’t stop it? 

Over and over my momma would say [in a soothing voice], “C’mere, c’mere!” She was so good about dropping down to her knees and pulling me close or pulling me onto her lap.

She’d say, “I love you. I love you! It’s okay. We can figure this out together.” I’ve seen her do it with my own boys.I run a tight ship. I’m definitely more the disciplinarian, firm momma. I think I have to be with four boys.

But when my boys were little and spinning out of control, I’ve watched my mom do it with her grandsons, “Hey, hey, Gigi loves you! Gigi’s always gonna love you!” 

And that’s essentially what Joseph did here. He said, “Come, come closer. Let me tell you, it’s okay. You did sell me into slavery, that’s true. That happened. But God is the One who sent me to Egypt, and He did it to preserve life!” 

And there it is, that’s the bedrock truth that transforms the way we see families. It’s what changes the way we operate within our families, and it’s this: God has a plan!

We could have taken a thousand snapshots of Joseph’s family and we could have put them in that album, and it would have seemed like nothing good was ever going to come from this fractured and flawed family.

Think back to the family tree, when Sarah was old and barren, and snap a picture. What can God do with that?! Think about Jacob and Esau when they were so angry with each other that Esau said, “When this funeral is over, I’m going to kill my brother!” What can God do with that?!

Think about when two sisters were forced—at the hand of their father—to marry the same man. I don’t think they had much say in it. They built a polygamous marriage, built on deep hurt and profound dysfunction. What could God do with that?!

Think about when one of the daughters of that union was raped. What can God do with that?! Think about her two brothers who repay evil for evil by killing all of the men in that clan and taking what they wanted from them—pillaging their wives and their little ones. That’s how Scripture describes it. What can God do with that?!

Think about when Joseph’s brothers sold their very own flesh and blood into slavery and then covered it up for years. What can God do with that?! 

Have you met this God? This is a God about whom the psalmist wrote, “For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations” (Psalm 100:5).

We keep bumping into that word “all.” And every time it means “all.” What sets Joseph apart was not that his family had dysfunction—we all do. It was that he seemed to trust, really trust, that in spite of the dysfunction, God’s plan was good, and God’s plan was for the generations of Joseph’s family.

If we keep reading Genesis 45, we see that Joseph did not seek revenge. Joseph pursued three different things, and they all start with “R.” He wanted a reunion—not just the kind of family reunion where Aunt Sally brings her deviled eggs that you’re not sure how long they’ve been sitting out on the counter!

He wanted to be reunited with the father that he had long been separated from, so he sent his brothers to bring Jacob back to him. He said, “Do it quickly! Get my dad to me as quickly as you can bring him here!”

He also desired reconciliation. Look at the beauty of verses 14–15: “Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept, and Benjamin wept upon his neck.” Can you picture it? Scripture seems to indicate Benjamin was still a boy and Joseph was a man. They hadn’t seen each other for a long time, and they’re crying on each others’ necks.

I bet you’ve had those kinds of hugs where nobody’s in a hurry to let go. You just hold onto each other. I hope you’ve had them with your family. Verse 15, 

And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them. After that his brothers talked with him.

It’s only in seeing the whole story of Joseph that we can see the profoundness of this verse. Those brothers all lined up again, all guilty, except Benjamin. Joseph went from brother to brother to brother to brother to brother to brother, and in tears he kissed them, and he told them it was going to be okay!

And finally, the third “R.” Joseph sought a restoration of all that had been taken from his family. Look at verses 21–22. (I can hardly wait to show you this. This is why I do The Deep Well!) Verse 21:

The sons of Israel did so: and Joseph gave them wagons, according to the command of Pharaoh, and gave them provisions for the journey. To each and all of them he gave a change of clothes, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred shekels of silver and five changes of clothes. 

What they took, he gave. And do you notice what he gave? Look again at verse 22: “a change of clothes.”

Remember from the story that the brothers, in their anger, in their jealousy, in their hatred, they stripped Joseph of his coat of many colors. They were humiliating him, and they were saying, “This coat means Dad loves you more. We know what to do with this coat!” And then they shredded that coat of many colors. 

And then they dipped it in goat’s blood to cover up their sin. (My family’s looking better and better all the time!) And then, what did Joseph give each of his brothers? He gave them new clothes! What did his brothers sell Joseph for, do you remember? It’s in Genesis 37:28: twenty shekels of silver.

And what did Joseph give his youngest brother? Three hundred shekels of silver and five changes of clothes. Everything that the brothers took from Joseph he returned with increased measure. This is restoration!

Restoration is no tally marks, no wound-for-wound, no forgiveness withheld until it is earned. To be like Joseph is to extend toward our families—our broken, sin-filled, dysfunctional families—extravagant generosity and grace. 

There are some people in my family—and there are some people in yours—that I don’t know how I could ever be generous toward. So here’s good news: you don’t have to do it on your own. This kind of family—this kind of relating to our families—is only ever a by-product of Christ in us! 

Let’s listen to the rest of this chapter. I can’t tell the story any better than God’s Word does. I’m picking it up at verse 23: 

To his father he sent as follows: ten donkeys loaded with the good things of Egypt, and ten female donkeys loaded with grain, bread, and provision for his father on the journey.

Remember what’s happening in Egypt and in Canaan—a famine. This is an incredibly generous gift! Verse 24, 

Then he sent his brothers away, and as they departed, he said to them, "Do not quarrel on the way."

Do you know what he was saying? “Don’t fight about this, brothers, it’s over now.” Verse 25: 

So they went up out of Egypt and came to the land of Canaan to their father Jacob. They told him, [Can’t you just picture them running to their dad?] “Joseph is still alive, and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt.” And his heart became numb, for he did not believe them. (vv. 25–26)

Jacob didn’t dare hope this was true. Verse 27: 

“But when they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said to them, and when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of their father Jacob revived. And Israel said, ‘It is enough; Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.’” (vv. 27–28)

We’ve got one more reunion to celebrate, one between the dad and his boy! I’ll save that for the next episode. But for now I’m going to leave you with this: Do you need God to do the “three R’s” in your family? 

Do you need a reunion? Is there someone you love who you are separated from? It may be because of family drama, or maybe because of a conflict, maybe because of geography. Maybe it’s somebody who’s gone ahead of you to heaven and you are looking forward to that reunion. 

How about a reconciliation? Is there a fight that resulted in both sides taking up positions in the corners of the ring. Maybe it’s a marriage that ended. Maybe it’s a child that cut off all contact. Maybe it’s a brother or a sister that doesn’t come to family gatherings any more and nobody’s quite sure why. These are beautiful things to long for, and God’s Word gives us a lot of hope! 

But here’s what families really need, and it’s the kind of “R” that only God can do: restoration. God doesn’t just restore, He redeems! God takes what is broken—what is shattered to a zillion pieces—and somehow, supernaturally, in a way that only God can do, He makes it whole!

I’m going to leave you with Colossians 1:11–14: 

Being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption. 

Redemption is possible only because of Jesus! One of the things His sacrifice on the cross teaches us is: there is nothing He can’t redeem! Let’s pray.

Jesus, thank You that You are a redeeming God. Thank You that You are a restoring God. Thank You that You are a rebuilding God. And thank You that You have a reunion planned for all of us where we will be reunited with You. I pray that You would infuse our family with restoration and redemption. In Your name I pray, amen.

Katie: That’s Erin Davis showing us why we can pursue reconciliation with others, even when it seems humanly impossible. If you appreciate this kind of practical counsel that’s based on God’s Word, you can hear Erin every week on Grounded. Grounded is a videocast and a podcast from Revive Our Hearts. Erin, what can our listeners expect when they come to Grounded?

Erin: Well, I hope they expect to feel like they’re having coffee with some great friends. I co-host Grounded with Portia Collins and Dannah Gresh, and we really are sisters. We love to be together each week. And, you can expect a wide variety of topics and a wide variety of guests.

We might be talking one week about whether or not you have the sin of anger in your heart (I do, by the way). The next week we might talk about how to raise grateful kids in an entitled world. The next week, we might be ripping something from the headlines and trying to look at it through the grid of God’s Word.

Our mission is always to hand out two things—hope and perspective—and those come from Scripture. So, we’re opening our Bibles together and trying to understand the world around us.

Katie: Erin, when you think about this topic of reconciliation, are there any episodes of Grounded, that you remember, where you’ve covered this?

Erin: Mmm, we’ve talked about reconciliation a lot from a lot of different angles. But the episode that comes to mind was a guest named Gracia Burnham. She was a missionary along with her husband. What a dramatic story! They were kidnapped by Islamic militants. They were kept for many months. (I can’t remember how long.) Her husband, Martin, was actually killed in a gunfight at some point. 

She came on Grounded and talked about going back to the place of that horrific experience years later and reconciling—offering forgiveness—to some of those people that had taken so much from her.

It makes me think of this season, because some of us are thinking: “Uhh! I could never reconcile with my sister! She’s just too . . . (whatever),” or “I could never reconcile with my parents! They’re just . . . (whatever—fill in the blank).”

Here’s a woman who really faced the extremes of being sinned against. In that episode she just oozed grace and forgiveness. She just modeled what God calls us to do. So I’d commend that episode to everyone.

Katie: We’ll put a link to that powerful episode in the transcript of this episode, or you can find it at ReviveOurHearts.com. If you want to watch Grounded when it goes live at 9:00 a.m. ET every Monday morning, you can subscribe to the Revive Our Hearts YouTube channel, and you'll get a notification when it starts. Or you could go ahead and subscribe to the Grounded audio podcasts wherever you listen to podcasts. You will get the latest episode when it drops every Wednesday. 

Erin Unscripted

Alright, now it’s time for Erin Unscripted.Our audience is in the studio asking the questions. Let’s listen.

Diana: Hi, Erin, I’m Diana. The text doesn’t address it, but why do you think after Joseph got out of captivity that he didn’t reach out to his dad? I just have to wonder about that.

Erin: Yeah, well, life goes on, right? And days turn into weeks turn into months turn into years. I mean, often we think, Ah, I’ll get to that. Also, Joseph was immediately in a position of power. He went from prison to power.

And there was a lot of work to be done, right? They knew a famine was coming, so Joseph was in charge of mobilizing the entire nation of Egypt to prepare for this famine. So, busyness could have been at play.

But that’s another example of us reading our modern experience into ancient texts. He couldn’t text his dad; he couldn’t call his dad. We see from all that he provided for the journey for his dad to come to Egypt that this was going to be an expensive journey, and maybe not one he would want to take on his own. We’ve seen these bands of Ishmaelite slave traders, and there must have been wild beasts, because that’s what his dad thought took his life. 

So it probably was just the practicality of: busy man, not an easy journey. Did he have the funds to take that journey? Could he take that journey alone? But what the text does seem to indicate is that his dad was always on his mind.

Hannah: Erin, you tell the part about the brothers coming back to their father and telling him that Joseph was alive. Do you think that the brothers repented and confessed to their father what they had done? I’m not sure if we see that. Do you think that happened?

Erin: I think they stopped just short of it. What we see in the text is that, at this point in the story, the brothers did not repent. They didn’t say whatever would have been their version of, “I’m sorry.” They were obviously moved and they took a humble posture—because they knew Joseph could do them harm. 

But the text doesn’t say they ever said, “We’re so sorry!” And then, again, when they get to Jacob, what they tell Jacob is, “Your son is alive!” They stopped short of saying, “And we’ve known he was alive this whole time,” or “We thought he could have been alive this whole time, because he actually didn’t die. We arranged the whole thing. We sold him into slavery.”

I don’t know if that conversation happened or not, but I would say for us, (we’re trying to apply this in our own families)don’t stop short of repentance. Say that you’re sorry.

Hannah: So, that also means that Joseph was extravagant in his giving towards them, maybe even without an apology from them, right? He didn’t wait for them to repent. I hadn’t thought of that before.

Erin: I think the default for many of us is: we will apologize when they apologize. We will apologize when they show they’re willing to change. We will apologize when they understand how badly they hurt us. 

It’s not that those things don’t matter, they do matter. But it reminds me of the prodigal son’s father just watching the horizon. The first second that it seemed like his boy had turned toward him, he was ready to rush forward with extravagance. I think that’s the more excellent way. God can work out those things in the other person’s heart. I’ve seen Him do it a million times. But often if we’ll lead with extravagant grace, those things fall in line later.

Hannah: It seems like that’s what Jesus did for us. He provided salvation and grace for us way before we ever repented.

Erin: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Christ died for me before I was born, so I neither had the opportunity to sin or repent. It couldn’t have been contingent on my behavior. But He knew I would, and He hung on the cross as a sacrifice for me. So absolutely extravagant, undeserved grace.

Karen: Hi, my name is Karen. I was just wondering if there are some times in relationships where that person will just refuse to reconcile, and you feel you’ve done everything that you can do. You’ve prayed about it. So, what would you do then?

Erin: My human experience shows me that there are some relationships that will never be reconciled, that’s how I’ve learned that part of my character is being an aggressive reconciler. 

There have been situations where I thought, We can come together, even if we agree to disagree. We can fix this!

And from my understanding of Scripture and from Christ’s work in me, I think I’ve walked all the steps. I’ve forgiven. I’ve sought forgiveness. I’ve sought to offer grace. I’ve sought to bring healing. I’ve gone first . . . and it hasn’t worked.

And so the conclusion I’ve come to is something that someone has said to me in relation to all of this family drama: “Trust them to Jesus. That’s the safest place for them to be.” So I do have people in my life that I would love to be reconciled with, but unless there are significant changes, I won’t be. But I trust them to Jesus, that’s the safest place for them to be. 

I don’t know what He’s doing in their hearts. I don’t know what He needs to do in their hearts. I don’t know how the chips are eventually going to fall, but I know I can trust them to Jesus, and that’s the safest place for them to be.

Rebecca: So as believers, God calls us to forgive those who have sinned against us. Are we also expected to do everything in our power to reconcile with every single person, or is that fully up to God? Is our job just to forgive, or do we need to go through the steps to attempt a reconciliation, even if there’s no relationship coming back after our forgiveness?

Erin: Well, I think the Bible gives some qualifiers, which is that our relationships with other followers of Jesus are distinct and set apart from our relationships with those who are not followers of Jesus.

Now, forgiveness isn’t qualified by that. We are to forgive people regardless of their faith in Jesus or lack of. But reconciliation is an additional step. And what I do see in Scripture—specifically in the book of Ephesians, but all throughout the epistles—is Scripture calling us to oneness.

“Remember, you’re one; you’re one, you’re one!” [examples: John 17:23; Galatians 3:28; Ephesians 4:25, Philippians 1:27]. And that way we model the Trinity. And so, we do need to pursue reconciliation in the Body of Christ.

I think of the two women that Paul addressed [from Philippians 4:2, Euodia and Syntyche] and was saying basically, “Work it out! You’re sisters in Christ!” That doesn’t mean it’s always going to happen. But the way I read my Bible is that reconciliation is something I need to actively pursue with my brothers and sisters in Christ.

Scripture doesn’t promise me it will happen. Scripture doesn’t promise me that the other person will want to reconcile at the moment that I want to reconcile, so it is ultimately up to the Lord. The Lord works in our hearts, but I take Scripture to read that I am to pursue reconciliation when there’s division with my brothers and sisters in Christ.

I’m not saying that we never pursue reconciliation with people who are outside of Christ. We model Christlikeness in all of our relationships, but that oneness that is described so often in the New Testament is oneness among believers.

So I think we can expect it to go differently, feel differently, unfold differently when the reconciliation needs to happen with somebody who is not a Christian.

Katie: Erin, what can we expect on the next episode?

Erin: Well, we’re going to go to a funeral, at least in our minds. Jacob, also known as Israel, the head of this dysfunctional family . . . we’re going to talk about his death, his burial, and what happens among those brothers after he’s gone.

The Deep Well is part of the Revive Our Hearts podcast family, calling women to freedom, fullness and fruitfulness in Christ. 

All Scripture is taken from the ESV.

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