You probably don’t know the name Randy Pausch, but he has an interesting story. He’s a former a professor of computer science at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh who was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer in September 2006. About a year later—in August of 2007—doctors informed him the cancer was progressing and he only had a few months of good health left. Shortly thereafter—on September 18, 2007—he gave a lecture in McConomy Auditorium on campus—a lecture hall that seats about 400 people. He talked for about 75 minutes and gave a gripping account of the important lessons he’d learned in life and challenged those present to apply those lessons in order to achieve their career and personal goals. And contrary to what you’d think would be the case for someone with such a bleak diagnosis, his talk was not a depressing diatribe filled with self-pity. In fact, quite the opposite. It was full of life and humor … and not because the guy was living in denial. Randy Pausch had an amazing attitude in the face of the most grim diagnosis a person can ever receive.
His friends decided to upload his talk to YouTube which, at that time was a fairly new technology. It soon went viral (you can still see it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayPMfopCe1g&list=PL067950B03636F306). ABC caught wind of his story and created an episode of 20/20. He appeared on Oprah, who still had her TV show at the time. The content of his lecture was turned into a book, co-written by a Wall Street Journal reporter, and became a bestseller. True to what the doctors said, Randy Pausch’s health began to fail soon thereafter and he died on July 25, 2008 at the age of 47.
I’ve often wondered what it would be like to be able to plan your departure—to know when I’m going to die so I could spend my last days getting things in order … gathering the life experiences I want to gather … expressing love and care to the folks I truly love and care about. What would I say if I knew my days were short and I had a chance to sum up everything that was most important to me?
When we come to the end of Joseph’s story in Genesis 48-49, we come to a section of Scripture that has that feel. Jacob—Joseph’s father—is up in years. His health is failing. He’s frail, feeble, and pretty much bedridden. He can’t see. But he has some unfinished business and wants to address some things that are on his heart. It takes place some fifteen or twenty years after where chapter 47 ended. The famine is over … the stress of the relocation to Goshen is over … and everyone is settled into their new surroundings. And Jacob—Joseph’s father—is getting very old.
These chapters are filled with some obsolete customs—some events that would have been immensely important and significant to the ancient Hebrews but most of us find bewildering and confusing … that makes it a bit hard for us to understand what’s going on. It’s very easy for us to read these chapters and say, “OK, so what’s the big deal?” What I hope to do in this post is highlight enough of what’s going on to help us make application to our lives but not so much that we become bogged down in the minutiae of it all.
First, lets set the scene:
Some time later Joseph was told, “Your father is ill.” So he took his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim along with him. When Jacob was told, “Your son Joseph has come to you,” Israel rallied his strength and sat up on the bed. Jacob said to Joseph, “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and there he blessed me and said to me, ‘I am going to make you fruitful and increase your numbers. I will make you a community of peoples, and I will give this land as an everlasting possession to your descendants after you.’ “Now then, your two sons born to you in Egypt before I came to you here will be reckoned as mine; Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine, just as Reuben and Simeon are mine. Any children born to you after them will be yours; in the territory they inherit they will be reckoned under the names of their brothers. As I was returning from Paddan, to my sorrow Rachel died in the land of Canaan while we were still on the way, a little distance from Ephrath. So I buried her there beside the road to Ephrath” (that is, Bethlehem). (Genesis 48:1-7)
Jacob, as I mentioned, was nearing the end of his life. His health was failing to the point word was sent to inform Joseph his father was deathly ill. So he and his two boys, Manasseh and Ephraim, made a trip to Goshen to say goodbye. By this time Jacob was so bedridden that he had to summon his strength just to be able to sit up. But he’s a man who’s acquired an intimate knowledge of God because of the successes and failures of his life. He’s become quite wise.
This is an incident that had to be a bit of a weird experience for Joseph’s two sons. As best we can tell they were probably in their early to mid 20’s at the time. And their grandfather, while they’d undoubtedly grown to love and respect him, was the product of a very different world than the one in which they’d grown up. Jacob was the head of a family of shepherds. And shepherds were looked down upon by most Egyptians. In contrast to this, Joseph—Manasseh and Ephraim’s father—was second in power to Pharaoh. The boys’ mother was the daughter of an Egyptian high priest. Their family was undoubtedly one of the more prominent and influential families in the land. The world in which these boys had been raised and the world in which their grandfather lived were very, very different. Because they’d been raised in the Egyptian culture, they undoubtedly dressed different. They probably spoke a different language. But in many ways this trip determined the “world” where they’d realize their destiny. Which “world” would be the place where they’d make their future contribution? Would they find their place in the world where their father had made such a huge contribution and risen to a position of prominence? Or would they identify themselves with the world of their grandfather—the world from which their father came, and the world in which he undoubtedly would have remained had not his brothers done what they did when they sold him as a slave and resulted in him being shipped off to Egypt?
Jacob retells the story of his pilgrimage. Like many elderly people, he may have been repeating himself and telling them a story they’d heard a number of times. But we shouldn’t miss what he’s doing: He’s giving his grandsons a sense of their heritage. He goes back to the day he encountered the Lord at Bethel—a time when it seemed all he’d ever wanted in life had been lost. He goes back to that landmark encounter with God and that transformative dream involving a ladder that rose to heaven with angels ascending and descending on it. That was the time when he genuinely surrendered his life to God and decided he wouldn’t do things in the conniving, scheming, and manipulative way he’d done things up until then. He received the promise from God that the land on which he slept that night would be his … that his descendants would be like the dust of the earth … that all the earth would be blessed through him. And then God offered this stunning promise: “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go.”
But then Jacob says something that, on the surface, seems strange:
“Now then, your two sons born to you in Egypt before I came to you here will be reckoned as mine; Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine, just as Reuben and Simeon are mine. I hereby adopt these boys so that they’ll be blood sons like my own sons.” (Genesis 47:5)
This whole episode seems really strange to us. It doesn’t make sense that Jacob would adopt his grandchildren when he’s essentially on his deathbed. What possible motivation would there be for him to do that? To understand would involve a lengthy lesson on Hebrew culture and how the inheritance process worked. But what Jacob is doing is granting Joseph’s two boys the rights and privileges of his own sons.
If you’ve ever seen a map of ancient Israel that shows the areas of land given to each of the twelve tribes, you’ll notice you don’t see the name of Joseph. Nor do you see the name of Levi, as Levi became the priestly tribe and his ancestors received certain towns within the boundaries of the land apportioned to each tribe. But you will see the names of Manasseh and Ephraim. By adopting Joseph’s two sons, Jacob is providing each of them a share of the inheritance.
And he goes on to place a blessing upon Manasseh and Ephraim and, then, the rest of his sons
Jacob, in the final hours of his life, draws Manasseh and Ephraim into the circle of sonship. Chances are these boys knew something about the promise God had made to their grandfather—that they’d someday become a great nation and develop into a sovereign state. But I’d also guess, given their upbringing, these things seemed really distant and alien to them. They knew, but my guess is it wasn’t something they necessarily saw themselves participating in or being a part of. I’d imagine they saw their future as being tied up with Egypt. They saw themselves being a part of the fortunes of the regime their father served.
But in this moment, their grandfather welcomes them into his family. Not that they weren’t part of the family previously—they were always his grandsons and part of his lineage. But now they’re in line for the inheritance. Now they’re heirs of the promise and beneficiaries of the assurance that comes with being a direct descendant. Because they’ve been adopted and embraced as sons, they’ve become the recipients of blessings and benefits far beyond their ability to comprehend. There’s an inheritance that’s theirs. They’re now part of a legacy and possession they weren’t part of previously—all because Jacob adopted them and welcomed them into his family as sons.
And the parallels to what happened to them and what can happen to each of us in a spiritual sense is staggering. For we’re all children of God in a general sense. We’re all part of the human race; we find our origin in Him. He’s our creator. But there’s also a greater sense in which we can be a child of God—a sense that comes through being welcomed into the father’s family … being adopted as his son or daughter. When we become a part of the father’s family in this greater sense, we become the recipient of an inheritance and the possessor of blessings beyond our wildest imagination. We join the ranks and become part of a worldwide family of folks who’ve looked to Jesus as their source of salvation. And when this happens, we are ushered into a different domain—a domain that becomes the primary source of our identity and destiny.
But there’s a major difference between how we become a part of our Heavenly Father’s family and how Manasseh and Ephraim became a part of Jacob’s family. Manasseh and Ephraim were claimed by Jacob—they didn’t really have to do anything. Jacob essentially said, “This is what I want to do” and it was done. But when it comes to you and me being a part of our Heavenly Father’s family, while He's put in a claim on us and done what needs to be done so we can be adopted, it’s not as simple as him issuing an edict and it being done. We must sign on to the deal. We must corroborate and put our seal of approval on this arrangement.
And how do we do that? By receiving the gift. Just as Manasseh and Ephraim received the blessing of their grandfather Jacob, so we can receive the gift of eternal life. But we don’t receive it by trying to earn it … or working to merit it … or attempting to somehow demonstrate we’re worthy of it. We receive it by admitting what we most need—the forgiveness of sin and assurance we’re in right relationship with God—isn’t something we can pull off on our own. It’s something we can only receive by placing our trust in what Jesus did for us when he yielded his life and died on a cross. Here’s the deal about the blessing of eternal life that comes to us thru Jesus: Salvation isn’t a prize for hardworking people who make a diligent effort. It isn’t a reward for good people; it’s a gift for forgiven people.
So, let me ask you again: Have you been welcomed into the father’s family? If not, you can. You can be a child of God not in the universal, general sense, but in the more particular, personal sense. It’s up to you.