Another incredible encounter (3)

In previous blog posts (see 14th February) 
I reflected on Jacob’s two God-encounters at Bethel and Peniel. In the first four verses of Genesis chapter 46, we read of another encounter that Jacob had in his old age, and it was at Beersheba, the well of the promise.

The Bethel encounter saw God reassuring Jacob as he was forced to flee from the land of his inheritance. The Peniel encounter saw God preparing him to return, and re-affirming the promise. Now, a couple of decades later, Jacob is having to leave the country again, and not only himself this time, but with his whole family - all the descendants who were to inherit the land. If you’ve read the story of Joseph in the previous chapters, you’ll know that Jacob’s family was having to move to Egypt in order to survive in a time of famine. Jacob knew it was necessary - it was leave or die - but what must he have been thinking as he set off once again to leave the land that had been promised to him?

When the huge tribe reaches Beersheba and stops for the night, God speaks to Jacob in a vision. Not a dream this time. It seems Jacob has grown in his relationship with God, and can hear His voice without God having to bypass his conscious mind. The Lord, who saw and knew Jacob’s troubled thoughts, begins by saying, “Don’t be afraid to go down to Egypt.” Don’t be afraid to walk away from the land that I’ve promised you. Don’t worry that you appear to be turning your back on your inheritance.

Next comes a part that probably astounded Jacob - when God says, “.. for I will make your family into a great nation there.” What? The promise would actually be fulfilled in that hard, foreign place? Surely a “nation” is a group of people in a specific location.

But there’s more to being God’s people than being in a particular geographical setting - just as there’s more to being a Christian than sitting in church on a Sunday morning. Being part of God’s people, part of His “chosen nation,” is more about who you are than where you are. It’s about how you live your life and how you see God. And so God tells Jacob that Egypt, a place seemingly distanced from what the Lord has promised, is the very place where He will make them into a nation.

A devastating illness, a change of circumstances, a loss of some kind; all of these things can feel like “Egypt” to us. (I think of my Dad spending nearly a year in hospital, or a colleague whose young daughter dropped dead with an aneurysm, or my neighbour whose mother’s deterioriating Alzheimer’s stole her from us at a terrifying rate.) There are many situations and circumstances in our lives that can seem to be taking us away from the fullness of God’s blessing. Yet these things, hard as they are, may be the very place where God does something great in us, and for us. The key lies in our never letting go of the truth that God’s presence is with us in that situation. The very next thing God says to Jacob is, “I will go with you to Egypt,” and in whatever circumstances we face, He also says to us, “I am with you.”

Finally, in the last part of the vision, God tells Jacob two things that sound contradictory: “I will bring you back again,” and “You will die in Egypt.” Of course, the seeming contradiction is explained by the fact that the first “you” is the plural, collective you: God will one day bring Jacob’s descendants back to the land He promised them. The second “you” is the individual, personal you: Jacob as an individual will never leave Egypt; he is saying goodbye forever to the inheritance that God has repeatedly promised him. Hardly surprising if we consider that he was a very old man by this time.

But it’s not all bad news, because something special is offered in return for Jacob’s sacrifice: he is first going to be reunited with the son that he hasn’t seen for more than twenty years, and then in death he will see face to face the God that he has slowly been learning to know through dreams and visions, mistakes and miracles, hard lessons and wonderful blessings. Dying in Egypt doesn’t sound quite so bad, when you think of what Jacob would experience as well.

The reality of life is that we don’t always live to see the complete fulfilment of all that was promised to us. Sometimes it’s a future generation that sees the blessing and fulfilment of the things that we were trusting God for. If we have lived our lives well, we can “die in Egypt” like Jacob did, knowing that our legacy will live on and our promises will become reality. As we read later, at the end of chapter 47 and the end of chapter 49, Jacob may have died in Egypt, but he wasn't buried there. His final resting place (for his bones, at least!) was indeed in the land that God had promised him.

Mostly in life, when we find ourselves in tough times, we can hang on to the fact that “this too will pass.” When some horrible situation, some family tragedy, or some personal crisis catapults us into Egypt, God assures us, “I will go with you, and I will bring you back out of it again.” The hard things in life seldom last for ever; it may feel like it at the time, but it’s only temporary in the light of eternity, and God promises to bring us through the storm, bring us safe and stronger out the other side. As I wrote in a previous post: don’t judge the book  by a chapter. God alone knows the end of the story and is able to work all things out for our good.

But sometimes, just occasionally, there are those who do “die in Egypt.” They never get healed from that terminal cancer; that rocky marriage does end in divorce; that illness does cause us pain or rob us of mobility; that longstanding conflict never gets fully resolved... In such situations, God remains unchanging; He’s not fazed by the drama and He reassures us that one day He will welcome us into the final chapter of all; then we too will see Him face to face.