The Daily Fountain Daily Devotional of the Church Of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) – DATE: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2024 – TOPIC: A PROMISE FULFILLED!
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THE DAILY FOUNTAIN
DAILY DEVOTIONAL OF THE
CHURCH OF NIGERIA (ANGLICAN COMMUNION)
DATE: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2024
TOPIC: A PROMISE FULFILLED!
50:1. Then Joseph fell on his father’s face, and wept over him, and kissed him.
50:2. And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. So the physicians embalmed Israel.
50:3. Forty days were required for him, for such are the days required for those who are embalmed; and the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.
50:4. And when the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh, saying, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, please speak in the hearing of Pharaoh, saying,
50:5. ‘My father made me swear, saying, “Behold, I am dying; in my grave which I dug for myself in the land of Canaan, there you shall bury me.” Now therefore, please let me go up and bury my father, and I will come back.’ “
50:6. And Pharaoh said, “Go up and bury your father, as he made you swear.”
50:7. So Joseph went up to bury his father; and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt,
50:8. as well as all the house of Joseph, his brothers, and his father’s house. Only their little ones, their flocks, and their herds they left in the land of Goshen.
50:9. And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen, and it was a very great gathering.
50:10. Then they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which [is] beyond the Jordan, and they mourned there with a great and very solemn lamentation. He observed seven days of mourning for his father.
50:11. And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “This [is] a deep mourning of the Egyptians.” Therefore its name was called Abel Mizraim, which [is] beyond the Jordan.
50:12. So his sons did for him just as he had commanded them.
50:13. For his sons carried him to the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, before Mamre, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite as property for a burial place.
50:14. And after he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, he and his brothers and all who went up with him to bury his father.
THE MESSAGE:
Several years before my father died, he showed us his burial site, and we buried him there when the time came. In the same way, Joseph fulfilled his promise to Jacob to bury him in the ancestral burial ground (Genesis 47: 29-31). Joseph was careful to bury Jacob in the specific site in Canaan (verses 12-13). If it does not contravene the word of God, the laws of the state, and is not beyond our ability, we could grant such requests to our parents and loved ones. Jacob’s burial was actually a state event with an international flavour (verses 7-9). The mourning lasted for 70 days in Egypt, plus another 7 days in Canaan (verses 3, 10).
If any burial custom in your community is unbiblical, seek divine wisdom to abolish it. How we mourn for or bury the dead does not affect the person’s eternal state. We should therefore heed the instruction in 1 Thessalonians 4: 13 not to mourn as those who have no hope. Each person will die just once, and after that the judgement (Hebrews 9: 27). Let us therefore live in such a way that we can say with Paul, “For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).
PRAYER: Pray for God’s comfort on those who mourn.
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