'And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that
generation. 7. And the children of Israel were fruitful,
and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed
exceeding mighty....'--EXODUS i. 6, 7.
These remarkable words occur in a short section which makes the link
between the Books of Genesis and of Exodus. The writer recapitulates
the list of the immigrants into Egypt, in the household of Jacob, and
then, as it were, having got them there, he clears the stage to prepare
for a new set of actors. These few words are all that he cares to tell
us about a period somewhat longer than that which separates us from the
great Protestant Reformation. He notes but two processes--silent
dropping away and silent growth. 'Joseph died, and all his brethren,
and all that generation.' Plant by plant the leaves drop, and the stem
rots and its place is empty. Seed by seed the tender green spikelets
pierce the mould, and the field waves luxuriant in the breeze and the
sunshine. 'The children of Israel were fruitful, and increased
abundantly.'
I. Now, then, let us look at this twofold process which is always at
work--silent dropping away and silent growth.
It seems to me that the writer, probably unconsciously, being
profoundly impressed with certain features of that dropping away,
reproduces them most strikingly in the very structure of his sentence:
'Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation.' The
uniformity of the fate, and the separate times at which it befell
individuals, are strongly set forth in the clauses, which sound like
the threefold falls of earth on a coffin. They all died, but not all at
the same time. They went one by one, one by one, till, at the end, they
were all gone. The two things that appeal to our imagination, and ought
to appeal to our consciences and wills, in reference to the succession
of the generations of men, are given very strikingly, I think, in the
language of my text--namely, the stealthy assaults of death upon the
individuals, and its final complete victory.
If any of you were ever out at sea, and looked over a somewhat stormy
water, you will have noticed, I dare say, how strangely the white
crests of the breakers disappear, as if some force, acting from
beneath, had plucked them under, and over the spot where they gleamed
for a moment runs the blue sea. So the waves break over the great ocean
of time; I might say, like swimmers pulled under by sharks, man after
man, man after man, gets twitched down, till at the end--'Joseph died,
and all his brethren, and _all_ that generation.'
There is another process going on side by side with this. In the
vegetable world, spring and autumn are two different seasons: May
rejoices in green leaves and opening buds, and nests with their young
broods; but winter days are coming when the greenery drops and the
nests are empty, and the birds flown. But the singular and impressive
thing (which we should see if we were not so foolish and blind) which
the writer of our text lays his finger upon is that at the same time
the two opposite processes of death and renewal are going on, so that
if you look at the facts from the one side it seems nothing but a
charnel-house and a Golgotha that we live in, while, seen from the
other side, it is a scene of rejoicing, budding young life, and growth.
You get these two processes in the closest juxtaposition in ordinary
life. There is many a house where there is a coffin upstairs and a
cradle downstairs. The churchyard is often the children's playground.
The web is being run down at the one end and woven at the other.
Wherever we look--
'Every moment dies a man,
Every moment one is born.'
'Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. And the
children of Israel ... multiplied ... exceedingly.'
But there is another thought here than that of the contemporaneousness
of the two processes, and that is, as it is written on John Wesley's
monument in Westminster Abbey, 'God buries the workmen and carries on
the work.' The great Vizier who seemed to be the only protection of
Israel is lying in 'a coffin in Egypt.' And all these truculent
brothers of his that had tormented him, they are gone, and the whole
generation is swept away. What of that? They were the depositories of
God's purposes for a little while. Are God's purposes dead because the
instruments that in part wrought them are gone? By no means. If I might
use a very vulgar proverb, 'There are as good fish in the sea as ever
came out of it,' especially if God casts the net. So when the one
generation has passed away there is the other to take up the work. Thus
the text is a fitting introduction to the continuance of the history of
the further unfolding of God's plan which occupies the Book of Exodus.
II. Such being the twofold process suggested by this text, let us next
note the lessons which it enforces.
In the first place, let us be quite sure that we give it its due weight
in our thoughts and lives. Let us be quite sure that we never give an
undue weight to the one half of the whole truth. There are plenty of
people who are far too much, constitutionally and (perhaps by reason of
a mistaken notion of religion) religiously, inclined to the
contemplation of the more melancholy side of these truths; and there
are a great many people who are far too exclusively disposed to the
contemplation of the other. But the bulk of us never trouble our heads
about either the one or the other, but go on, forgetting altogether
that swift, sudden, stealthy, skinny hand that, if I might go back to
my former metaphor, is put out to lay hold of the swimmer and then pull
him underneath the water, and which will clasp us by the ankles one day
and drag us down. Do you ever think about it? If not, surely, surely
you are leaving out of sight one of what ought to be the formative
elements in our lives.
And then, on the other hand, when our hearts are faint, or when the
pressure of human mortality--our own, that of our dear ones, or that of
others--seems to weigh us down, or when it looks to us as if God's work
was failing for want of people to do it, let us remember the other
side--'And the children of Israel ... increased ... and waxed exceeding
mighty; ... and the land was filled with them.' So we shall keep the
middle path, which is the path of safety, and so avoid the folly of
extremes.
But then, more particularly, let me say that this double contemplation
of the two processes under which we live ought to stimulate us to
service. It ought to say to us, 'Do you cast in your lot with that work
which is going to be carried on through the ages. Do you see to it that
your little task is in the same line of direction as the great purpose
which God is working out--the increasing purpose which runs through the
ages.' An individual life is a mere little backwater, as it were, in
the great ocean. But its minuteness does not matter, if only the great
tidal wave which rolls away out there, in the depths and the distance
amongst the fathomless abysses, tells also on the tiny pool far inland
and yet connected with the sea by some narrow, long fiord.
If my little life is part of that great ocean, then the ebb and flow
will alike act on it and make it wholesome. If my work is done in and
for God, I shall never have to look back and say, as we certainly shall
say one day, either here or yonder, unless our lives be thus part of
the divine plan, 'What a fool I was! Seventy years of toiling and
moiling and effort and sweat, and it has all come to nothing; like a
long algebraic sum that covers pages of intricate calculations, and the
_pluses_ and _minuses_ just balance each other; and the net result is a
great round nought.' So let us remember the twofold process, and let it
stir us to make sure that 'in our embers' shall be 'something that doth
live,' and that not 'Nature,' but something better--God--'remembers
what was so fugitive.' It is not fugitive if it is a part of the mighty
whole.
But further, let this double contemplation make us very content with
doing insignificant and unfinished work.
Joseph might have said, when he lay dying: 'Well! perhaps I made a
mistake after all. I should not have brought this people down here,
even if I have been led hither. I do not see that I have helped them
one step towards the possession of the land.' Do you remember the old
proverb about certain people who should not see half-finished work? All
our work in this world has to be only what the physiologists call
functional. God has a great scheme running on through ages. Joseph
gives it a helping hand for a time, and then somebody else takes up the
running, and carries the purpose forward a little further. A great many
hands are placed on the ropes that draw the car of the Ruler of the
world. And one after another they get stiffened in death; but the car
goes on. We should be contented to do our little bit of the work. Never
mind whether it is complete and smooth and rounded or not. Never mind
whether it can be isolated from the rest and held up, and people can
say, 'He did that entire thing unaided.' That is not the way for most
of us. A great many threads go to make the piece of cloth, and a great
many throws of the shuttle to weave the web. A great many bits of glass
make up the mosaic pattern; and there is no reason for the red bit to
pride itself on its fiery glow, or the grey bit to boast of its silvery
coolness. They are all parts of the pattern, and as long as they keep
their right places they complete the artist's design. Thus, if we think
of how 'one soweth and another reapeth,' we may be content to receive
half-done works from our fathers, and to hand on unfinished tasks to
them that come after us. It is not a great trial of a man's modesty, if
he lives near Jesus Christ, to be content to do but a very small bit of
the Master's work.
And the last thing that I would say is, let this double process going
on all round us lift our thoughts to Him who lives for ever. Moses
dies; Joshua catches the torch from his hand. And the reason why he
catches the torch from his hand is because God said, 'As I was with
Moses so I will be with thee.' Therefore we have to turn away in our
contemplations from the mortality that has swallowed up so much wisdom
and strength, eloquence and power, which the Church or our own hearts
seem so sorely to want: and, whilst we do, we have to look up to Jesus
Christ and say, 'He lives! He lives! No man is indispensable for public
work or for private affection and solace so long at there is a living
Christ for us to hold by.'
Dear brethren, we need that conviction for ourselves often. When life
seems empty and hope dead, and nothing is able to fill the vacuity or
still the pain, we have to look to the vision of the Lord sitting on
the empty throne, high and lifted up, and yet very near the aching and
void heart. Christ lives, and that is enough.
So the separated workers in all the generations, who did their little
bit of service, like the many generations of builders who laboured
through centuries upon the completion of some great cathedral, will be
united at the last; 'and he that soweth, and he that reapeth, shall
rejoice together' in the harvest which was produced by neither the
sower nor the reaper, but by Him who blessed the toils of both.
'Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation'; but Jesus
lives, and therefore His people 'grow and multiply,' and His servants'
work is blessed; and at the end they shall be knit together in the
common joy of the great harvest, and of the day when the headstone is
brought forth with shoutings of 'Grace! grace unto it.'