And Jacob ceased giving charges to his sons; and having lifted up his feet on the bed, he died, and was gathered to his people. And Joseph fell upon his father’s face, and wept on him, and kissed him. And Joseph commanded his servants the embalmers to embalm his father; and the embalmers embalmed Israel. And they fulfilled forty days for him, for so are the days of embalming numbered; and Egypt mourned for him seventy days. And when the days of mourning were past, Joseph spoke to the princes of Pharao, saying, If I have found favour in your sight, speak concerning me in the ears of Pharao, saying, My father adjured me, saying, In the sepulchre which I dug for myself in the land of Chanaan, there thou shalt bury me; now then I will go up and bury my father, and return again. And Pharao said to Joseph, Go up, bury thy father, as he constrained thee to swear. So Joseph went up to bury his father; and all the servants of Pharao went up with him, and the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt. And all the household of Joseph, and his brethren, and all the house of his father, and his kindred; and they left behind the sheep and the oxen in the land of Gesem. And there went up with him also chariots and horsemen; and there was a very great company. And they came to the threshing-floor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan; and they bewailed him with a great and very sore lamentation; and he made a mourning for his father seven days. And the inhabitants of the land of Chanaan saw the mourning at the floor of Atad, and said, This is a great mourning to the Egyptians; therefore he called its name, The mourning of Egypt, which is beyond Jordan. And thus his sons did to him. So his sons carried him up into the land of Chanaan, and buried him in the double cave, which cave Abraam bought for possession of a burying place, of Ephrom the Chettite, before Mambre. And Joseph returned to Egypt, he and his brethren, and those that had gone up with him to bury his father. And when the brethren of Joseph saw that their father was dead, they said, Let us take heed, lest at any time Joseph remember evil against us, and recompense to us all the evils which we have done against him. And they came to Joseph, and said, Thy father adjured us before his death, saying, Thus say ye to Joseph, Forgive them their injustice and their sin, forasmuch as they have done thee evil; and now pardon the injustice of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept while they spoke to him. And they came to him and said, We, these persons, are thy servants. And Joseph said to them, Fear not, for I am God’s. Ye took counsel against me for evil, but God took counsel for me for good, that the matter might be as it is today, and much people might be fed. And he said to them, Fear not, I will maintain you, and your families: and he comforted them, and spoke kindly to them. And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his brethren, and all the family of his father; and Joseph lived a hundred and ten years. And Joseph saw the children of Ephraim to the third generation; and the sons of Machir the son of Manasse were borne on the sides of Joseph. And Joseph spoke to his brethren, saying, I die, and God will surely visit you, and will bring you out of this land to the land concerning which God sware to our fathers, Abraam, Isaac, and Jacob. And Joseph adjured the sons of Israel, saying, At the visitation with which God shall visit you, then ye shall carry up my bones hence with you. And Joseph died, aged an hundred and ten years; and they prepared his corpse, and put him in a coffin in Egypt. – Genesis 49:33-50:26
Joseph keeps faith with his father and buries him on his own land, not foreign soil. In his old age, he adjures the sons of Israel to do the same for his bones when at length the Lord, the God of their fathers, delivers them from Egyptian bondage and leads them back home. This return provides an image of man’s return to Paradise, his true home.
Each human heart longs for home. To the extent the heart does not, to that extent it is become inhuman. “Cosmopolitan man” is a contradiction in terms. Say rather “cosmopolitan monster.” To love one’s own – one’s flesh and blood kith and kin, native soil, native language, native culture – is bedrock for psychological health, a pre-condition for the sane life. That our planetary rulers have decreed this love a crime shows plainly that they intend to drive us mad.
Exile, says S. John of the Ladder, is the mother of mourning, and mourning the mother of repentance. God wants us to love home, family, and people intensely, insatiably, to the point at which losing them hurts so much that we feel we will die without them, for only at this point does one realize that one actually needs God and that ultimately God is all one needs. Just as forgiveness does not exist unless sin exists, so exile does not exist unless home exists. Christians are not universalists, not cosmopolitans: when they lose that which is native to them, they mourn and weep. The Apostles were not sent out to baptize the atomistic individuals of a postmodern dystopia. They baptized the nations.
Today we stand on the brink. We are about to lose everything visible that makes life worthwhile. Nation, family, native place, native tongue, native loves – all are being swept away by the demon-chiefs of this age and their lickspittle lackeys, the global elite. Let us rejoice then, and be glad, for exile is thereby abundantly available to us, having become the common setting for human existence. In the divine Providence, as Joseph explains today to his worried brothers, all is arranged perfectly for our salvation. Today only the life of the Church remains, and that most often not in the splendid cathedrals and ancient sees, but in nooks and crannies, in the dens and caves of the earth. But ultimately the Church is all we need, because, ultimately, God is all we need. When a man dies, there is only his soul standing before God, and he realizes, finally, that this was in fact the case all along.
At the end of our Genesis journey through Great Lent, then, we have come back to where we started, back to Paradise, back to our true home, which no one can take away from us. In the next life, this will take place openly; in this life it takes place mystically, every day, in an Orthodox heart prepared by sorrows and pierced by compunction. When we know with all the powers of our soul, with our whole being, without a doubt, that our heart is larger than all this world, because it holds the Holy Trinity, then, at last, we have come home.
This commentary was taken from The Eternal Sacrifice: The Genesis Readings for Great Lent by Fr. Steven Allen. You can order a copy from Lulu at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/FrStevenAllen
Today’s reading from Esaias, with commentary:
Thus saith the Lord: Rejoice, O Jerusalem, and all ye that love her hold in her a general assembly: rejoice greatly with her, all that now mourn over her: 11 that ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breast of her consolation; that ye may milk out, and delight yourselves with the influx of her glory. 12 For thus saith the Lord, Behold, I turn toward them as a river of peace, and as a torrent bringing upon them in a flood the glory of the Gentiles: their children shall be borne upon the shoulders, and comforted on the knees. 13 As if his mother should comfort one, so will I also comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. 14 And ye shall see, and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall thrive like grass: and the hand of the Lord shall be known to them that fear him, and he shall threaten the disobedient. 15 For, behold, the Lord will come as fire, and his chariots as a storm, to render his vengeance with wrath, and his rebuke with a flame of fire. 16 For with the fire of the Lord all the earth shall be judged, and all flesh with his sword: many shall be slain by the Lord. 17 They that sanctify themselves and purify themselves in the gardens, and eat swine’s flesh in the porches, and the abominations, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the Lord. 18 And I know their works and their imagination. I am going to gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory. 19 And I will leave a sign upon them, and I will send forth them that have escaped of them to the nations, to Tharsis, and Phud, and Lud, and Mosoch, and to Thobel, and to Greece, and to the isles afar off, to those who have not heard my name, nor seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles. 20 And they shall bring your brethren out of all nations for a gift to the Lord with horses, and chariots, in litters drawn by mules with awnings, to the holy city Jerusalem, said the Lord, as though the children of Israel should bring their sacrifices to me with psalms into the house of the Lord. 21 And I will take of them priests and Levites, saith the Lord. 22 For as the new heaven and the new earth, which I make, remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name continue. 23 And it shall come to pass from month to month, and from sabbath to sabbath, that all flesh shall come to worship before me in Jerusalem, saith the Lord. 24 And they shall go forth, and see the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched; and they shall be a spectacle to all flesh.
The prophecies of Esaias conclude by prophesying the conclusion of all things, with a marvelous vision of the New Heaven and the New Earth. The carnal minded men who killed Esaias by sawing him in half and their carnal minded descendants who killed the One Whom Esaias foretold by nailing Him to the Cross believed - and their followers still believe - that this prophecy of the New Jerusalem endorses the idea that their mission is to rule this world. They killed the man who delivered the prophecy, because he told them that they were wrong, that there was an incomparably higher and genuinely spiritual meaning to his God-inspired words: that their mission was to prepare for a Savior Who would bring all nations into the New Testament Church and invite all men into the Kingdom of heaven, which is not of this world but of the world to come. They believed - and their followers still believe - that their mission is to dominate this world by annihilating or enslaving all other men and treating them as animals without human souls. Quite a contrast.
The two interpretations cannot both be true: you have to choose one or the other. Or, rather, the former interpretation is true in the sense that these deluded people will be allowed by the true Messiah to rule this world for a limited time under their false Messiah, the Antichrist. But the Lord is going to put an end to all that shortly, return to earth in glory to judge the living and the dead, and re-create all things by the word of His power, as He created all things in the beginning.
In His great discourse on the Bread of Heaven in John 6, Our Lord says the following: "And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day (John 6: 39-40). " Verse 40 promises the resurrection unto eternal life of those who believe in Him. Verse 39 means that all things in heaven and on earth are given over to the authority of Jesus Christ by God the Father, and that He will destroy none of it, but rather re-create all of it, on the last day. This is how St. Irenaeus of Lyons explains it:
Neither the substance nor the essence of the created order will be destroyed, because the One Who established it is faithful and trustworthy. But "...the fashion of this world is passing away (I Cor. 7:31)," that is, those things that were the occasion for sin, for man has grown old in them. That is why "the fashion of this world" has been created temporal...But when the "fashion of this world" passes away, and man has been renewed and flourishes in an incorruptible state and does not grow old, then there will be a "new heaven and a new earth" in which the new man shall live forever, always engaged in fresh conversation with God. And since these things shall continue without end, Esaias declares, "For as the new heaven and the new earth, which I make, remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name continue (66:22)." And as the teachers of the Church say, those who are deemed worthy of a dwelling place in heaven shall go there, some enjoying the delights of paradise, and others possessing the splendor of the city. For everywhere God will be seen insofar as each is able to behold Him. - St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 5.36.1
Amid the turmoil of this life, we will have great peace if we constantly place all things in the light of this vision, this promise, of the age to come. As we enter the Great and Holy Week of the Passion of the Lord, let us recall that not only do we remember the new contract sealed in His blood that the Lamb made with His bride, the Church, 2000 years ago, but we also look forward to the wedding feast of the Lamb, where His chosen guests will make merry unto endless ages.
St. John the Theologian repeats the prophecy of Esaias in the light of Christ, which makes the promises given more explicit, at the conclusion of the Apocalypse:
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. - Revelation 21: 1-7
He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. -Revelation 22: 20
Today’s reading from Proverbs, with commentary:
My son, open thy mouth with the word of God, and judge all men fairly. Open thy mouth and judge justly, and plead the cause of the poor and weak. Who shall find a virtuous woman? for such a one is more valuable than precious stones. 11 The heart of her husband trusts in her: such a one shall stand in no need of fine spoils. 12 For she employs all her living for her husband’s good. 13 Gathering wool and flax, she makes it serviceable with her hands. 14 She is like a ship trading from a distance: so she procures her livelihood. 15 And she rises by night, and gives food to her household, and appointed tasks to her maidens. 16 She views a farm, and buys it: and with the fruit of her hands she plants and a possession. 17 She strongly girds her loins, and strengthens her arms for work. 18 And she finds by experience that working is good; and her candle goes not out all night. 19 She reaches forth her arms to needful works, and applies her hands to the spindle. 20 And she opens her hands to the needy, and reaches out fruit to the poor. 21 Her husband is not anxious about those at home when he tarries anywhere abroad: for all her household are clothed. 22 She makes for her husband clothes of double texture, and garments for herself of fine linen and scarlet. 23 And her husband becomes a distinguished person in the gates, when he sits in council with the old inhabitants of the land. 24 She makes fine linens, and sells girdles to the Chaananites: she opens her mouth heedfully and with propriety, and controls her tongue. 25 She puts on strength and honour; and rejoices in the last days. 26 But she opens her mouth wisely, and according to law. 27 The ways of her household are careful, and she eats not the bread of idleness. 28 And her kindness to them sets up her children for them, and they grow rich, and her husband praises her. 29 Many daughters have obtained wealth, many have wrought valiantly; but thou hast exceeded, thou hast surpassed all. 30 Charms are false, and woman’s beauty is vain: for it is a wise woman that is blessed, and let her praise the fear the Lord. 31 Give her of the fruit of her lips; and let her husband be praised in the gates.
Throughout the Book of Proverbs, the sacred author exhorts his son to flee the temptations of loose women and rejoice in the wife of his youth. Here, at the end, he describes what a good wife should be: the true help meet for her husband, who enables him to go forth into the combat of public life with confidence, knowing that his wife is taking care of things at home. This is true today, as it was then: men need to go forth into the world, and women need to stay at home. The fact that today so many supposedly Orthodox people have consciously or unconsciously imbibed false opinions in opposition to this teaching proves nothing except that they have been misled. When someone attempts to correct them, and they justify their error, they show themselves to be not only deluded but willful opponents of the express will of God.
In his excellent study of the role of women in the Church and the family, The Scandal of Gender, Protodeacon Patrick Mitchell quotes St. Ambrose and St. John Chrysostom in elucidating the wisdom of this division of labor between the sexes:
"In early Christian teaching, the division of labor by sex had a divine basis in the distinctive natures of the man and the woman. The woman was created as the helper of the man, so it only made sense that she would be especially suited for that role by ability and temperament. According to St. Ambrose, 'One who is without a wife is regarded as being without a home. As man is considered more skillful in public duties, so woman is esteemed to be more adaptable to domestic ministrations.' [On Paradise] Chrysostom teaches that God divided labors between male and female that each would depend on the other for the necessities of life and that through this mutual dependence the bond of love between them would be strengthened:
And that not only in cities, but also in each family there might be great unanimity, He honored the man with rule and superiority; the woman on the other hand He armed with desire: and the gift also of procreation of children, He committed in common to both, and withal He furnished also other things apt to conciliate love: neither entrusting all to the man, nor all to the woman; but 'dividing these things also severally to each'; to her entrusting the house, and to him the market; to him the work of feeding, for he tills the ground; to her that of clothing, for loom and distaff are the woman's. For it is God Himself who gave to woman-kind skill in woven work. - St. John Chrysostom, Homily 34 on 1 Corinthians "
This headship of the man, however, does not mean that a man should not seek his wife's counsel. A wise man will marry a wise woman, and, being wise, he will heed her wisdom when she counsels him wisely, though the final decision always rests with him. Here is what St. Clement of Alexandria says about it:
For with perfect propriety Scripture has said that woman is given by God as "an help" to man. It is evident, then, in my opinion, that she will charge herself with remedying, by good sense and persuasion, each of the annoyances that originate with her husband in domestic economy. And if he does not yield, then she will endeavor, as far as possible for human nature, to lead a sinless life. [As the Apostle Paul writes to Titus:] "The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed (Titus 2: 3-5)." - St. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata
As we prepare for the Holy and Great Week of the Lord's Passion, let us endeavor to cleanse our minds of the poison gas of false teachings we have inhaled from the pestilential atmosphere of the post-modern world, and strive, by God's grace, to return to the pious mind of our Christian forbears, who understood these simple realities clearly and lived by them. This path alone will lead us out of the darkness of the present age. Half-measures will not do.
O Lord, have mercy and save us who are drowning in a sea of deluded thinking about the most simple and obvious realities of this life, much less of the ineffable mysteries of the life to come. Give us repentance, with the restoration of the clarity of vision and firmness of will we need to rear our children in the right thinking of Holy Tradition, so that by lives founded on the unchanging truth of God's Word, their virtues will plead for us who have gone astray, at the throne of Thy dread judgment. Amen.
Very good commentaries,