Please turn to Genesis chapter 50. Genesis chapter 50. And we come, Lord willing, to the second to last sermon, I believe on Genesis, Lord willing. And so I said that to some of you, one of you today, and you said you were going to cry. And I'm not sure if that was from joy or sorrow, but, Let us read verses 1 through 14. Please hear the word of God. Then Joseph fell on his father's face and wept over him and kissed him. And Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father. So the physicians embalmed Israel. Now 40 days were required for it, for such is the period required for embalming. And the Egyptians wept for him 70 days. And when the days of mourning for him were passed, Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found favor in your sight, please speak to Pharaoh, saying, My father made me swear, saying, Behold, I am about to die 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. Then I will return. And Pharaoh said, go up and bury your father, as he made you swear. So Joseph went up to bury his father, and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his household, and all the elders of the land of Egypt. And all the household of Joseph and his brothers left only their little ones and their flocks and their herds in the land of Goshen. There also went up with him both chariots and horsemen, and it was a very great company. When they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, they lamented there with a very great and sorrowful lamentation. And he observed seven days mourning for his father. Now, when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning and the threshing floor of Atad, they said, this is a grievous mourning for the Egyptians. Therefore, it was named Abel Mizraim, which is beyond the Jordan. And thus he did, and thus his sons did for him as he had charged him. And his sons carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field of Machphala before Mamre, which Abraham had bought along with the field for a burial site from Ephron the Hittite. And after he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, he and his brothers and all who had gone up with him to bury his father. The burial of Jacob. What is the significance of this? And I want to point you, as you maybe have suspected already, to the burial of Christ. What is the significance of the burial of Christ? Sometimes we treat burial grounds and graveyards as a joke. I know that because I grew up next to a graveyard and that experience for me was both spooky and funny because it seems like we were pulling pranks always on each other in the graveyard. I read a story recently about a Presbyterian college student. James Boyce talks about this. He said, years ago, Presbyterian student went to walk to college, joined a fraternity, and made himself obnoxious to his fraternity brothers by talking about, always about Presbyterianism. According to the student, Presbyterians were the best. They had the best churches, the best form of church government, the best worship services, and above all, the soundest and most unshakable faith. Everything about Presbyterianism was in first place. His fraternity brothers were mostly Baptist, and they were not about to accept this. Of course, they knew, like us, that Baptists are the best, amen? Just teasing. If any of us have that attitude, then maybe we're struggling with pride. One evening, they slipped sleeping powder into his coffee. And when he passed out from the sleeping powder, they loaded him into a car and took him out of the city to a remote graveyard. They had placed an open coffin there, resting on a large flat tombstone, and they put him in it. Of course, he's still asleep. Then they hid behind the nearby tombstones to see what he would do when he woke up. For a long time, nothing happened. Night passed, dawn came. Then as the long red rays of the rising sun began to pierce through the graveyard, casting gray shadows and causing the mist to rise slowly from the ground, they heard a sound from the casket. Their fraternity brother was waking up. It won't be long now, they thought. As soon as he wakes up and begins to look around the graveyard, he'll scream, jump out of the casket, tear off through the woods, and will laugh about it forever. As they waited, an arm slowly rose out of the casket and stretched itself. Then another arm. Finally, the young man sat up and looked around. His friends thought, this is it. He's going to scream now. Instead, he suddenly shouted triumphantly, hallelujah, he says. It's the resurrection morning and the Presbyterians are the first ones up. They had quite a creative sense of humor. But what is the significance of the burial of Jacob? What's the significance of the burial of the Lord Jesus Christ? It is significant! It is significant. It is important. It is crucial that you understand for your faith and for the strengthening of your faith, the burial of Christ. But let's look first of all at the burial of Jacob. Notice, number one, characteristics of Jacob's burial. I have five from this passage, and that's how I think we can summarize this passage. You see, first of all, number one, emotion. Emotion. In verse 1, Joseph, after his father died, his immediate response is to fall on his father's face and wept over him and kissed him. Joseph rather loved his father. And so when his father died, Joseph wept. And the idea is he wept bitterly and he kept weeping for a long time. But if you understand this passage, it's even more striking. After 70 days of weeping and mourning in all Egypt, what happens? We'll look at verses 10 and 11. Now, all the elders of Egypt, all the family of Israel, They come to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, and they lamented there with a very great and sorrowful lamentation, and they observed seven more days of mourning. And in fact, we're told in verse 11 that this mourning is so heavy. That's the meaning of Abel Mezrim. It's heavy mourning. That's what the Canaanites observed. They saw, don't think this was just some fake crying. No, they saw the family of Israel and all the leaders of Egypt, the household of Pharaoh. They saw how deep their mourning was for these seven days that they named the place, the Canaanites do. Heavy mourning, it's deep. Reminds us of, remember what happened to Jesus when His friend Lazarus died. One of the simplest and yet most wonderful verses in the Bible, John 11 and verse 35, it says, Jesus wept. He wept. We weep as well, and you know you've experienced that when a loved one has died. So number one, emotion. Number two, notice respect. Respect, it's striking the respect that Joseph has for his father, his dead father, his father's body. Striking the respect that the family of Israel has for Jacob's body. It's striking the respect that all of Egypt has for Jacob's body. Verses two and three, notice verse two, and Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father. So the physicians, the idea is the king's physicians, not the embalmers, which were usually used in those days to embalm the body, but were mixed with magic and superstition. The physicians embalmed Israel. 40 days were required for this embalming process. And the Egyptians wept for him seventy days." There's a tremendous amount of respect for all of Egypt, and we see that as well with Pharaoh. Look at verse 6, and Pharaoh said, "'Go up and bury your father,' after Joseph had requested it, as he made you swear, So Joseph went up to Barry his father, and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his household, and all the elders of the land of Egypt. All the elders and the leaders of Egypt mourned over this man Jacob's death because of their respect for Jacob. But why did they respect Jacob? Because they respected Joseph. Joseph It saved the world. And He had saved Egypt through His work and through His wisdom in preserving the grain. Joseph was the only man in the world who had the bread of life, as we've seen. There's an application here, I think, for you children. A wise son, a wise daughter brings other people the world even, to respect your parents. A wise son, a wise daughter, bring honor to their parents. Proverbs speaks about this, as you know, many times. Proverbs 10 and verse 1. The Proverbs of Solomon. Here's how they begin. These one-liners, so to speak. They begin this way. A wise son makes a father glad, but a foolish son is a grief to his mother. That's Jacob. That's Joseph. A wise son. He made his father glad. That's why Jacob lived for so long. 17 years. In Egypt, when he thought he was going to die before, he even made it to Egypt. Because Joseph was a wise son and he gave joy to his father. But the opposite is true as well. A foolish son is a grief to his mother. Proverbs 23, 24, The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice, and he who sires a wise son will be glad in him. Listen to Proverbs 19, 13, the opposite of this. A foolish son is destruction to his father. Joseph lightened the burdens. of the end of Jacob's days. Joseph blessed his father because he was wise. What are you going to be, son, daughter? Bring your parents joy, not shame. So respect, but notice thirdly, royalty, royalty. In verse 3, it's recorded that the Egyptians wept for Jacob for 70 days. It's interesting because it's recorded for us that around this time, Egyptians, in extra-biblical literature, Egyptians would mourn the deaths of pharaohs about an average of 75 days. Isn't that striking? They mourn the death of Jacob for 70 days, almost as long basically, as long as they did for pharaohs when they would die. Rulers, presidents of their lands. This is royalty. Jacob is treated like a king. He has the burial and the burial procession of a king, of a pharaoh. And you see that in verse 9 as well. Look there, in verse 9, there also went up with him to this burial procession to Canaan, both chariots and horsemen. You see the entourage, the royal entourage of Egypt. And it was a very great company. The word there, company, means encampment or army. This is the army, as it were, of a king that would gather together and protect the king's body, proceed to the burial grounds of the king, of the pharaoh. Because of Joseph's wisdom, because of Joseph's life of integrity through many years, Because of Jacob in his faith, God honors him with the burial like unto a king. But notice fourthly, faith. Faith. That's the fourth characteristic of Jacob's burial here. Joseph remembers his father's request Look at how respectfully Joseph speaks of his father's request in verse 5. It says, My father made me swear. Remember when he did that? He had to put his hand under his thigh. My father made me swear, saying, Behold, I am about to die in my grave, which I dug for myself in the land of Canaan. There you shall bury me. He said, Don't bury me in Egypt. Why? What's all the fuss about the proper burial ground, the proper graveyard? Because Jacob believed the promises of God. And we'll see next, in two weeks rather, when we look at Genesis next, that Joseph believed the same thing. You're going to bury me in Egypt. But my bones are not going to stay there. You're going to carry them up to the land of promise. God is going to keep His promises even after we expire. Do you believe the promises of God that way? That takes faith, doesn't it? To say, oh, even if God fails to keep delays in keeping His promises in my lifetime, I know He's going to keep them. In the end, in His own time, I know He's going to keep them. God is faithful to His promises. And Joseph's faith and Jacob's faith hung to those promises. And the implication is all Jacob's sons as well. Look at verse 12. And thus his sons did for him as he had charged him. For his sons carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field of Machphola before Mamre, which Abraham had bought along with the field for a burial site from Ephron the Hittite." Why is this repeated over and over again? Because I think for all of Jacob's sons, they realize as they laid their father's body in the grave, this is what God promised, and He's going to fulfill it. So faith. But notice fifthly, callings. Callings, that's how I would summarize verse 14. After he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, he and his brothers, and all the company that had gone with them. Summary, they had to get back to work. They had to get back to their herds, to their children. Remember they had left their herds and their children in Egypt. It was time for them. Okay, this was a long, long mourning process. 70 days plus 70 more, but it was time after 77 days to say, okay, it's time to get on. It's time to move on. It's time to get on with life. God has called us. To Egypt. Even as His people, the nation of Israel, had to say, God has called us to Egypt. That's where He has planted us in. We're going to bloom there. Does it make sense? He hasn't given us the land of promise yet. And we don't know why. We don't know when He's going to do it. But He's called us back to Egypt. And we're going to be faithful to where He has called us now. What about you? It's easy as I never understood this until I got a horse, but the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. You remember telling me when I first got the horse, I got stupidly got cattle fencing because not electric fencing because, but the problem was after a year, that horse had bent down that fence almost halfway because He had plenty of grass and pasture in the pasture. Plenty of green grass there, but the grass was always greener on the other side of the fence. And that's true for us, isn't it? The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. But there's a lot of wisdom in that simple statement. Bloom where you're planted. Bloom where you're planted. God's planted you here. Stay here. Unless He clearly shows you that you are to move on somewhere else, some other time, yes, He'll make that plain. But stay where He's planted you. He's called you to do that work. Do it. Do it faithfully. Put your hand to the plow. He's called you to go to that school. Do it. He's called you to be in that home school, in your home. Do it. Don't just always think about, oh, I can't wait until I get out of here. Be faithful to where he's called you now. So that's the characteristics of Jacob's burial. But notice secondly, the effects of Christ's burial. I want to draw a correlation here, and I think you'll see why I trust as we move along. I had Brother Bill read the passage in Luke chapter 23. A lot of time is spent describing for us Christ's burial. A large segment of the narrative there. We're also learning from the parallel passage in Matthew that the one who buried him, Joseph, who gave him the burial, tomb was rich. He was a rich man. So what is the significance of Christ's burial? Well, when you have questions about the faith, questions about the Bible, often turn to dead guys. I encourage you to do that. All right? Because there's a lot of wisdom in dead men and what they have written. And so I turned, I didn't find any help from many other theology books, but I found help from the Heidelberg Catechism. which our brother Jason is going through when he's teaching Sunday school. And one of the questions, question 41 is, why was Jesus also buried? And the answer is very simple. Children, young people, this would be simple to memorize. Here's the answer. Thereby to prove that he was really dead. To prove that he was really dead. And the comments here by one of the writers of the catechism was Zacharias Sircinius. Let me read some of his comments. He said, we are therefore by his burial assured that he was really dead, and by this our certain redemption for our salvation consists in his death, the proof of which is his burial. Jesus really died. That's a historical fact. And what's the importance of that fact? If he didn't die, you can't be saved. And what's the proof that that really happened? He was buried. Because as Zircinius says, you don't bury live people. You bury dead bodies. Right? And that's true. But he gets very practical. And listen to what he says next. He says, He would be buried that we might not be terrified in view of the grave." Not be terrified. That's why Jesus was buried, or seen, it says, that we might not be scared of the grave. He goes on, "...but might know that He has sanctified our graves by His own burial, so that they are no longer graves to us, but chambers and resting places in which we may quietly and peacefully rest until we are again raised to life." Christ conquered over that grave, and what's the proof of that? He was buried there. Therefore, believer, your burial ground of Christ's tarrys and you pass away, your burial grave is sanctified. It's holy. Why? Because there's no defeat there. Christ won that grave for you. So that you will one day with Him be raised, along with all believers. But there's more. The Catechism and Zacharias Arsenius emphasizes that the burial was the humiliation of Christ. But if you look at Isaiah 53, that Brother John read, verse nine, and if you look at, closely I think, at the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, the burial of Christ, they emphasize not the humiliation of Christ, but the burial was the exaltation of Christ. Why is that? Listen to Isaiah 53 verse 9 again. There it says, "...his grave was assigned with wicked men. Yet he was with a rich man in his death, Joseph of Arimathea, because he had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in his mouth." I love that. and I'm indebted to R.C. Sproul here in opening my eyes to this, but Sproul says, in the irony of fulfillment, Jesus is first of all numbered with the wicked and that he dies as a criminal in the company of criminals, yet he gains the burial of the rich. Jesus is exalted in his burial. Isn't that striking? He's exalted. You say, He's laid low. And the catechism and Zacharias Arsenius are right, I think, in the fact that Jesus is humbled in the sense that He became dust for us, didn't He? Dust you are, because of sin, God says to Adam in the garden, dust you are, that's what you were made from, so to dust you will return. So Jesus became dust for us in the grave. But God exalted Him to be buried in a rich man's grave. Just like Jacob. All of Egypt mourned for King Jacob. You know, it's interesting, isn't it? It seems like I know I work right across the street from a funeral home. And whenever there's a funeral there, I notice, wow, there's a lot of cars there. Sometimes there's not a lot of cars. And I think, wow, there was somebody not so well known. Not very many cars at the funeral home. Sometimes there's a lot of cars. And there's a long funeral per section line. Think of Jacob's burial. That was a long burial per section line. But think especially of Jesus. We are still celebrating, remembering His death and His burial. Even up to this day, millions and millions of people are still celebrating, remembering Him. He is the King. He was buried as a king. He rose as a king. He ascended. now sits at the right hand of the Father on high and reigns as a King, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And His burial is proof of that. So when you remember Christ, when you feast upon Christ this afternoon, remember He's your King. And He's coming. And even as He has been exalted, you will be exalted with Him as well. Let's give thanks for the body of Christ represented by the bread. Brother Dale, would you lead us in prayer? Thanks for the body. O Lord Jesus, as we consider these things today, we give you thanks for going to the grave on our behalf, for taking the beating that our own sins deserve, Help us today to even remember things like the catechism questions of what is sin and who will be punished, how we will be punished for our sins. It is either in you or in our own body. And give us the grace to look to you, to reach out to you, to call upon your name. Have mercy upon us, O Lord, we pray. Have mercy upon the children in this place. Any that is far from you in this place, have mercy this day, as these things have come under our consideration. And once again, and more importantly, we give you thanks for what you did on our behalf.