He kissed all his brethren
A day of reconciliation
A day of reconciliation! A family made one.
Brethren coming together again after long separation. It is a beautiful picture. Why should it not be completed, where it needs completion, in our own day amongst ourselves? Ministers sometimes have misunderstandings and say unkind things about one another--and exile one another from love and confidence for years. Is there never to be a day of reconciliation and Christian forgetfulness of wrongs, even where positive wrong has been done? Families and households often get awry. The younger brother differs with his eldest brother--sisters fall out. One wants more than belongs to him; another is knocked to the wall because he is weak; and there comes in the heart bitterness and alienation, and often brothers and sisters never have a kind word to say about one another. Is it always to be so? Don’t merely make it up, don’t patch it up, don’t cover it up--go right down to the base. You will never be made one, until you meet at the Cross and hear Him say, “He that doeth the will of My Father, which is in heaven, the same is My mother, and sister, and brother.” It is in Christ’s sorrow that we are to forget our woes, in Christ’s sacrifice we find the answer to our sin, in Christ’s union with the Father that we are to find all true and lasting reconciliation. But who is to begin? That is the wonderful question that is often asked us. Who is to begin? One would imagine that there were some very nice people about who only wanted somebody to tell them who was to begin. They want to be reconciled, only they don’t know who is to begin. I can tell you. You are! That is exactly how it is. But I am the eldest--yes, and therefore ought to begin. But I am the youngest. Then whyshould the youngest be an obstinate pig-headed child? Who are you that you should not go and throw yourself down at your brother’s feet and say, “I have done you wrong, pardon me!” Who is to begin? You! Which! Both! When! Now! Oh! beware of the morality which says, “I am looking for the opportunity, and if things should so get together--” Sir! death may be upon you before you reason out your wretched casuistry; the injured or the injurer may be in the grave before you get to the end of your long melancholy process of self-laudation and anti-Christian logic. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The reconciled brethren
I. JOSEPH’S AVOWAL.
II. MUTUAL SALUTATIONS.
III. THE MESSAGE TO JACOB. Learn:
1. To avoid strife.
2. To repel any revengeful feelings.
3. To be kind and ready to forgive. (W. S. Smith, B. D.)
Emblem of forgiveness
Nothing is more moving to man than the spectacle of reconciliation; our weaknesses are thus indemnified, and are not too costly, being the price we pay for the hour of forgiveness; and the archangel who has never felt anger has reason to envy the man who subdues it. When thou forgivest, the man who has pierced thy heart stands to thee in the relation of the sea-worm, that perforates the shell of the mussel, which straightway closes the wound with a pearl. (W. Richter.)