Romans 9:1-3

I am speaking the truth in Messiah--I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit--that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Messiah for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.

As he hears Judah’s impassioned plea for Benjamin (Genesis 44:18-31), Joseph perceives the change of heart in his brothers. For over twenty years Joseph swallowed his pain, his anger, his pride, his desire for vengeance, as well as his longing to be reunited with his family. As Egyptian Viceroy he could have himself engineered the reunion, but he preferred to wait for God to work.

This is the moment when the brother-in-exile-Egyptian-Viceroy is ready to reveal his identity. As tears choke his speech (Genesis 45:1-2), we hear the sorrow of Messiah Himself who after a long exile from Israel living among the gentiles longs to be reunited with his people. Jewish people today look at Yeshua as Jesus much like the Joseph’s brother’s looked at him as Pharaoh: as a despotic foreign ruler who cares little about them. Little do they know that like Joseph, Yeshua Himself longs to be reunited with His brothers and celebrate the feasts with them again. Like Joseph though, Yeshua will swallow His pain, His anger, His pride, and His desire for vengeance, and at an opportune moment of History, in a final master-stroke reveal, Himself to Israel. It was not the Egyptians who revealed Joseph to his brothers; the brothers did not figure it out themselves either. It was Joseph who while removing his Egyptian head-dress, speaking in their native tongue revealed himself to his brothers (Genesis 45:3-5). In the same matter, it is not the evangelical efforts of gentile believers or the Talmudic calculations of Jewish scholars who will reveal Messiah to Israel; it is Messiah Himself.

In the meantime, our Messiah is in exile. In the years preceding the destruction of the Temple, the rulers of Jerusalem persecuted the Jewish believers in Messiah. Just as Benjamin was not around to take part in the selling Joseph, the Jewish Messianic community was not around for the ‘selling’ of Yeshua (Matthew 26:15). Today Yeshua, the Messiah in exile is testing the heart of Israel with the Jewish Messianic communities sprouting up everywhere, even in the Land.

It is with the restoration of Israel under its rightful King and High-priest Yeshua the Messiah that the earth will be able to experience the World to Come. That is why we are constantly admonished to ‘pray for the peace of Jerusalem’ (Psalms 122:6), a peace that will not come until the restoration of the true Davidic King on the throne of Jerusalem.