Sermon

[Genesis 48:1–22] Trust God and Cross Your Hands

Big Idea: By faith, bless others by ‘crossing your hands’, just as God ‘crossed his hands’ on the cross for us.

Here’s a statue of King Charles I. He was King of England from 1625 to 1649. You might think people put up a statue because they loved him — but they didn’t. The most famous thing about Charles I is that he was the first, and so far only, king of England to be tried and executed by his own people. That is the one thing most people remember him by. Hopefully King Charles today will be remembered for other things. How about you? If you could only be remembered for one thing, what would it be?

Good morning. Today we come to the final days of Jacob. Of all the things that Jacob had done, the one thing he was remembered for was an act of faith. If you have your Bible there, please open up to Genesis 48.

Joseph was told his father was getting weaker, so he set out with his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. The thought of Joseph dying had once been a running theme in Jacob’s life. Almost forty years earlier, when Jacob believed his son Joseph was dead, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and refused to be comforted. But now the time has come for Jacob himself to die. So Joseph takes his two sons — Manasseh, the older, and Ephraim, the younger — to see their grandfather.

Two brothers, coming before an old man who was about to die. Does that remind you of anything in Genesis? Many years earlier, the young Jacob went to the bedside of his ailing father Isaac. Isaac wanted to bless his older son Esau, but with his wife Rebekah’s help, the younger son Jacob tricked his nearly blind father into blessing him instead. Now it is Jacob’s turn to be the old, dying man about to bless the next generation.

Before we go on, let’s pray. “Our heavenly Father, help us to see more clearly your will for us, as you speak to us through your word the Bible, so that we might be more like Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen.”

1. Identity confirmed by adoption

When the weak and dying Jacob heard that Joseph and his sons were coming, he gathered what strength he had left and got up to meet them. He recalled that God Almighty had appeared to him and promised to bless him, making him fruitful and the father of many nations. Now the time had come for Jacob to pass on those blessings.

Manasseh and Ephraim were the sons of Joseph and his Egyptian wife, Asenath. They had both Hebrew and Egyptian heritage — they were what some of the younger ones might call ‘halfies’, with a mixed heritage. I’m so glad that in Australia, and even in our own church, there are halfies. They have a broad heritage and exciting stories from different cultures. But sometimes the differences between cultures can make them question their identity. Am I Australian, or am I Chinese? Who am I, really?

So who are these two boys to Jacob, especially when it comes to the blessings of God? Will they receive only half the blessings because they are only half-Hebrew? No — in fact, it’s the opposite. Look at verse five: “Your two sons born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt are now mine. Ephraim and Manasseh belong to me just as Reuben and Simeon do.” As wonderful as it is to be the grandsons of Jacob, Manasseh and Ephraim would be more. They would be adopted as Jacob’s own sons, and would receive Jacob’s blessings as his sons.

Jacob began the formal blessing by asking, “Who are these?” It’s not that he didn’t know — he had just been talking about them. He was formally identifying them, much like a minister at a wedding who asks, “Who brings this man and this woman to be wedded?” The minister knows who the parents are; he just wants to formalise it. Jacob’s blessing was a formal occasion, but it was filled with love.

And being adopted as Jacob’s sons mattered. In ancient times, the firstborn received a double portion of the inheritance. By taking Manasseh and Ephraim as his own, Jacob gave Joseph — through his two sons — a double portion, the share usually reserved for the eldest. These two boys, once only half-Hebrew, would now receive blessings that belonged to the sons of Jacob.

There’s a tender moment here. Israel said to Joseph, “I never expected to see your face again, but now God has even let me see your offspring.” Those are words of hopelessness — the kind of words spoken at the end of a relationship, or by someone who thinks they’ll never see their homeland again. They are bleak words. Yet every now and then, God in his kindness shines a beam of light through the darkness. The hopeless situation we found ourselves in was not as hopeless as we first thought. Jacob hadn’t seen Joseph for more than twenty years and had no expectation of seeing him again — but he did, and his sons too. God gave Jacob far more than he ever expected. Whatever hopelessness you’re facing, give it to God in prayer. He is the God who can give beyond our wildest expectation.

If Jacob didn’t expect to see Joseph again, he certainly never expected to see Manasseh and Ephraim at all. Yet here they were, fully adopted into Jacob’s family. From now on they were to be known as sons of Jacob. This is a glimpse into what is true of every Christian. Look at Ephesians 1:5: “He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.” Unlike Manasseh and Ephraim, we’re not even halfies — we had no right whatsoever to receive any blessing from God. But God adopted those who are in Christ, so that we can receive every blessing from God through Jesus. That’s our identity: we are adopted children of God. That’s who we are.

We live in a complex world. There are times when you identify yourself one way in one place and another way somewhere else — a strict teacher in one setting, a relaxed tourist in another. But if you are in Christ, your identity is an adopted child of God, no matter where you are. It is the utmost honour, the greatest privilege, to be called a son or a daughter of God.

2. Confused Grandpa, or the cross-hands blessing

As Jacob prepared to bless the boys, Joseph put Ephraim on his own right and Manasseh on his left, facing Jacob. That way Jacob’s right hand — the hand of favour — would fall on Manasseh, the firstborn. But listen to verses 13 and 14: “…But Israel stretched out his right hand and put it on the head of Ephraim, the younger, and crossing his hands, put his left on Manasseh’s head, although Manasseh was the firstborn.” Israel crossed his hands. Manasseh, the eldest, who was supposed to get the best blessing, got the left hand. Ephraim, the younger, got the right hand of favour.

This looked like a mistake — as though Jacob had mixed the boys up. But there was already a hint earlier. In verse one, Joseph brought “Manasseh and Ephraim” to Jacob. But in verse five, Jacob said “Ephraim and Manasseh belong to me.” Jacob had reversed the order. In his mind, Ephraim, the younger, came first.

Joseph was upset. He thought his father had made a mistake, and he took his father’s hand to move it from Ephraim to Manasseh: “Not that way, my father! This one is the firstborn.” Do you remember when Esau found out that Jacob had been blessed instead of him? He too tried to fix it. But once a blessing was given, it was irreversible. The difference is that Isaac blessed Jacob by mistake, but Jacob blessed Ephraim knowingly.

This shouldn’t have surprised Joseph. It is a recurring theme throughout Genesis. Abel was favoured over Cain. Isaac over Ishmael. Jacob over Esau. Joseph himself over his older brothers. Again and again, the unexpected person is blessed over the one we expect. Jacob wasn’t a confused old man. As he said in verse 19: “I know, my son, I know! … nevertheless, his younger brother will be greater than he.” Jacob knew exactly what he was doing.

Listen, too, to how Jacob blessed the boys. He called on “the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all harm.” This is the first time in the Bible that someone calls God his shepherd — God had been leading and caring for Jacob all his days. And God was his redeemer, the one who saves when there is no one else to help. Both ideas — Shepherd and Redeemer — keep coming back through the Bible and find their fulfilment in Jesus, who said, “I am the Good Shepherd,” and who, Paul writes, “gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness.”

In fact, this one act is what God wanted us to remember Jacob by. Look at Hebrews 11:21: “By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and he worshipped, leaning on the top of his staff.” Almost half of Genesis has Jacob in it — his wrestle with God, his wealth, his wives and sons, his journey to Egypt. But the one thing God wanted us to remember about Jacob’s faith is this: when he was dying, Jacob blessed the sons of Joseph and worshipped.

Jacob’s crossed-hands blessing was not a mistake but an act of faith. He trusted that God was in control, and we too must submit to him, even when his ways do not make sense to us. To the world — and certainly to Joseph — it made sense to bless the firstborn. But God gives grace differently to how we expect. If you want an example, look at the church. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:27–29: “God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise … what is weak … what is insignificant and despised … so that no one may boast in his presence.”

Look at who God has chosen for his church: the foolish, the weak, the insignificant — people like us. We are insignificant in the world, but precious to God. I would rather be treasured by the everlasting God than by the ever-changing world. God prioritises those the world calls weak, and like Joseph, we often think God has got it wrong. We want to straighten out God’s hands and help him bless the right person. But we do well to trust God’s way, his values, even when he blesses with a cross-hands sort of blessing.

What the world treasures one day may change tomorrow, but Jesus — the One who is the same yesterday, today and forever — will always love those who are his.

Marcus Dods, a former Principal of New College in Edinburgh, put it beautifully: “Does God not know what is oldest with us, what has been longest at our hearts, and is dearest to us? Certainly he does. It is not because he does not understand your preferences that he sometimes refuses to gratify your whole desire, and pours upon you blessings of a kind somewhat different from those you most earnestly covet. He will give you the whole that Christ has merited; but for the distribution of that grace you must be content to trust him.”

3. God’s crossed-hands blessing on the cross

God has promised to bless us with every blessing in the heavens in Christ, but how he blesses us is up to him, and how we bless others is also up to him. If God’s blessings were a river, they flowed from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob. When it was time for Jacob to direct that river, he had to do so under God’s direction — not his own, and not even his son Joseph’s. That is what faith is: trusting God’s decisions, not only in our minds but in our choices.

Jacob’s crossed-hands blessing was a precursor of what we see at the cross. On the cross, God showed his mercy, his grace, his wisdom and his power to weak and frail sinners like us. We deserve nothing but God’s anger at our sin. Only Jesus, the Son of God, is worthy to be loved by God. Yet on the cross God crossed his hands, as it were, and gave us the love that only Jesus was worthy to receive, while giving Jesus the judgement that sinners like us deserved. It is because of this cross-hands blessing that we can be adopted into God’s family and called sons and daughters of the living God.

If you have truly received this blessing, then give crossed-hands blessings to those around you. Bless them by giving them what God has given you. Don’t bless only those you think are worthy; bless those whom God wants you to bless. We are like Jacob — we have received blessings not because we are clever, but because someone has blessed us. Our job now is to ask, under God, where he wants the stream of blessings to flow. Don’t let God’s blessing terminate with you. How can you channel his blessings faithfully, so they reach where God wants them to go?

Conclusion

If you could only be remembered for one thing, what would it be? For Jacob, God wanted him to be remembered for his faith — especially in blessing Ephraim and Manasseh, the younger before the older, with crossed hands. If you read what Jacob said before his blessing, you’ll see his focus was not on his achievements, not even on his family, but on what God had done for him. That’s all that matters.

If there’s one thing I want to be remembered for, it’s not me at all, but what God has done for me — how he has blessed me with his cross-hands blessing, especially through the cross — and that others were blessed by what God has given me. How about you?

By faith, bless others by ‘crossing your hands’, just as God ‘crossed his hands’ on the cross for us.

Three Questions

1. What does God want you to be remembered for?

2. How does being identified as fully in Christ give us assurance, both now and for the future?

3. Whom have you crossed your hands to bless?

Remember: By faith, bless others by ‘crossing your hands’, just as God ‘crossed his hands’ on the cross for us.

Let’s pray, “Father, thank you for your cross-hands blessings upon sinners like us. We deserve nothing but your judgement and we deserve none of your love. And yet, our heavenly Father, we thank you that in your mercy and grace, you redeemed us to you through Jesus. Help us see treasure people around us as you yourselves would. Help us to bless others with cross-hands blessings, shaped by the cross of Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, Amen.”