Genesis 46:2-4  During the night God spoke to him in a vision. “Jacob! Jacob!” he called. “Here I am,” Jacob replied. “I am God, the God of your father,” the voice said. “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make your family into a great nation. I will go with you down to Egypt, and I will bring you back again. You will die in Egypt, but Joseph will be with you to close your eyes.” (NLT)

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Certain things warm an aging father’s heart. Aging also enhances certain anxieties. Particular details require an increasing measure of planning and preparation. 

Jacob was taking his last journey. He who ran for his life for the first part of his life and who limped through the rest of his days was going to a new place with new possibilities, new opportunities, and to a reunion he had given up on decades before. It was also outside of his comfort zone. It was far from the promises God made to his grandfather Abraham and his father Isaac. 

Jacob and his family stopped in the last green spot on the map before entering the long, dry steps toward Egypt. This was where the green grass and life-giving crops ended. This is the location of the well Abraham bought from Abimelech. Abraham worshiped God there. (See Genesis 21.) Isaac also worshiped there. (See Genesis 26.) 

Jacob now worshiped in this place of history and heritage (verse 1). “During the night God spoke to him in a vision,” (verse 2). Similar to his dream at Bethel when he ran away from Esau, God spoke to him in a vision. The information was clear. It was a Good News, Bad News kind of vision.

The Good News: As promised, Jacob’s family would become a great nation. God would go with them. (Remember this. When we get to Exodus, Moses will at one point say on the journey back to the Promised Land, the land Jacob and his family were now leaving, “if you don’t go with us . . . .”)

God also said he would bring them back. So ends the Good News portion of the program. 

The Bad News: God said, “You will die in Egypt.”

There is still the Best News, the news Jacob had heard but not seen. The son he thought was dead was alive. His long-lost son would be there with him when he died. He would close his eyes. He would ensure a promise was kept to take Jacob’s body back to the Promised Land for burial with Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and his wife, Leah.

Genesis 47:28 tells us Jacob “lived for seventeen years after his arrival in Egypt, so he lived 147 years in all.” It’s interesting how Joseph was seventeen years old (37:2) when he was sold into slavery by his brothers. 

Here, we see life, death, and reunion. Dreams come true. Destinies are fulfilled. Matters are settled for all time. 

There is no such thing as an ordinary day. Every day flows forward out of what has gone before. Each day is preparatory for what happens next. Seventeen years is over 6,200 days. Pathways and landmarks grow so familiar they become part of our stories. Signs may change, populations can shift, and businesses will come and go. Even so, there is a settledness about a place called home, a home inhabited and explored for so many days. 

Jacob’s 147 years led him to many places. Joseph’s 110 years led him down, down, and down again before he made it to the top. Only thirty-four of Jacob and Joseph’s years were lived in the same space and shared conversations. So much time passed between conversations when the boy was outgrowing adolescence, and the father was beginning to feel the weight of the years. So many rites of passage were missed. 

When the father spoke his final words, his son was there to receive them with grief and tears. When the son stood again to continue his journey, he did so with an even greater purpose. 

Good news, bad news, and the Best News. No ordinary days. Lives lived out of sight and out of mind. Conversations unheard. Tears of joy, tears of loss, tears for what could have been. 

Echoes calling across time gently declare, “This is no ordinary day. It is filled with wonder, awe, and eternity. Live it well. This day provides space and time for the do-over you wished for not so long ago. Begin again with purpose. Build a better world where old and young can enjoy one another, celebrate accomplishments great and small, and live, laugh, and express deep emotion with the tears we will all leave behind on that Day.

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I will live on purpose in this extraordinary day.

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Our Father, if I had to live life over again knowing what I know now, I would do so many things differently. I will, by your grace and in your strength, live this day as if I were living life over again knowing what I know now. I will inhabit this day as a gracious gift, an opportunity for a do-over. I will make the most of this opportunity. Amen.