Then Joseph fell on his father's face and wept over him and kissed him. 2 And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. So the physicians embalmed Israel. 3 Forty days were required for it, for that is how many are required for embalming. And the Egyptians wept for him seventy days.
My boyhood pastor and dear friend Hardy Clemons literally wrote the book on grief. "Good Grief" is its title and it's a reflection on the process of grief he walked so many through during his long career as a shepherd for the bereft and weary of soul. The central message of the book is that grief is a process and needs to be given time to run its course.
I shall never forget Hardy telling me that after his wife Ardele passed away another close friend called Hardy and said, "Okay, big boy, I am wondering now if you just wrote that book of yours or if you read it also and intend to do what it says?"
Grief is a process that must be given its due time. We can't rush it, hasten through it, or "just get over it." Grief is a journey and everyone must give themselves permission to walk the journey at their own pace, without the pressure of needing to arrive too soon.
Joseph is on the journey of grief in today's lesson. It is not a quick trip. After his father died all Egypt wept for 70 days. And that was just the beginning stage. Next Joseph and his brothers and an entourage of Egyptian dignitaries and servants travelled back to Canaan from Egypt to bury the boys' father in the Promised Land. On the trip, they stopped at one place for a full week of lamentation. The Canaanites were so startled by the brothers' grief that they actually named the town "Mourning of Egypt". The point is the brothers took their time to grieve and grieve hard, and they didn't really care what others said about it.
Good grief is a journey. It's more for the turtle than it is for the hare. One, slow step in front of the other, sometimes pausing for long periods in the same place. That's not being stuck in grief; that's sticking it through. There's a difference.
And when the journey is completed, we like Joseph and his brothers come back. We come back, not to the Promised Land, but rather back to Egypt, back to the place we have learned to call home -- for now.
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