Vayigash “And he came near”
Genesis 44:18–47:27
Ezekiel 37:15–28
Luke 14-19

The Reunion

Reading the Torah this week sent me on a trip down memory lane. It reminded me of the days when I would attend family reunions as a kid. After a few years I always knew what to expect. I would see distant relatives that Mom would try to explain once again were related to us. During the explanation my mind would be summing up the outward appearance of this person and wondering how I had turned out so normal with someone like that in the gene pool ahead of me. I would wonder who kept writing the scripts for these people who year after year would look at me and be reduced to two basic phrases, "He is growing like a weed" and "You need to put bricks on his head to keep him from growing so fast." What did they expect anyway? Six thousand years of human history has children growing year after year. Did they expect I was going to be different?

Family reunions did have a good side though. It was called food. Being from the South I look back and wonder how pork could be used in so many different ways including desert, but that is another subject for another time. It was one of the few times during the year that adults really did not watch what I ate. I could take a little piece of ham, a piece of corn on the cob and maybe a biscuit, eat part of it, throw the rest in the trash, and then head for the dessert table before the adults had finished filling their plates for the first time. I always have wondered how that crazy uncle got so much food to stay on one paper plate. I think it was from years of practice!

The family reunion of Jacob is literally one for the record book. Not only is he able to see his family brought back under one roof, but his thought-to-be-dead son Joseph is alive and has grandchildren! What a time they must have had that day. It was party time as the family was once again brought to a place of unity. Well, maybe unity is a word too hastily used. They were united on the outside, but Torah will go on to tell us that there was some work on the inside that needed to be dealt with _ work that would not be finished in the life of Jacob or even in the life of Joseph. It would be a work that would continue for hundreds of years and in fact is still going on today.

There is much talk today about the "Time of Jacob's Trouble." What is for the most part missing from the talk though is the real reason for that time. There is talk about how the family is being prepared to go back home to the land of our inheritance, in the Greater Exodus of course. There is talk about how the world is being prepared for judgment, but what is the real purpose of these days called Jacob's Trouble? I believe it is to bring the family back together. It is to take a family that has been dysfunctional for hundreds of years, a family that continues to this day to want to sell each other out or even kill one another, and bring them together under one roof. However, this time the reunion will not just be physical bodies being brought together, but it will be our very beings which have been knit together through times of trial and tribulation which will be at last be united.

Today we are seeing practice sessions and rehearsals for that time. These times are called Sukkot, Passover and the many conferences held all over the world. We come together during these times and they are somewhat like the family reunions I attended as a kid. There are some people who show up that you look at them and wonder why they have to take the scripture of being a "peculiar people" to such an extreme, but in the end, you really grow to appreciate them for who they are. There are still differences in beliefs and interpretations of scripture, but rarely do we allow these differences to get out of hand. Of course we have all learned that where two or more are gathered, there shall be food, but we have learned that pork is not really a food, so bring on the chicken! These are times which I liken to family reunions in which you really kind of like the people you are with. There is a bond that grows from year to year and meeting to meeting. It gets harder and harder to say goodbye at the end of our time together, so we learn words in Hebrew that mean "See you later." We leave these times and on the drive back home wonder to ourselves what it will be like to spend eternity with these people. We think past our differences and consider the bond that happened in just a few short days. We feel like we have known these people all our lives. We catch a tear rolling down our cheek and begin to count the days until we meet again.

There is an awakening that is happening in our spirits today. It is our spirits telling us that the days prophesied in the reunion of Jacob and the boys is nearing. Our spirit, when in tune with His Spirit, understands things the natural man just can not know. Our spirits are telling our bodies to get up, get ready, and be prepared, for the time of the ‘reunion to top all reunions’ is at hand. This time it will not be a meeting in a pagan land, but rather a meeting in His land. The differences which have kept the family apart will not be brought into the house, but rather through our times of trouble will have been reconciled and left behind to never be remembered again. The peculiar ways of each of us will instead be turned into what we really love about each other. The bonds we have will not be based on natural blood passed down from Mother and Father, but rather the precious blood of One we call Redeemer.

On that day we will not even have to ask if something is kosher. And with a new body I have a feeling the calories will not mean anything. It will be a supper like no supper has ever been before. Since Hebrew is from right to left, maybe we will even start with the dessert and have no room left for the salads. You just never know! It will be a reunion for the history books. The main reason? The family is finally united. The prayer of the Host of Honor has finally been answered as the family has once and for all become one in His hand.