Joel M Bradshaw

27“Your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons. 28One of them went away from me, and I said, “He has surely been torn to pieces.” And I have not seen him since. 29If you take this one from me too and harm comes to him, you will bring my gray head down to the grave in misery.’

30“So now, if the boy is not with us when I go back to your servant my father, and if my father, whose life is closely bound up with the boy’s life, 31sees that the boy isn’t there, he will die. Your servants will bring the gray head of our father down to the grave in sorrow. 32Your servant guaranteed the boy’s safety to my father. I said, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, I will bear the blame before you, my father, all my life!’

33“Now then, please let your servant remain here as my lord’s slave in place of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers. 34How can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? No! Do not let me see the misery that would come on my father.”–Genesis 44

My Mom and I used to maintain a list of favorite movie moments. One from that list that stood out to me this morning as I read today’s text. It was in Back to the Future when the bully Biff was assaulting Lorraine and George McFly had a choice to make. Biff gave him a chance to leave and let him continue the horrible thing he was doing. George could have gotten away with nothing further happening to him. But instead George McFly had his moment.

“No Biff. You leave her alone.”

It was a brave moment that you wait a whole movie for. It was also followed by one of the most satisfying movie punches to a bad guy ever.

The second major part of the book of Genesis is clearly Joseph’s story. But underlying that narrative is the transformation of a man who once was a villain, but had been later humbled. Just like how Back to the Future is a movie about Marty McFly, but really involves the transformation of George McFly, Joseph’s story carried the undercurrent of a redeemed Judah.

Judah’s moment was faithful in that he kept his word to his father Jacob. It was selfless in that he made it more about young Benjamin and old Jacob than about himself. And it was sacrificial in that he offered to take Benjamin’s place, come what may. The great reveal in the next chapter will obviously be a better moment. The theological ending in chapter 50 is unforgettable. But Judah’s moment is why we pay attention when his name continues in the rest of the Bible

Joseph needed to see the change in Judah. We did too. The former villain was humbled and then marched forward a different man. But the villain didn’t have to stay the villain. Former villains reading these words have an example to follow in Judah. We need his story alongside Joseph’s. A great leader like David came from Judah’s line. Judah here was being a man after God’s heart. The sacrificial substitute Jesus would genealogically also come from this line. Judah was Christlike here.

The villain doesn’t have to stay the villain. God transforms lives and stories for His glory. Here Judah was no longer the villain, but instead the hero. Maybe the better analogy would be Darth Vader as he dies killing the emperor to save his son Luke in the Star Wars movie Return of the Jedi. In doing so the man once called Anakin traveled back to the light side from the dark. Also another one of my movie moments.–JMB