The symbol for this day is a colorful coat. Ours was made with a coat cut out of cardboard and colorful pieces of pipe cleaner glued to it.
As we read through Genesis, God keeps showing us little glimpses of what the Savior is like. Remember, the people who were living during Genesis hadn’t met Jesus yet. They didn’t have John 3:16 memorized, like so many Christians do today.
They only got small pictures of Jesus through the life they lived. Everyone who met Joseph got to experience a little bit of what the Messiah was going to be like:
- Loved by his father
- Rejected by people who should have loved him most
- Made to suffer
- Generous and loving to those who harmed him
There is another piece of this story that is a theme throughout Scripture that also shows up in Joseph’s story: the older will serve the younger. We see this theme in the following stories:
- Abel, the younger brother, offered a better sacrifice than his brother Cain (Genesis 25 & Hebrews 11:4)
- Jacob, the younger brother, bought Esau’s birthright and stole his blessing (Genesis 25 & 27)
- Ephraim received the blessing of his grandfather (Jacob) instead of his older brother Manesseh (Genesis 48:14-20)
- Moses was younger than Aaron, and God spoke to Moses and specifically called him out for ministry (Exodus 3-4)
- God told Samuel to anoint David as king, even though David was the youngest of his brothers (1 Samuel 16)
- Solomon was chosen as the king of Israel, over his older brothers (1 Chronicles 28)
Most of these stories ended in jealousy, and sometimes murder or attempted murder.
Jesus Christ was technically the firstborn because He was there before the creation of the world–and as a man, he was the last person recorded on Abraham’s family tree. He was “born” (on earth) last, and yet, the “older” children (the Jews in the family of Abraham) were supposed to worship and obey Him. This is another way Joseph’s story and Jesus’ story are similar: both had “brothers” who were supposed to serve them, and in both cases, their “brothers” wanted to kill them for it. Both men offered grace to those same “brothers.”
“Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” 1 Peter 1:23
Ornament Ideas
See my Pinterest board for more ideas!