NOTES for Gen 45:1-28
Today's reading tells us of Joseph's long-awaited meeting with his brothers. Of course, formally this meeting had happened much earlier, but in fact it took place only now, when not only had Joseph recognized his brothers, but they also recognized him. And now, at the meeting, Joseph was able to tell them what he may have delayed this meeting for so long in order to say, making his brothers go through a long path of repentance. It is no surprise that the brothers, when they recognized Joseph, were dismayed (v. 3), for they had already had time to feel and realize the whole depth of their guilt. And precisely for this reason Joseph could now tell them something very important: it turns out that it was not they, his brothers, who sold him into Egypt; it turns out that God sent him there in order through him to save both Jacob and all his fellow tribesmen (vv. 4-8).
It turns out that whatever a person plans, what is carried out in any case is not the human plan but God's plan. But in that case, is there room in this plan for human freedom? Or is a person's free choice only an illusion, especially when his plans contradict God's providence? No, human freedom is not illusory after all. Rather, the illusion should be considered the possibility of a person's full life in a world separated from God, cut off from God's great world. Meanwhile fallen man strives to live exactly this way, in his small world, separate from God's great world, limited and enclosed, whose only illusory advantage is that here a person can be his own little god. And then God leaves the person to live as he wishes. And the person, living in his little world and managing it, often drives out or kills the one he does not want to see next to himself.
And here, in his little world, he often triumphs, certain that he has won a victory. And this is no surprise: in a world where there is no place for God, only one plan triumphs: the plan of the person who created that little world. But sooner or later a moment inevitably comes when the boundaries of this small human-made world collapse, and then its creator learns with surprise, and often with fear, that in the great world where God acts, His plan is being carried out, while what in the small separate world seemed a triumph turned out in God's great world to be defeat. God truly leaves a person his freedom, and it depends only on the person what that freedom will become for him: joy or punishment.