Outburst

I love this moment in the first reading today:

Joseph could no longer control himself in the presence of all his attendants, so he cried out, “Have everyone withdraw from me!” Thus no one else was about when he made himself known to his brothers. (Genesis 45:1)

To me, it's a beautiful image of the Resurrection.

Joseph, after all, is a type and foreshadowing of Christ himself. Resented, abandoned, turned over to pagans and presumed dead by his brothers, Joseph ends up coming to power in a foreign kingdom and thereby is able to save his family from famine.

Joseph is recognized in his new power in Egypt when he can no longer control is emotions and reveals himself to his brothers. He "could no longer control himself" says the scripture. In the same way the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is like an emotional outburst; God's compassion is so much greater than the works of death and misery we have insisted upon for ourselves with our sins and violence. Despite our having dismissed, mocked, tortured and killed our own Lord, Jesus reveals that from this very state of rejection and death he has come into a new power in a Kingdom that is foreign to this world. The most high joy of the divine creativity comes to be experienced as forgiveness and reconciliation as God wills to not contain Himself and bursts out in the revealing of the Risen Lord.