Genesis 50:17 “When their message came to him, Joseph wept.”

Why was Joseph crying? If you know the whole story, you know he was an emotional man. When he first saw his brothers after more than twenty years he wept privately. When he revealed himself to them a year later he wept in their presence. When they bring their Father to Egypt and reunite him with Joseph, there is more weeping still. The book of Genesis tells the stories of many of God’s people, but Joseph’s story is the only one in which you have all this weeping by a man. What is going on?

Joseph’s tears express a number of things. No doubt he feels tears of joy to be reunited with his family. At first maybe there were some tears of regret over the years that had been lost and the damage that had been done to the family.

Here at the end it is clear that Joseph’s tears express his love for his brothers, and his concern that they are still afraid of him. After everything that they had done to him, how did he get to this place? Humanly speaking he had every reason to be bitter. They had stolen the best years of his life from him! Why isn’t he fulfilling their fears? Why isn’t he taking his revenge?

It is because forgiveness has changed his own heart. This is the fruit of forgiveness in us when we are the ones doing the forgiving. The bitterness disappears. Love takes its place. Joseph wasn’t some little kid being forced to say, “I forgive you,” by his parents. He meant it from the heart. He knew God’s grace to him. The Lord had relieved him of his own guilt and pain. Now he wanted his brothers’ awful guilt and fear to go away. His tears on this occasion are evidence that his forgiveness, and his love, were sincere and true.

Isn’t that a better way to live? Isn’t that a happier place to be? Who is hurt the most by the grudge that I hold? Am I not the one who has to lug that negativity around with me? Don’t I end up being the one who can’t enjoy his day because the cloud of resentment weighs on my mind and hangs over my head? Let it go! Let it go and be free! Forgiving others opens our hearts, and it lets love grow inside again. Love is the fruit of forgiveness, and the happier place to be.