We have heard the story of Abraham, and Jacob’s sukkahs.

Now we will hear the story of Jacob’s son’s sukkah; the son Jacob/Israel named Joseph.

Many, many years have passed by since Jacob first built his sukkah.

Jacob was blessed with twelve sons; and God had changed Jacob’s name to be Israel.

All of Jacob’s twelve sons eventually became the leaders of the twelve different tribes of Israel.

They ALL learned the importance of building a sukkah. Of course they learned how to build their sukkahs directly from their Father, Jacob; who had taught all of them at the harvest festival called Sukkot when they were all very young boys.

Every year they would go up to the festival.

Each passing year while attending the festival they would build a sukkah together.

Jacob’s ten eldest sons were shepherds, and they helped Jacob to tend to the needs of the sheep from his flocks.

Knowing how to build a sukkah was very helpful to a shepherd because that was how a shepherd could build a temporary shelter to sleep in if he was having to guard the flocks all night long.  Jacob ’s sons often had to do this.

Sometimes they slept in the temporary shelters out in the fields in order to protect the flocks from wolves and other wild animals.

Jacob’s last wife, Rachel, was the beloved wife who gave him his two youngest sons. Their names were Joseph and Benjamin. Jacob (whom God later named Israel) favored his two youngest sons who had been born to Rachel; and the ten oldest sons were a bit jealous of all the attention that Israel lavished on Joseph and Benjamin.

Benjamin wasn’t really too much of a bother to them; because he was only a baby, and he stayed at home out of their way; but Joseph was a different story.

When Joseph was only ten they could clearly see that their Father was always going to give Joseph more of his time, attention, love and affection.

These jealous brothers were concerned about that.  Their main concern was that Joseph might possibly inherit more of their father’s wealth; leaving less for them to inherit.

As the time went by, his brothers all grew more and more angry with Joseph because of their jealous feelings.

One day Joseph had a dream.

In this dream Joseph and all of Joseph’s brothers and his father were binding grain.

Joseph’s grain stood up and all of the other sheaves of grain bowed down to Joseph’s sheaves.

Joseph told his brothers about this dream.  That only fueled their anger more.

That they would ever even think of bowing down to this little brat of a brother made them cringe. They hated it whenever their father appeared to look puzzled when Joseph revealed more and more details of his dreams.

Again Joseph dreamed.

This time Joseph dreamed that the sun, the moon and eleven stars bowed down to him.

He told this dream to his outraged brothers also; and there was no end to their awful comments about his arrogance and pride.  They had absolutely no respect for Joseph’s strange dreams.  Out of hate and disrespect they nicknamed their younger brother “The Dreamer.”

Jacob did not know what to make of these dreams that came to his son; but Joseph knew in his heart that they were very, very important dreams. He knew one day God would show him exactly what they meant and he would then realize why he had dreamed such dreams.

The older brothers did not like it a bit when Joseph followed them out to the fields and tried to learn how to be a shepherd too. They treated him mean and disrespectful and they called him names.

Joseph wanted to learn his father’s business though; so he continued to follow them out to the fields.

One day Jacob/Israel even sent Joseph out to the fields himself. He too wanted Joseph to learn the family business as he grew up.  He told Joseph to check on his brothers and to let him know how they were doing.

Of course, the brothers resented their Father sending Joseph to check up on them.

It was close to the time of The Feast of Tabernacles and Israel had given Joseph a bright and beautifully colored new coat.

This wasn’t just any old coat; but the one that Joseph would wear all his life; one that spoke of his family heritage; of being a grandson of Abraham.

The coat would grow and change as Joseph grew and changed.

Joseph was very proud of this special gift from his father; and he wore it out into the fields when he went to find his brothers with their flocks.

The other ten sons hated Joseph for receiving the very special coat from their father that signified that Joseph was a descendant of Abraham.

Were they not descendants of Abraham too?

Where were their special coats?

What made Joseph so special?

Perhaps Israel had not remembered to do the same for each of them as they were growing up.

The coat only tended to stir their anger more. The brothers were at the place of two wells which was called Dothan. They saw Joseph coming and they conspired to kill Joseph.

There they threw him into a pit that was actually an old well which had dried out.  It was deep and dirty and dark.  When they finally pulled him out; they sold Joseph as a slave to a traveling caravan.

Before they threw Joseph into the dry old well; they took his awesome new coat away from him. They soaked the coat in goat’s blood and showed it to their father so he would believe that Joseph was dead.

The people who bought Joseph sold him in the slave market.

Joseph’s new life of slavery led him to live far away in the land of Egypt.

Because God had promised to protect and bless Abraham’s descendants; God preserved  and prospered Joseph while he was a slave living in the land of Egypt.

Because of God’s protection upon him, and because of Joseph’s personal integrity, Joseph went from being a lowly slave to being the second most powerful man in all of the land of Egypt.

In this position Joseph no longer looked like a son of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  This was because while living among the Egyptians, Joseph spoke a foreign language and he dressed like an Egyptian. His name was changed to an Egyptian name.

Eventually Joseph became a Viceroy of Egypt.

A Viceroy was the second in command under Pharaoh.  It was a very high position.

By the time Joseph grew up and became so powerful in Egypt; he had gained a full understanding of his dreams.

Joseph knew that a famine was coming to the land.

Understanding the meaning of the dreams encouraged Joseph to  build great storehouses full of food in Egypt.  These great storehouses would sustain Egypt during the years of the great famine.

The city called Sukkot (where Jacob had built the temporary shelters when Joseph was only a young boy) was one of those cities which was used to store up food and grain until it was needed by the people of the land.

Of course, by now, Jacob/Israel had moved his family to their permanent home which was in The Land of Canaan.

The people living in the land of Canaan were getting hungry because there was no food to eat.

A day came when Joseph’s brothers had to leave their father at home and journey to Egypt in order to obtain food for their family.

They came before Joseph to request grain; but they did not even recognize him.  He had changed so much, and to them he simply looked like another Egyptian ruler.

The ten brothers bowed before him; because everyone bowed to the rulers when they wanted to make a special request.  Their special request was to buy and obtain food to carry back to their father at home.

It was only after observing his brothers for a while that Joseph finally revealed his true identity to them.

Then he forgave them for all they had done to him.

After that happened, he shared the bounty of Egypt with them.

Joseph provided for them and protected them. He eventually brought his father to live with him in the land of Egypt that had plenty of food and they all avoided the great famine and their flocks of sheep grew and prospered again.

That was how all of the sons of Jacob came to live in the land of Egypt for many, many years.  Egypt was NOT their permanent home, but it was the place where Joseph had become a powerful ruler who could help them during a time when their homeland suffered greatly.

Before Joseph died; he told his brothers that God had promised Abraham He would give His descendants the Promised Land.  Joseph requested when that time arrived, and they moved back into the promised land which God’s people had inherited, that they would take Joseph’s bones with them as they left Egypt.

Joseph wanted his final burial-place to be in the Promised Land among his own people.

Jacob/Israel and his family, along with their many descendants, continued to flourish and thrive in the land of Egypt during the time that Joseph was a ruler.

When Joseph died though, another Pharaoh arose who did not know or appreciate the talents and blessings of Joseph.

That Pharaoh was the one who enslaved The Children of Israel and put them into bondage.

Of course we all know that God raised up Moses in order to set them free; but that will be the subject of another sukkah story on another day of The Feast of Tabernacles.

But I will tell you this much:  When Moses led the Children of Israel out of the bondage of Egypt; he had to take them the long way, through the city of Sukkot where Joseph had once erected the huge storehouses to store the grain for the long time of the great famine.

Most people did not understand why Moses chose to take such a strange route on that journey; or why God would lead Moses in such an out-of-the-way direction, when there was a much shorter route to the Promised Land.

The fact of the matter was that Moses knew the old city of Sukkot was where Joseph’s bones were buried.

He needed to move the bones of Joseph from the land of Egypt.

Moses wanted to honor Joseph’s last wishes to be taken to the Promised Land whenever the people of Israel were freed and left Egypt.

You see; Joseph deeply desired all of his life to be identified as who he REALLY was; as one of the people of Israel.

He might not have worn that coat for very long; but he carried his true identity as a son of Abraham deep inside his heart all of his life; though he had to live in a foreign land among foreign people.

For Joseph’s bones to be moved to the Promised Land was the plan of God all along.

This was the fulfillment of prophecy.

It was a beautiful picture of Joseph’s spiritual journey; and perhaps it is also a picture of the spiritual journey of you and me.

People who do not always understand God’s plan for mankind might not want us to identify with the Holy Days of God, or to celebrate The Feast of Tabernacles, or any of the other Holy Days that God gave to his people originally.

The history most people of the world have always heard might not be the same as the history that we have found hiding deep within the pages of our bibles.

The concepts of the majority of the people of the world of orthodoxy might not be exactly the same as ours.

In fact; they are a lot like Joseph’s brothers in that they do not understand exactly who we really are.

They do not recognize us as a “brother” or a “sister” simply because we hold to a different orthodoxy.

Do you understand that orthodoxy is when one’s beliefs and customs can be traced back to the original?

We have an old saying in our family; “fidelity to the original.”

This means that we will stay true to all original truth.

Though Joseph was a foreigner living and working in a foreign land; he KNEW the truth and he confronted it.

We; like Joseph, desire truth and understand that all truth comes from God.

God has given us the words of truth in the Holy Scriptures.

Everything that we do and say comes directly from those very holy words.

We believe in fidelity to the original.

In other words; we want to honor God’s original plan for mankind.

One day in the future, far beyond the days of Joseph, there came another whose story was very similar to Joseph’s story in many ways.

Like Joseph, Jesus was sent by His Father to His brothers.

Many of Israel DID recognize Him as the One sent, but collectively they did not.

He was killed; (like the brothers of Joseph had originally wanted to do to him.)

Within a generation of His Resurrection back to life, many Gentiles saw Jesus as their Redeemer and King.

Like Joseph, Jesus had an “appearance” represented by the church that less and less looked like that of his original Jewish brothers.

Within one hundred years of His Ascension back into Heaven, many Gentiles claimed Jesus Christ as one of their own – just like the Egyptians claimed Joseph as one of their culture once they saw his wisdom.

Just like Joseph; Jesus became unrecognizable to His own Jewish brethren – because it seemed as if His identity had changed.

When taken from prison, Joseph was no longer a Hebrew shepherd – he was the Viceroy of Egypt.

So it seemed to the Jews that Jesus was no longer to be a Jewish teacher, but instead they considered Him to be the founder of a new religion called Christianity.

To the Jews (the direct ancestors of Abraham), Jesus’s teachings appeared to have much more in common with a Greek philosophy than with the teachings of the Hebrew Scriptures.

God’s wise old prophets have long foretold that one day the eyes of our Jewish brothers will be opened; just as the eyes of Joseph’s Jewish brothers were opened when he revealed his true identity to them.

We have long spoken of how one day ALL will bow at the name of Jesus.

When Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, they were then finally able to see that he was still the same Joseph.

He was still the son of Jacob and he still spoke their language.

What the brothers had meant for harm; God had turned to good.

By grace, God likely saved much of the then known world from famine through Joseph.

If others had recognized him as Jewish at that time; these circumstances might never have happened.

In the end of the matter though; all truth was revealed, and all people were better off for knowing the whole story.

When Joseph prepared to die, he reminded his brothers that Egypt was not their home – that God had promised their Father Abraham a Promised Land in a different country.

Joseph wanted his bones to be buried in that particular land that God had promised.

Joseph did not want to be remembered as an Egyptian ruler – but as a Son of Abraham.

Of all the things Scripture could remind us about Joseph, it is Hebrews 11:22 that makes this desire to be the mark of Joseph’s faith.

“By faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel, and gave instructions concerning his bones.”

Unlike Joseph, our Redeemer lives!

Death could not hold Him.

He rose up from the grave and is alive and well; living next to the Father in heaven even now.

But, just like Joseph; our brother; Jesus, is to be remembered and related to as the Jewish person that He REALLY is.

We must KNOW Him for His true identity.

After all, the prophecies of Jesus’s first coming demanded that He be a Son of Abraham, a Son of Judah, and a Son of David. That makes Him totally Jewish by any definition.

Jesus has a Jewish heritage.

His teachings and His life are the mirror of the Hebrew Scriptures, and the opposite of many of today’s Greek concepts and philosophies followed by the modern-day churches.

As we come to the season of Sukkot; much like the first Israelis as they were leaving Egypt; it is now the time for all of God’s people (both Jewish and Gentile) to remember and honor Jesus Christ as the Jewish person that He actually is.

He is our Jewish Messiah!

He is the Jewish King of the Universe.

We must lay aside the false “Gentile” identity that the church has tried to label Him with, and correctly identify with the truth of our Savior’s identity.

Just like Joseph; Jesus wants us to remember Him for Who He REALLY is.

We find these things that make Him Who He really is whenever we take our journey to the place called Sukkot.

We can see the Jewish heritage in so many of the things that we are led to do at Sukkot/The Feast of Tabernacles; but we can also see that they are only valuable to us because of Jesus.

Because this is Our Savior’s heritage; it has now become a part of our own heritage.

Those who love Him keep His ways.

Like the people who left ancient Egypt carrying Joseph’s bones out with them – we are now free.

For those people freedom came because of God’s strength living in Moses; but for us; it is because of God’s strength we have found in His Only Begotten Son; Jesus.

In an instant, in a twinkling of the eye, our whole world has changed.

It is because of our Jewish Messiah!

When the last of the ten plagues were poured out by God upon Egypt; this new-found freedom happened to God’s people.

Moses called it “Passover” because the plagues “passed over” them. The Angel of death has passed over The People of God leaving every first-born child alive and well and safely behind the threshold of every house that was covered in the blood of the Lamb.

God gave the people instructions to prepare a lamb. To slay the lamb and place its blood over their doorposts.

They were instructed to be ready to leave in a hurry. They obeyed.

Because they had seen the mighty way that God was protecting His people; some of the neighbors living in Egypt also obeyed and left with them.

Everyone who obeyed the commandments of God was spared the plagues because of the blood of the lamb placed over their doors.

Of course now we know the Passover Lamb was symbolic of the coming of Jesus; our Savior.

The fact that Jesus was crucified on the very day of Passover and resurrected on the very day of First Fruits (during Unleavened Bread) was not lost on the early disciples of Jesus.

They understood that God was establishing a pattern for redemption for both the physical descendants of Jacob who had been slaves in Egypt; but also for the redemption of all of mankind by the Messiah’s atoning blood.

We have laid aside the “leaven” of sin and we are ready to move on out of the bondage and slavery from those sins.

Like those Israelis leaving Egypt; we too have set out on an amazing journey with God.

We know the destination at the end of every journey to The Feast of Tabernacles is to meet and fellowship with God.

Our bags are all packed and we too have set out quickly upon this long journey to the destination to real freedom.

We have been set free by God, and it is time to find our true identity as true men and women of God.

This new identity is extremely important.

The coat that Joseph had been given by his father gave him a lasting sense of his true identity.

This strong characteristic lasted through all of his trials and tests in a foreign land.

He KNEW who he REALLY was; even living as a foreigner in a foreign land.

Like what happened to Joseph as Jacob gave him the special coat; our true identity will be established through the gifts that our Father gives to us.

We have a coat that covers us too; it is the blood of The Lamb of God.

God will show us more and more of our true identity as we journey on and obey Him in Sukkot.  As we waive the lulav and as we combine it with the sweetness of the egtrog; we send the symbols of our true identities before the God who is everywhere and in every place.  This day is our statement, that though we are all different in many ways; like the Children of Israel and Joseph; we stand in total unity as a group blessed by God.

When Joseph landed in Egypt he could have just blended in with the Egyptian culture.

He could have become just another person in the crowd; but he did not.

Joseph rose above the crowd, and as he rose up, he showed the world all the majesty of the true person that God had designed Him to be.

When we display the 5 species in our sukkahs; we too show the world all the majesty of the true people that God has designed us to be.

Joseph did not get lost in the crowd.

He did NOT try to blend in and be like everyone else.

His actions and his life lived out from his original, true identity.

Joseph had the good sense to be Himself.  He saw himself as a Son of Abraham who was a true and faithful Son of The One True God of Heaven and Earth.

Joseph was not a follower of the crowd or a people-pleaser.

He believed in fidelity to the Original.

He stayed true to God in all that He did.

So you see this was the reason that the people could never take the short route from the city of Ramses into the Promised Land.

Sometimes true freedom requires a long, long journey.  It is never very easy.

They had to go the long way.

The people of God NEEDED to go through the place called Sukkot.  It was very important to their own national identity and heritage.

The same holds true for our family today.  We need The Feast of Tabernacles in our lives in order to remember and establish who we are in unity as a family under God.

What seemed so odd to so many, actually helped the People of Israel to establish their own true identity as a free people.

Though many thought at the time that this seemed like unnecessary punishment for those who did not understand; this was actually the main key to grasping their national heritage in the end.

Picking up the bones of Joseph and returning them to their rightful place (the home of Abraham) was part of the beginnings of becoming a great nation of God.

They had to take the way through the Red Sea in order to go by Sukkot on the journey to the Promised Land.

Most misunderstand this part of their journey too.

We have been taught from our Christian churches (who lean toward more of the Greek philosophies) that this was a type of baptism for the new nation of Israel.

However; the people did not have to be redeemed by the baptism of the Red Sea; because they were ALREADY “redeemed” before they crossed the Red Sea.

They did not pass through the Red Sea in order to be set free – that had already occurred, because of the blood of the lamb at the Passover.

The ritual of Baptism does not save us; it simply declares that we are free; and we are no longer slaves to sin to all of the rest of the world.  Baptism is for declaring our true identity.

The law that was given to Moses on Mt. Sinai did not save the people (or us); the people were ALREDY free at the time; the law simply stated how they should begin to live as free people.

The people needed a picture of what holy living looked like and God gave them the ten commandments.

By following these commandments the rest of the world could see their true identity.

You see Joseph never lost his true identity; (that of being a free man) because he already had God’s love in his heart, even when he was physically enslaved.

God’s love and protection kept him from living like a slave in every circumstance of his life.

Because of this; Joseph never lost hope that a better day was coming.  He always rose above his circumstances.

We are all saved by grace through faith; it is nothing that we do ourselves; but it is always by the blood of the lamb.

We can’t work out our redemption; it is a free gift from God.

The journey to Sukkot was not ever about redemption though; it has always been about identification.

Can you identify with your Jewish Messiah?

The Egtrog we combined today with the lulav, represents the sweetness of Messiah in our lives.  Without him giving our lives a sweet flavor; we are simply a bunch of dead branches; worthy of nothing but helping to make a fire as we are all burnt up.

There in Sukkot when they gazed upon the bones of Joseph;  the people realized that they were no longer Egyptian slaves but the free descendants of Abraham.

This helped them to step into their true identity as a nation and this helped them to unify as One.

Joseph had preserved his people in the midst of famine. Having faith in God’s faithfulness to the promise of God to Abraham required that the fleeing former slaves retrieve the bones of Joseph to bury them in the Promised Land.

It was so necessary to stop in Sukkot in order to remember and maintain the identity of the people before they journeyed on and entered the land of promise.

This meant that when they entered the land; they would know exactly who they were, and exactly why they were living in the Promised Land.

Their identity would be firmly set as The People of God.

Like the People of God retrieving the bones of Joseph, which were solid proof of their own natural heritage; we also need to embrace the heritage of Jesus as our own.

We go the way of Sukkot, which is the long way, every year, in order to get to know more about our own heritage on our journey.  It is not a burden to go these extra miles; but a privilege.

It is here in Sukkot, at The Feast of Tabernacles, and under the memories of the sukkahs similar to the temporary dwellings of  Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David Aaron and Daniel, that we can come to know Jesus better.

For this is the place of our original identity; and it is here that we learn how to live within the gift of freedom that God has provided to us.

So it is that the sukkah of Joseph speaks to us of our own true identity in Christ.

Because we know our own true identity. we choose to take the journey through Sukkot. and we learn to travel anywhere that God leads us from there.

It is in Sukkot that we gain the strength that we need to travel on to even greater things.

Without this rest stop in Sukkot; we might lose ourselves and become forever lost and eventually die in the wilderness of the world.

Now we can gather all of the strength and courage of Joseph and keep moving forward into the hope of God’s promises.

We carry the blessings of The God Who is Everywhere and the sweetness of the Etrog combined with the branches of the lulav into a perfect unity within the walls of our sukkahs and also with the walls of our hearts.

Now we understand that the Etrog represents the true heart of our Messiah; and this sweetness that comes from Him blesses the sukkahs dotted all across the land that were built in obedience by God’s true children especially for the celebration of The Feast of Tabernacles.

THEREFORE LET US KEEP THE FEAST!