Last 5 Days
Don’t Forget To Remember
1 Some time after this, the cupbearer of the king of Egypt and his baker committed an offense against their lord the king of Egypt. 2 And Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, 3 and he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the prison where Joseph was confined. 4 The captain of the guard appointed Joseph to be with them, and he attended them. They continued for some time in custody.
5 And one night they both dreamed—the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison—each his own dream, and each dream with its own interpretation. 6 When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were troubled. 7 So he asked Pharaoh's officers who were with him in custody in his master's house, “Why are your faces downcast today?” 8 They said to him, “We have had dreams, and there is no one to interpret them.” And Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Please tell them to me.”
9 So the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph and said to him, “In my dream there was a vine before me, 10 and on the vine there were three branches. As soon as it budded, its blossoms shot forth, and the clusters ripened into grapes. 11 Pharaoh's cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup and placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand.” 12 Then Joseph said to him, “This is its interpretation: the three branches are three days. 13 In three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office, and you shall place Pharaoh's cup in his hand as formerly, when you were his cupbearer. 14 Only remember me, when it is well with you, and please do me the kindness to mention me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this house. 15 For I was indeed stolen out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also I have done nothing that they should put me into the pit.”
16 When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was favorable, he said to Joseph, “I also had a dream: there were three cake baskets on my head, 17 and in the uppermost basket there were all sorts of baked food for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating it out of the basket on my head.” 18 And Joseph answered and said, “This is its interpretation: the three baskets are three days. 19 In three days Pharaoh will lift up your head—from you!—and hang you on a tree. And the birds will eat the flesh from you.”
20 On the third day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, he made a feast for all his servants and lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker among his servants. 21 He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, and he placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand. 22 But he hanged the chief baker, as Joseph had interpreted to them. 23 Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.
Did you get angry at the cupbearer when you got to the final verse of today's passage? I remember reading this story when I was a child, and it never made any sense to me that the cupbearer forgot Joseph. The guy interpreted two dreams correctly, and you got out of jail and kept your lofty position - but you couldn't remember his request to remember him and mention him to Pharaoh and get him out of prison too? Outrageous!
And Joseph too - obviously not a lawyer! He should have stipulated a timeframe in which his request was being made - "mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison IMMEDIATELY WHEN YOU ARE FREED". How foolish of him! If only he had put in that clause, he would not have had to wait 2 years to get his audience with Pharaoh.
They say hindsight is always 20/20, meaning that when you look back at things in the past, you'll be able to see the situation most clearly. And yet, isn't the cupbearer all of us - easily forgetting God's goodness to us, just as he forgot Joseph's kindness and positive prophesy to him? I wish we had better memories, but the truth of the matter is - most of us are ungrateful wretches, thanks to our earthly, human, sinful nature. And unless we find some way to regularly remember, take note of, and celebrate God's gifts and blessings that we are given, we will forget.
This message is particularly stark to me because my mom is starting down a hereditary path of dementia (hello mummy!) Unlike me and my dad, she does not have the habit of writing things down and checking up on this list when she needs to remember something. This means as the disease progresses, she does not have this habit of writing and checking a list, to help her remember things.
Recall a number of ways the bible reminds us that we need these nudges and commemorative events. Think about the rainbow given to us by God after the great flood in Genesis 9 - a reminder to us of God’s promise never to destroy the earth again. Remember the 12 living stones set up as the Israelites crossed the Jordan river (see Joshua 4). And also, every month, we host the Lord’s Supper, instituted by the Lord “in remembrance of” Jesus’ sacrifice for us on the cross.
Dear brothers and sisters, what are the ways in which you are practising gratefulness and remembering God's goodness in your life? Is there a journal you write on? Are you part of a small group that regularly prays about thanksgivings together? Do you have a social media account where you post regularly on, specifically to celebrate the things that God has done for you? Start a practice of remembering God’s goodness in your life today.