We may learn many lessons from the tears of Joseph, whose life stands out so specially as a type of our Lord Jesus Christ.
At the beginning, when Joseph saw conviction awakening in the consciences of his brethren, he wept. These were tears both of sorrow and of joy. He felt for them passing through the agony, but he must have rejoiced to see the needed arrow reaching its mark, and the bleeding of the wounds that followed.
He wept again when he saw Benjamin. This was the son of his own mother, her only child besides himself, whose birth had caused her death. Joseph saw in Benjamin the only one of his father's sons (who were all then before him) who had not been guilty of his blood. Nature therefore, could account for these tears.
He wept again as he saw the work of repentance going on in his brethren. In his way, he greatly longed after them in the bowels of Jesus Christ, till at last Judah's words were too much for him; conviction of conscience resulted in restoration of heart. Judah's references again and again to "the old man" and the "lad" had eloquence which prevailed, and Joseph could no longer refrain himself. He sobbed aloud, and the whole house of Pharaoh heard him. But these were more than the tears of nature; they were the compassion of Christ.
Each of these weepings was beautiful in its season, but there is still more. When Joseph's father died, Joseph fell on his father's face and wept. This scene resembles the grave of Lazarus, where Jesus wept.
Again he wept when, after his father's death, his brethren began to suspect his love. He was disappointed. An unworthy response to a constant, patient, serving love, made him weep in the spirit of Him who wept over Jerusalem. For years Joseph had been doing all he could to win the confidence of his brothers. He had nourished them and their little ones. Years had now passed, and not one rebuke to them do we find, either in his life or in his ways. Grief over their departed father had just freshly proved to them what common affections they had to bind them together. Joseph had supplied them with every reason to trust him. And after all this they were still doubting him. This was a terrible shock to such a heart as Joseph's. And yet he did not resent it, but with his tears gave renewed assurances of his diligent, faithful love. Do not such tears as these spring from a higher love-a divine love? They foreshadow the yearnings of the grieved spirit of the Lord Himself, who said: "How long shall I be with you?" "Why are ye fearful?" "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me?"
The Lord Jesus has sanctified tears, and made them, like everything else that went up from Him to God, a sacrifice of a sweet smelling savor. Joseph, as well as David, Paul, Jonathan, and Timothy, too, have made them precious, and have placed them among the treasures of the Spirit in the bosom of the Church.