Where's Jesus? Joseph Interprets Pharaoh's Dreams (Genesis 41)

Both of Pharaoh's dreams are one and the same in meaning: bountiful years followed by famine.  Most often we focus on the dreams (we seem to be hopelessly enamored with the spectacular), but verse 38 contains the key for seeing Christ in the story.  In this verse Pharaoh asks,

Can we find anyone like this man, one in whom is the spirit of God? (Genesis 41:38)

The answer is, "No." There is only one man in all Egypt like Joseph, a 30 year old man (vs. 46) who rules Egypt in such a way that the whole country is both saved from famine and taken under the King's authority.  Joseph is full of the spirit of God; he is granted wisdom and exaltation, power and authority and as we will see in coming chapters, he uses that authority beneficently and graciously towards those who wronged him.  In fact, without Joseph, there would have been no salvation for Israel (Jew) or Egypt (Gentile).

This is an extraordinary foreshadowing of a 30 year old Jewish carpenter from Galilee, of whom it is written,

And he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him.  And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased." (Matthew 3:16-17)

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert...Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. (Luke 4:1, 14)

In fact, even Matthew quotes from Isaiah 42:1 about this one on whom the Spirit of God will rest, 

Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. (Matt. 12:18)

And Jesus himself quotes form Isaiah 61:1-2 at the introduction of his ministry in the Gospel of Luke

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. (Luke 4:18-19a)

Joseph foreshadows Jesus as the one who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit.  But even more than that, Jesus is the one who saves the Jew and the Gentile from the destructive force sin.  Sin, like the famine in Egypt, came upon Eden and ravaged everything within its bounds: humanity, animals, plants, even the ground itself.  Sin has a way of damaging and destroying everything in its wake as Paul aptly reminds us,

For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. (Rom. 8:20-21)

But Jesus, like Joseph, had a plan to save and redeem.  Where's Joseph's saving plan was limited to 2 nations and was temporal only, Jesus' salvation is for all the world, which Egypt and Israel symbolically representing Gentiles and Jews, 

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (that done in the body by the hands of men) — remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. 

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. (Eph. 2:11-17)

Jesus saves any who confess their sins and believe him to be Lord - Jew or gentile makes no difference.  He is gracious to those who offend him and calls them to life.  He is God.  And like Joseph, everything will be brought into subjection to Christ as Hebrews testifies,

You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor and put everything under his feet.” In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him. (Hebrews 2:7-8)

The Old Testament truly points to Jesus and the grace he brings.  Each and every story carries an incipient form of the gospel so that we may be directed to the one who has the power to overcome sin and death.  In fact these are good words to end with from the mouth of Jesus himself, 

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)