Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra was born on May 12, 1925 in St. Louis, Missouri. He died at age 90, September 22, 2015 in West Caldwell, New Jersey.
Yogi was a Hall of Fame baseball catcher, manager and coach. He played 19 seasons, all but the last one, with the New York Yankees. As famous as he was on the field, Yogi is best remembered for the things he said. “Baseball is 90% mental,” he said, “the other half is physical.” “When you come to a fork in the road,” he said, “take it.” Or how about this one, “You can observe a lot by just watching.”
But among all the Yogi-isms there’s one that is used more often, and by a wider set of people. It goes like this, “It ain’t over till it’s over.” And, it’s hard to argue with that!
It was 1973 and the National League pennant race was in full swing. His team was a long way behind when he first said it. They eventually did rally to win the division title. There’s something elegantly simple about those six words.
It tells people to wait and not make a snap judgment because a struggle or prospective defeat might turn around. Linguistically it’s a tautology that tells you nothing about the word when taken literally. What it does is remind you that there’s hope. It’s a Dunkirk spirit. In its various spellings, you can find Berra’s phrase well over half a million times on Google. At the top of the rankings is the Lenny Kravitz song that uses it as a title. The song insists that a certain love affair still has a spark in it.
It pops up in a bewildering array of places, from a scientific paper on Darwinian theory, to the 2006 comeback of Rocky Balboa. It’s been said by White House officials, the mayor of New York City, countless sportsmen and sportswomen. And we use it this week as the title to a message on the end of Genesis 47.
Here Jacob is standing before Pharaoh when Pharaoh asks him, “How many are the days of the years of your life?” Jacob’s answer is a withering, wearying 2 sentences. The fact that the writer records what he says and attributes it to Jacob is proof positive that his old human nature is speaking. He sounds as though he’s going to die. The truth is that he has another 17 years to live. And it’s in those 17 years that he performs one of his greatest works for the Kingdom of God.
We are going to look at all of this on Sunday as we dig into Genesis 47:7-12, 23-31. We will analyze the PERSPECTIVE of Jacob, the PRINCIPLE of Joseph, and the PROMISE of God. And through it all we will see, with clarity, the heart of God.
In preparation for Sunday, you may wish to consider the following:
1. Someone has said, “When God measures a person He doesn’t put a tape around the head, He puts it around the heart.” Do you agree?
2. What does God mean in I Samuel 16:7?
3. How does Joseph demonstrate this?
4. What does Jacob mean when he says the years of his life have been “few and evil”?
5. Do you think he’s whining about his age?
6. How old is he when he dies? How about Pharaoh?
7. What’s his reason for saying this to Pharaoh?
8. Why does Joseph institute this “tax” in verses 23 & 24?
9. How does this reflect the character of God?
10. Why does Joseph’s father ask him to put his hand under his thigh?
See you Sunday!
