24 March 2020
Text: Gen 43:1-28
In the name of +
Jesus. Amen.
God’s
plan is good, and it is grounded in His mercy and His love. But from our perspective, it doesn’t always
seem that way. In fact, God sometimes
appears to us to be cruel, or arbitrary, or even out of control. It seems like there is senseless suffering and
pointless events that just look like chaos.
This
is captured in the narrative of Joseph, whose jealous brothers sold him into
slavery. And from there, he was falsely
accused and imprisoned. Year after year
went by, and innocent Joseph suffered because of his brothers’ wickedness. And Joseph continued to serve God and His
neighbor to the best of his ability, even though it must have been unspeakably
frustrating and baffling to him.
But
God was with him, and he rose to become the governor of Egypt.
His
father and his brothers faced famine in their homeland, and they went to the breadbasket
of the region: Egypt. And again, God was
with Joseph and with his father Jacob, and yes, even with his wicked brothers. For God had a plan for their survival. And from this family would come the New and Greater
Joseph, our Lord Jesus Christ, whose life is previewed by the suffering and the
service of Joseph, the savior of his people.
In
order to see his younger brother Benjamin (who was jealously protected by his
father Jacob), Joseph pretended to suspect his brothers of being spies, and
demanded to see Benjamin to check out their story. He also had money planted into the bags to
give them a scare. And when the grain
ran out back home, as “the famine was severe in the land,” their father sent
them back to Egypt buy more food. Reluctantly,
he allowed young Benjamin to accompany his brothers.
The
sons of Jacob were very much afraid of Joseph’s wrath, unaware that he was the
brother they had betrayed years ago. And
when they were summoned to Joseph’s house, they feared the worst. Their minds raced, as they went through the
worst-case scenario: being accused of theft, being assaulted and sold into
slavery, and having their donkeys stolen. Clearly, they still felt guilt and shame for
their crime against Joseph, and they feared that what they had done would be
done to them.
But
they could not have been more wrong, dear friends! This was all part of God’s plan to save their
old father, to preserve the lives of their wives and children, to keep the nation
alive by moving them to the fertile lands of Goshen, and to reconcile them with
their brother and forgive their sins! It
is when we think that God must have abandoned us, when our minds race through
the worst-case scenario, that we surely must trust that what seems to be bad
for us is actually good! We don’t know
the future, but our merciful Lord is the author of the future!
Though
we cannot see the meaning of our suffering in the present, our suffering is never
meaningless or arbitrary. God’s plan is
unknown to us, and so we must pray for faith: faith to endure, and faith to
trust. And in time, His will shall be
revealed, and His mercy shall be manifest, and the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ
shall stand as a beacon – not of mindless suffering, but of love and hope and
forgiveness and everlasting life!
In
times of suffering, we are called upon to lift our eyes heavenward, to pray
that God’s will be done, and to rejoice even in our sufferings, for our Lord Jesus
Christ took the suffering of the cross and reconciled us to God. And only after the blessings have been poured
out generously upon us will the suffering of this present time make sense. Let us, like Joseph’s brothers, hear these
words: “Peace to you, do not be afraid.”
Amen.
In the name of the Father
and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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