Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Tuesday of Lent 4 – 2020

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.