So tonight, as we approach the end of Great Lent and move toward Lazarus Saturday, the story given to us from Genesis to meditate upon is the end of the story of Joseph. It’s an amazing story — it takes up a big chunk of Genesis, actually. And nothing in it is more amazing than this concluding statement which Joseph makes to his brothers as he reveals himself to them and realizes just how scared they are at the moment of the revelation of he is.

He says to them: “I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. But now do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.” In other words: what you intended for evil, God used for good. If we look at the story of Joseph from this perspective, well, it’s quite a perspective.

Joseph was, of course, the son of Rachel, and therefore beloved of his father Jacob. His mother had one more son, Benjamin, and then she died. And out of his love for Rachel, Jacob foolishly showed favoritism towards Joseph — made him the coat of many colors, honored him above all his other brothers. And Joseph, righteous child that he was, suffered because of his father’s foolishness.

Joseph is then given by God the gift of dreams, and he tells his father and his brothers that he sees sheaves of wheat representing all of them bowing down before his sheaf, and then the sun and the moon and the stars bowing down before him. His brothers, who are already resentful of their father’s favoritism, are even more angry, more frustrated, more jealous. And Joseph’s youthful zeal for his God-given gift means that this righteous young man suffers.

Then Joseph goes out to look for his brothers, sent by his father. His brothers are out working in the fields and they see Joseph coming: “There’s that dreamer — let’s get rid of him once and for all.” In their jealousy they throw him into a pit, initially intending to kill him, with one of them planning to rescue him before it comes to that. Then, in their greed, they sell him to a band of slave traders who take him down to Egypt.

And so, out of jealousy, out of greed, the righteous Joseph again suffers wrong at the hands of his brothers. His brothers pour blood on his coat of many colours, take it to their father, and tell him that an animal must have torn Joseph apart. And Jacob is heartbroken, believing the lies his sons have told him.

Meanwhile, Joseph is taken down to Egypt and sold as a slave to Potiphar. Because he’s a righteous young man, he works hard and is honest, and Potiphar notices this and raises him up in his household. And he’s just starting to make a go of things as a slave over all the other slaves when Potiphar’s wife takes a liking to him and tries to seduce him. The righteous Joseph says no and flees — but she grabs his cloak and falsely accuses him of having tried to seduce her. And so, because of lust, the righteous Joseph is thrown into prison, again unjustly treated.

In prison he continues, being the righteous young man he is, to work hard and be honest, and comes to the notice of those running the prison, and they put him in charge. And he hears the dreams of Pharaoh’s butler and baker, who are both imprisoned because of some misunderstanding. And he interprets the dreams for them: he tells one of them they’re going to die, and the other: “You’re going to be restored — please remember me.” But because of the forgetfulness of the one restored to Pharaoh’s favor, Joseph continues to languish unjustly in prison.

I want us to stop there for a moment and think about this. From the perspective of Joseph, who is in the middle of the story and has no idea how it’s going to end, this just isn’t fair. Nothing’s working out right. He’s suffering at the hands of all sorts of people, wrongly and unjustly. He’s being faithful to God, and nothing but bad things seem to be happening to him as a result.

Then, of course, Pharaoh has a dream, and the one Joseph told would be delivered suddenly remembers: “Oh yes, there’s a man in prison who knows how to interpret dreams.” He recommends that Pharaoh speak with Joseph. Joseph is cleaned up, brought before Pharaoh, and says, “I can’t tell you the dream — but God can, the God whom I worship and serve (even though he seems to have done nothing for me up to this point). He can interpret the dream for you.”

And he tells Pharaoh that the seven blasted ears of corn that eat up the seven good ears mean seven years of famine following seven years of plenty — as do the skeletal cows that devour the fat ones. What Pharaoh should do is collect a portion of the grain during the years of plenty, store it up, and have someone he trusts oversee its distribution. Pharaoh says, “Good idea. You’re my man.” And he raises Joseph up to be second only to Pharaoh in all the land.

But Joseph still can’t go home — he’s still, in a sense, trapped. Then his brothers come down to Egypt. They have no idea who this Egyptian is, who understands their speech even though they don’t know it. He questions them, realizes his father is still alive, but can’t quite entrust himself to his brothers who already tried to kill him. So he gives them the grain, sneaks the money back into their sacks, and sends them away saying: “If you want to come back, make sure you bring your youngest brother, who didn’t come with you this time.” His brothers say they’ll try, though they’re not sure their father will let Benjamin go.

Eventually they use up everything they bought from Egypt, and, because they’re starving again, they finally convince their father that they’ll have to bring Benjamin. And then — there’s a little more to the story, but the point that we’ve gotten to here is the moment when Joseph sees his brother Benjamin, whom he hasn’t seen in all these years. He can barely contain himself. He goes and weeps in another room, cleans himself up, comes out, and has a feast set before them in order of their ages — which they haven’t told him — so they’re all a little unsettled by what’s going on. And then finally he reveals himself to them.

Now, in Joseph — just as we see much later in Lazarus — we have a revelation of all that God is doing in all the things that he does that seem unjust, unfair, wrong. Why should we bother being good?

Lazarus’s sisters come to Jesus weeping: “Lord, if only you had been here, he wouldn’t have died. This didn’t need to happen. We know you can heal the sick — why aren’t you doing this for us?”

And the answer is that in all these apparent evils — in the favoritism, in the youthful indiscretion, in the jealousy, in the greed, in the lust, in the forgetfulness, even in death itself — God is at work for the righteous, for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. And what he works in and through those faithful ones, what he can work in and through us as we are faithful, is a manifestation of his goodness, of his glory, of his power to save us and to save all those around us.

And our job, like Joseph’s job, is actually pretty simple: be faithful, be honourable, do not despair or lose heart, do whatever is set before you with all your might. And, as we live in this way that God has set before us, as we live out the calling to be men and women of integrity, of honour, of truthfulness, faithful to God — God is, and always will be, at work in all the things we experience: in all the injustice and all the blessings, in all the misjudgments and all the honour. He is at work for our good as we live out our calling to love him and to be those he has called us to be, according to his good pleasure.

Scripture readings referenced:

* Genesis 43:26-31, 45:1-16

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