Although the title reads more like a shopping list, today I
“saw” a connection between two Bible stories, and a deeper understanding of
what they might teach us about God’s long range plans for good—always. The first
story, made famous in Joseph and the
Amazing Technicolor Coat, traces some unpleasant family history among Jacob’s
12 sons. The second describes Jesus healing
and then feeding 5,000 with just five loaves and two fish, the only miracle
that appears in all gospels.
As a child,
I learned about the eleven mean brothers
who almost literally “threw their brother under the bus,” an evil deed
motivated by jealousy, it seems. Beginning
the tale in Genesis 37, is the information that Jacob favors his youngest son, Joseph,
not a healthy, family dynamic. Then Joseph talks about his dreams with sheaves
and stars bowing down to him. His
brothers “envied him” (Gen. 37:11), and when Jacob sends Joseph out to them as
they mind the sheep, they seize this opportunity to kill him. Murder gets upgraded to abandonment, and
Joseph lands in an empty pit. Thus begin
years of hardship and imprisonment until God “promotes” Joseph, putting him in
the right place at the right time.
The
Pharaoh of Egypt hears a prisoner can interpret his dreams about cows and corn,
and he sends for Joseph. The gift God
had given him enables Joseph to predict seven years of plenty in Egypt to be
followed by seven years of famine. Wisely,
he suggests storing up the abundance for the coming years of scarcity. Pharaoh decides Joseph, the interpreter, is the
perfect man to supervise the job. This
time his gift from God elevates Joseph to a position to do good instead of
imprisoning him because of others’ jealousy.
Fast
forward to Joseph’s famished brothers coming from Canaan to Egypt seeking food
but not knowing their little brother is now Pharaoh’s right hand man. Who knows how God fashioned into Joseph,
despite years of captivity and misery, a willingness to reveal his identity to
his brothers and forgive them, but that is what Joseph does. With Godly
perspective, Joseph declares, “ . . . you meant evil against me, but God meant
it for good . . . to save many people alive” (Gen. 50:20).
Evil
treatment is part of the loaves and fish miracle, too. When Jesus hears about his cousin, John the
Baptist, getting beheaded after being unjustly imprisoned, he withdraws “to a
deserted place by Himself” (John 14:13).
However, the multitudes follow Him.
Jesus is then “moved with compassion for them, and (He) healed their
sick” (vs.14). This takes some time, and
all these people get hungry. One young
lad innocently presents five barley loaves and two small fish (John 6:9). Despite the disciples’ objection to His
assurance this would feed 5,000 people, Jesus blesses the offering of so
little, and God multiplies it, yielding more leftovers than the original
amount.
In both
stories, the wicked ways of people, their jealousies and smallness of mind and
heart, are fully displayed. However,
God’s intention was to be working good, not just for one but for many. Joseph allowed God to fashion in him
perseverance, character and hope, the painful process Paul describes in Romans
5, a process beginning with experiencing tribulations. How grievous it must have been when Jesus
heard of John’s fate. But instead of
questioning God’s goodness or spouting supposedly comforting generalizations, Jesus
healed the people who came to Him and then provided lunch as well. He ministered in the power of God to the
people of God who followed after Him. He
wasn’t overcome by evil, but overcame the “evil with good” (Romans 12:21) as
God enabled Him to do so. Surely, there
are lessons to be learned in these timeless stories about good and evil, power
and love, and what the real work of God’s people should be.
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