Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today. (Genesis 50:19-20)
Some of you reading this may remember the bumper sticker religion series we did last year. We looked at a variety of bumper sticker one liners and mostly showed why they tend toward bad theology. This week we will revisit one of the ideas that is often put forth on these poorly worded and often misused phrases: the idea that God makes bad things happen to us and they are actually good, we just can’t see it.
This idea is commonly put forth by people who simply want God to be in charge of everything. There is little evidence that God is directing everything. If so, the Holocaust that started World War II and the nuclear weapons that ended it would be enough for most of us to simply want nothing to do with such a God!
So the verse above where Joseph talks about how God is involved in things is an important one to dissect.
First, God did not want Joseph’s brothers to despise him and want to harm and get rid of him. And God did not direct them to do what they did that put Joseph in Egypt.
But God was still involved in Joseph’s life even though they did. And God is ALWAYS working for good, even when our acts and intentions are bad. God is love – always true. God is good – all the time!
So what we need to remember and take from this week’s message is that God is always loving us into wholeness and working for good, even in our worst moments. God may not direct them, but God doesn’t say, “I wish they hadn’t done that. I quit.” God says, “I wish they hadn’t done this. But we’ll do it the hard way if we have to.”
The cross of Jesus tells us this. Jesus came to be a mortal, knowing that meant he would die. He ministered from God’s vision, even though he knew it would threaten all the things we like about the way things are now and that some people, maybe all people, would find it threatening and want him to stop. And he knew that would lead to a conflict and even death – in his case on a cross.
But God does not stop when the cross comes. Quite the opposite, God uses the cross to remind us that God won’t quit loving us and doing good among us, even when we are at our worst. The risen Christ comes to continue to do good, even when we intend something else! Thanks be to God.
