Forsaken

Mark 15:34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

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York Minister

Why would God the Father forsake Jesus, the Son of God? 

I find it interesting that today I published a blog consisting of a passage that's been sitting in my drafts from reading Exodus. The interesting thing is the contrast with this passage in Mark. Many have noted over the years that in every way Jesus is the perfect Israel. Jesus is the obedient son. Jesus kept the law fully as no man or woman had ever done and he did this without stumbling once. He is faultless in all ways. 

Yet here on the cross he is forsaken by the Father. Here on the cross Jesus assumes the position of the guilty. Jesus is suffering the full wrath of God. He faces death, mocking, torture rejection. But further, where we can not observe, Jesus is carrying the weight of our sin. All the evil of humanity past, present, and future is crushing Jesus. All the guilt, all the fear, all the pain is rending God's soul. 

Somehow Jesus the God man is actually suffering so that we can be made free. He is punished so we can be accepted and more than accepted we are imputed, attributed and blessed with the merit of his righteousness. 

Till the moment he dies it seems all humanity is hurling upon Jesus scorn, mocking, and abuse because he had made himself vulnerable. 

When in fact he is the all powerful, all knowing, compassionate, merciful, gracious, exacting, just judge of all mankind. 

And after he dies there on the cross people say he must be the Son of God. 

Why this change? 

Maybe we see it partially in Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph it says was looking for the Kingdom of God. This small commentary on the man who buries Jesus I believe is meant to say he found what he was looking for in Jesus. Joseph wasn't running away like the disciples earlier, nor standing at a distance like the women. Joseph found courage on Jesus' death. We too can find courage in the obedient son's ultimate act of courage. We can identify and let Jesus' death in fact be our own. When Joseph places Jesus in his tomb could it be he is saying this man died in my place so I have nothing to fear and no need to further prepare for my own death. 

Jesus had done it all. 

Mark 15

The Crucifixion

21And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. 22And they brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull).23And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. 24And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take. 25And it was the third hour when they crucified him. 26And the inscription of the charge against him read, "The King of the Jews." 27And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. 29And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, "Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, 30save yourself, and come down from the cross!" 31So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, "He saved others; he cannot save himself. 32Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we maysee and believe." Those who were crucified with him also reviled him.

The Death of Jesus

33And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" 35And some of the bystanders hearing it said, "Behold, he is calling Elijah." 36And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down." 37And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. 38And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. 39And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, "Truly this man was the Son of God!"

40There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. 41When he was in Galilee, they followed him and ministered to him, and there were also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.

Jesus Is Buried

42And when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, 43Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the Council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.44Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died. And summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. 45And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. 46And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. 47Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid.

Big up the underdog

Genesis 48:14-20 ESV

And Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on the head of Ephraim, who was the younger, and his left hand on the head of Manasseh, crossing his hands (for Manasseh was the firstborn). And he blessed Joseph and said, "The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the boys; and in them let my name be carried on, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth." When Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him, and he took his father's hand to move it from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's head. And Joseph said to his father, "Not this way, my father; since this one is the firstborn, put your right hand on his head." But his father refused and said, "I know, my son, I know. He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great. Nevertheless, his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his offspring shall become a multitude of nations." So he blessed them that day, saying, "By you Israel will pronounce blessings, saying, "God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh." Thus he put Ephraim before Manasseh.

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We used to play a card game called scum in our church youth group.  The game is arranged so it is nearly impossible to get out of fictional poverty. While those at the top in places of competitive privilege had to be pretty poor players to lose their position. Real life is life that.

But God seems to regularly break with convention. This isn't the first time that God chooses the younger over the older nor will it be the last.

You'd think of all the people who'd have understood the difficulties of challenging family and social conventions Jacob (Israel) and Joseph would have understood.  Maybe that's why Joseph tries to correct what he perceives as his father's error. Remember Jacob is younger than Esau but Jacob got the birthright and blessing. Joseph was nearly the youngest and he got the coat of many colours. Further Joseph is a former slave, he's on the sex offenders list (albeit wrongly accused), and he's an ex convict. You really would not have put that on your CV to apply to be head of finance, agriculture, refugee relocation and disaster relief planning. Nor would you expect a foreigner born into a family whose livelihood of shepherding was considered an abomination in Egypt to be second in government.  The media would have had a hay day with that list and his ratings in the poles would have plummeted.

But God loves to turn the tables and break with convention. He loves to show that he's the one who sets people up and brings them down.

Maybe you feel like you're stuck at the bottom of the heap. Maybe you feel like there is no way at all that you'd ever qualify did any thing good any more.

Humble yourself under God and he will be working out a role reversal for you. He says he'll lift you up. Broken, tainted, at the back of the queue people are God's favourite people to bless. Number two or number 202 God's plan is to promote you to Jesus' side, effectively in the heavenly cabinet.

Missed the grade? Prepare for blessing!

God tried to kill you!

Genesis 45:4-9, 24 ESV

So Joseph said to his brothers, "Come near to me, please." And they came near. And he said, "I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. 

So it was not you who sent me here, but God. 

He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, "Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me; do not tarry.

Then he sent his brothers away, and as they departed, he said to them, "Do not quarrel on the way."

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Joseph has not had an easy life. But even though he could be full of bitterness and desire revenge against his brothers, he reassures them. There is no question that Joseph's brothers did a despicable thing throwing him into the well and selling him into slavery. And then lying to their father about Joseph's death really was evil. The brothers could have looked for Joseph since they saw the pain it caused their father. Truly Joseph and his brothers were like enemies. But Joseph became a powerful ruler of Egypt for nine years. And he held his brother in prison for one year. During that time his father could have died. Joseph for more than eight or nine years did not seem to have urgency about seeing his father. And that does not include the many more years in the house of Potiphar or in jail. Surely Joseph could have got word to his family that he was still alive.

As I've said the brothers don't go looking for Joseph and he doesn't try to contact them. So I'm not sure what Joseph was trying to do with the elaborate plan to put the money back in the grain sacks. I don't think we can assume that holding his brother in prison for a year wasn't Joseph planning revenge. But seeing his brother may have changed his mind. Now he wants to see his brother and his father. Could it be that during the meal, while Joseph sees his younger brother, God reveals to him the whole picture. It could be that Joseph knew all this all along and it was necessary that God establish Joseph as a crucial person of  importance in Egypt as the famine rolls along for the second year. I don't know how or when Joseph came to it but ultimately he hits upon the idea that God was in his brother's betrayal. In fact God used all his hardship to save him and his family. 

Could it be that like Joseph, God is the one saving you by making family members your enemies?

Could it be that you were given that promotion and the boss's wife came on to you only to put you in jail? Could it be God's plan that you have suffered slander? Could that sex-crazed liar be God's way of getting you closer to a position of salvation?

Did you ever think that being forgotten by the people you have helped is God's way of making sure you are in the right place at the right time?

Could this crisis facing the world right now God's way of saving his people?

Could it be that god tried to kill you via your brothers just to save all of you?

As the flood of emotion breaks loose with this odd family reunion, Joseph declares the purposes of God are found in the most hurtful of life situations. In the disappointments, in the betrayals and moments of being forgotten, God is working out his plan to save!

In my life I look back to these moments and I fail to see God! I'm pretty sure I'm not alone. And I'm not even sure Joseph always saw it. But here and now he does see it. He has compassion on his brothers. He loads them down with a windfall of gifts to convince his father that he is still alive! 

Put yourself in Jacob's shoes. Sooner or later you'd think he's going to know the whole real story, and who is going to blamed for the many years of deep grief. In the end he has no one to point the finger more than God.

Yet it was for his salvation. This was all God's plan. God was rescuing his people. But far more than the famine (which also came from God's hand) could it be that we can see even further? Can we see God is working out the plan to save mankind from the one thing that is of their own making? All this has been worked out by God to save you from sin! To save you and to save me from our own sin. The one thing we get a choice in, the one thing we can control is our love and recognition of God and we fail at this miserably, even when we know better. So God is going to use our sin to ultimately save us. Our murderous intentions will kill the one innocent man who will die in our place. And as Jesus dies he will say Father forgive them for they know not what they do.

Joseph's brothers have won the lotto! They are getting to move to the best land in the richest country in the world. They are loaded with royal gifts. They are riding in style. They have a royal invitation from the very people who wouldn't before sit and eat with them. They have a royal pardon for treason, treachery, and the murderous intentions they've harbored these many years. During this time of famine they have a harvest of goods unbelievable even in the best of times. And why? Because the one they intended to harm, the one they condemned to death, the one they mocked and maligned has forgiven them and blessed them beyond their wildest dreams.

We don't take to salvation very readily. We look the gift horse of grace in the mouth and we still find a way to argue with our brothers. So the man who has suffered to save us, has to still tell us to not quarrel along the way. 

Fruitful in the Land of my Affliction

GEN 41:51-52 ESV

Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh. "For," he said, "God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father's house."  The name of the second he called Ephraim, "For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction."

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Joseph has had it hard. He was singled out by his father as the most loved of 12 boys. That's gotta hurt! The whole robe thing is embarrassing. He's sent by his Father to effectively be a nark and check up on his brothers. That's not going to make you popular. Then God gives Joseph these dreams that no one wants to hear, not even his father. He's tossed in a deep hole and then sold to his cousins as a slave and in turn sold in Egypt. Joseph does well though until a sex crazed woman lies about him. And He's tossed into another pit, jail. And again he does well and even gets a big break with the cupbearer to Pharaoh, only to be forgotten for another two years. So when Joseph is 30 he has a huge life change and comes into fame and fortune! And he is railroaded into marrying the daughter of a false religion's leader.

But Joseph makes the best of the situation and gets busy! Now he has two sons. Joseph's son's names are significant. In fact when the twelve tribes of Israel are named throughout all history you will not hear Joseph himself named. Instead you hear of Joseph's sons! Have you ever thought about the fact that built into the twelve tribes of Israel are two half Egyptian grandson's to the high priest of an Egyptian god? 

Sometimes we need another perspective. And nothing can quite give us a new vantage point like a newborn baby. All that a newborn encapsulates fills us with hope. They are needy, vulnerable, and full of possibility and still they are resilient and demanding.

Joseph sees a new future when God blesses him with sons. And the blessing erases the past and provides for the future.

Now I'd like to encourage each one of you to have sons! But I mean spiritual sons! You are not too old, too single, too afflicted to ask God to make your faith fruitful. What your church needs are new believers. What your family needs is someone who has newly come to trust Jesus. We need in the church today the hope that comes with people being born again. Wherever you are, whatever your state in life, I'm asking you to pray that God makes you fruitful! I'm asking that you hope for newborns in the kingdom of God. And I pray as they come you give them names, may be new names. In addition to brother or sister call them Hope! Name them Ephraim! 

As time goes on and God speaks of his people, he uses different tribes to refer to the whole or called them all Israel after Jacob's name change. When heartbroken over his people God's term of endearment in the book of Hosea is Ephraim. So an Egyptian boy whose grandfather was a very important religious leader for an Egyptian god and his other grandfather was a man who actually wrestled with the one true God of promise. Ephraim, the son of Joseph is a sign of fruitfulness that comes from affliction.

Go in, listen to , lie beside, be with

Genesis 38:7-10 ESV

But Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord , and the Lord put him to death. Then Judah said to Onan, "Go in to your brother's wife and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother." But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his. So whenever he went in to his brother's wife he would waste the semen on the ground, so as not to give offspring to his brother. And what he did was wicked in the sight of the Lord , and he put him to death also.

Genesis 39:5-10 ESV

From the time that he made him overseer in his house and over all that he had the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake; the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had, in house and field. So he left all that he had in Joseph's charge, and because of him he had no concern about anything but the food he ate. Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. And after a time his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, "Lie with me." But he refused and said to his master's wife, "Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her.

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I won't pretend to have all the answers when it comes to understanding these chapters in Genesis (38-39).
However there are hints and themes that point us towards God's intent.

May I remind you that proliferation of the human race has been job one since man's creation. And although the blessing of offspring has been particularly promised to Abraham's family that promise has required a lot of faith. And proliferation when it does happen seems to be mired in family conflict, deceit, and immorality.

But the key to gaining clarity in this mottled ancestry is to look for God, and God's promise. Who is trusting God even when it appears to be counter productive in realising the promise. See God comes before even the promise. Hearken back to Abraham and Isaac with the lamb. Our experience of blessing should never need to be at the cost of God's glory. We can be faithful to God without forcing our self interest at the cost of regard for God's word.

To be honest I don't have all the answers about these two chapters. But I know that we are meant to notice the contrast. Two of Judah's sons are killed by God. Joseph is blessed. But it's not quite that simple. Joseph is a slave. Joseph is in Egypt. Joseph has no children.
Judah's sons Er and Onan are wicked and they are not blessed.
Judah, Er, Onan, and Joseph all have to make a choice about sex. Only Joseph's abstinence policy is blessed. But again blessing includes prison, slander, and loss. In Joseph's life the way up is very much down.
The Lord blessed Joseph's regard for God's way. Judah, Er, and Onan did not consider God's plan.

Do you?
Are you willing to be blessed while in prison, slandered for doing right, or sold into slavery because you are relating God's plan revealed to you?

Ultimately this is a story about Jesus. Can you see Jesus? How would Jesus explain his Father's plan to rescue the world through his humiliation and  death in these few chapters of Genesis?