Blessing (Genesis 38-40, Mark 15)

How can God bring blessing through this crowd? Genesis 38 is fairly bleak reading, as we read through Genesis, and the Bible as a whole, we discover that everyone (except Jesus) falls short.

Having said that, Joseph is a wonderful example of integrity. I think someone gave a helpful definition of integrity as what you are when no one else is looking. Joseph scores high, as Potiphar’s wife approached him, he surely could have thought, I deserve a bit of comfort, she is my boss, this could be good for my career, no one needs to know. And yet, because he feared God, he told her ‘no’.

Look where that lands him, prison! But the Lord was with him, it’s better to have the Lord with you in hardship, than no hardship and no Lord with you. And just as he brought blessing to the Egyptian household, now he brings blessing in an Egyptian prison.

Joseph would not have chosen the suffering, but God was going to use Joseph to save many lives.

In our gospel reading, we see Jesus (the true hero in the line of Judah) chose suffering, he remained silent rather than defend himself. Three times, Mark tells us that Jesus predicted his death, it was no accident. He deliberately chose to step into Barabbas’ place. And He is willing to step into your place as well. He was forsaken so you don’t have to be. The result of his death is that the curtain in the temple is ripped in two, from too to bottom. The curtain was an enormous ‘no entry’ sign. It told sinful people that they could not come into God’s presence, yet when Jesus died, it was ripped from top to bottom, from God to man. God was saying, because of the sacrifice of my beloved Son, your sin can be taken, and so you can come into the very presence of God! Here is the way God brings blessing to the nations.