Religion & Spirituality
If there is one aspect of the human experience that we all have in common, it is that of difficulty and pain in life. Every single one of us has experienced hurt either by the hands or the words of other people. Those wounds go deep and they stick with us for a lifetime. Every one of us feels the pain of a frail body. The effects of aging or the destructive power of sickness weigh heavily on us. This text begins the story of one who had every reason to ask, “Where is God?” It’s a story of how a 17-year old kid is betrayed by his very own brothers and sent into slavery. It’s one thing to be hurt by a boss or a co-worker or maybe even a close friend. But the wounds from a member of your own family go deep. What are we to do when the wounds go deep when we are scared, and wondering how God could possibly be part of whatever it is that we are going through? We enter deep into the story of Joseph because it is in the story of Joseph that we see the redemptive work of God in the midst of our pain and suffering. Ironically, our text this morning doesn’t even mention the Lord, but it doesn’t mean that his fingerprint isn’t all over these words.