He so Loved
When Joseph was only seventeen years old, he was betrayed by his brothers who sold him to merchants for silver. The merchants sold him as a slave in Egypt where he was stripped naked, tempted, and then suffered false accusation and unjust imprisonment. Throughout all of these experiences, from the time he reached Egypt until his liberation from prison, Joseph was never cut off from the spirit of God. He knew the Lord’s presence, His thoughts and purposes of the heart and, even in prison, Joseph grew in his ability to discern and receive wisdom from the Lord. When Pharaoh, the king of Egypt saw how Joseph prayed and was able to interpret his dream and give council about upcoming famine, he recognized God’s Spirit in Joseph. Out of gratitude, Pharaoh gave him an Egyptian wife named Asenath. Her name has a distinct meaning in the Egyptian language; but, in Joseph’s language of Hebrew, Asenath means “to suffer harm” and comes from the noun for thorn bush.
In both name and ethnicity, having been born into the regime that oppressed him, Joseph’s wife represents the pain of his past. Many people who endure difficulty dissociate from the pain in order to survive it. In Joseph’s marriage, we see the opposite: a willingness to integrate all facets of his experience and accept the harm he endured. He had been wounded by those closest to him and mistreated by those in power; but Joseph also knew God’s presence that never left, failed, or forsook him. So he was able to receive and be intimately acquainted with Asenath in a way that proved fruitful; she bore him two sons. This precious sweetness of new life, like berries emerging from a brier of thorns, caused Joseph to flourish so completely that when his brothers finally came to Egypt for help, he forgave and blessed them. Joseph’s father, Jacob, in turn adopted the children Joseph had with Asenath, those born from their union of suffering and love, as his own. (Genesis 48:5)
This reconciled family grew to be so expansive and blessed that the new pharaoh saw them as a threat. It was not only their size in number that scared Pharaoh; it was their power because this people displayed an abundant life born of love. God’s people have always been known for how we love one another: not a love merely given to our own kind, to those with the same values, background, or theology; but one extended to those who have opposing views and theology, to those who have even caused us personal harm. This is the supernatural love that accompanied Jesus when he was on earth: a love for enemies that brings together foul-mouthed men alongside an erudite doctor, and hard-working fisherman with the tax collector who took their wages. This is also how Jesus revealed God’s love among us when He, like Joseph, was betrayed by his brothers for silver and left or dead. He rose from the depths to a height of glory in which He took us - like Asenath - as the Bride of His pain who produces children borne of forgiveness whom the Father adopts as His own.
God’s view is not and never has been narrowly fixed on one particular people but has always been far-reaching and inclusive of those who harmed Him, to us who denied Him, to the world He so loved. The family of Jacob and Joseph, like the family that Jesus birthed for God the Father, was not a simple, purebred people from one lineage, but a group of victims and former oppressors, foreign in-laws, widows and many children born from mixed marriages. This is what scared Pharaoh so much: the freedom of a love that cannot be contained because it blurs lines of division, perpetually causing betraying brothers to be confronted and connected to the other, and making family out of those who were not related or even on the same side of history. He called this people “Hebrews” when ordering that the sons born among them be killed. The name Hebrew comes from a verb that means to traverse or cross a border. I believe that refers not only to traveling a geographic span, but also to the literal crossing-over of races, ethnicities, and cultures from opposite sides of power that this people embodied. Those the Lord came to save were a true (forgive the pun) “cross section” of humanity. May we see ourselves in this number as we look into how the Lord comes alongside to preserve, rescue, and add to those united by His covenant love.
This video reflects further on the fruitfulness and freedom that come from embracing painful parts of ourselves and integrating hard truths about our past. As Baldwin said in his novel Another Country, “Them is always us; they are always we” and “we are all, forever, and every day, part of one another.”
