Good morning! From up here, some of you are looking just a bit blurry-eyed…I suspect you were in one of those Friday midnight lines at Barnes and Noble, waiting for the 7th Harry Potter book to come out!

Actually, someone sent us a copy of the book as a gift, and it came via UPS yesterday. The UPS driver said that delivering the Harry Potter books was basically the only reason he was working that day. He had an entire truck full of single Harry Potter books! So before the kids grabbed it, I just thumbed through it until the end, here, let me read you the last paragraph…just kidding!

It is quite a phenomenon, isn’t it? When the first book came out 10 years ago, the first printing was for 50,000 copies. Now for the seventh and final book, just the first printing is for 12 million copies, the vast majority of which will sell in the first 24 hours. Amazing. Would that we had such energy and passion for other things as well.

Well, this morning we turn once again to the #1 best-selling book of all-time, the Bible. We have been making our way through the stories of Genesis in these last months, working our way through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and then last week starting the stories of Joseph.

If you were here, you’ll remember that we talked about how God seemed to deal with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob very directly. But now in the Joseph series, while God is still present, it tends to be in far more subtle ways, ways we must be very attentive to. In last week’s text, Joseph, the 11th of the 12 sons of Jacob, had been betrayed by his envious brothers, stripped of the coat of many colors that proved his father’s favoritism, thrown into a well, and then sold as a slave to a passing caravan.

Read: Genesis 39

Down. Joseph has gone down, down, down. He’s only 17 years old, for goodness sake. But ever since he dared tell his brothers (bragged??), and his dad, Jacob about his dreams…the ones where they all bow “down” before him…things have gotten darker and darker and he’s slipped further and further down. His brothers threw him down a dry well while they decided what to do with him. They eventually sold him as a slave, and he was taken down to Egypt. Notice it’s always “down” to Egypt.

Now, if you’re like me, when you look at map, if you travel south you’re going down. But Egypt is more than a place on a map. Egypt is down. Literally down, spiritually down. In Egypt they don’t believe in the God of heaven and earth. Centuries later, the Israelites will again go “down” to Egypt, and be held in slavery for hundreds of years. Egypt is the place of darkness, imprisonment, sin, the flesh.

“Joseph was taken down to Egypt.” His brothers wash their hands of him. His father thinks he is dead. He is totally and 100% alone. No one is coming to his rescue.

• He is Jonah, stuck down in the belly of a whale.
• He is the prophet Jeremiah, tossed down an empty well.
• He is the apostle Paul, thrown down several times into prison.

“Joseph was taken down to Egypt” as a slave.

Why? What did he do? Sure, perhaps he was a little arrogant with his brothers, sure, perhaps he played a little “dad likes me best” with his coat, but my goodness. Sent alone down to Egypt in slavery? That hardly seems just. Where on earth is God? Why would He allow something like this?! Joseph was taken down to Egypt. The Lord was with Joseph.

Joseph’s fortunes improve momentarily. He’s sold to Potiphar, a high-ranking Egyptian official. Everything he does is right, and his master trusts him with everything he has. But then Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce Joseph. Repeatedly.

This should not put you off, no matter what gender you are. Potiphar’s wife is clearly the villain here. But the book of Genesis is remarkably fair when it comes to balancing the gender of the unsavory characters. We haven’t been able to read every story in Genesis. But in the chapters leading up to this one, outside of the Joseph story, there are stories involving both rape and incest, with guilty men everywhere.

When it comes right down to it, Genesis reads like something of a soap opera. Rape, incest, seduction, deceit. Which means, I guess, that it is discouragingly true to life.

But Joseph is a bright spot. Here he is, in a high place of the Egyptian society, winning the favor of his master, playing the game right. He’s living in the middle of an empire, the mighty Egyptian empire, he’s in the middle of a pagan culture, playing by their rules…yet he stays true to who he is. There is a line that he will not cross. There is a line that even as he “engages the culture” he cannot step over.

When the seductress beckons, Joseph says no! Repeatedly. He articulates why:

• it’s wrong on principle
• wrong to Potiphar
• wrong before God

Now, if Joseph had caved in here, we probably wouldn’t have been too surprised. He would just join thousands and millions of others, you know. Men fall to sexual temptation, live or electronic, thought life or physical, all over the place, all the time. Pastors, teachers, business people. It’s an epidemic. But Joseph resists. Joseph was taken down to Egypt. The Lord was with Joseph.

Yet even when the Lord is with him, still he is pursued, and when he flees the house to get away, Potiphar’s wife feels spurned and vengeful. She lies to her husband, who has Joseph thrown down even further, down into jail.

How unjust! Here Joseph acts with integrity, and he’s even lower than he was. Now he’s down in Egypt, and down in prison. That hardly seems just. Why would God allow something like this?! In fact, where on earth is God? Joseph was taken down to Egypt. The Lord was with Joseph.

I know you’ve felt like this. Some of you do right now. In these last ten days, we’ve several folks in and around Bethany die. A number of us have found ourselves in the midst of extremely painful situations. Even when we’ve done everything right. And we cry out. It isn’t just. How could God let this happen? Where is God?

Joseph is not the only innocent person mistreated, or thrown unjustly in prison. Let me mention a couple others.

When I was in China several years ago now, we spent time with Pastor Moses, a man in his eighties who had spent twenty-four years in jail for being a nonconformist pastor. Moses had been beaten, manacled to the point of debilitation, had his wife and children and house taken away.

I asked him at dinner one night: “Where was God?”

And Moses said essentially “God was with me.”

He said he thought often about Jesus’ insistence on turning the other cheek, and upon Matthew 10, “take up your cross and follow me.”

This is what Moses thought about in prison.

Joseph was taken down to Egypt. The Lord was with Joseph.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor who was arrested by the Nazis in WWII, and eventually executed just before the war ended.

While being held in a number of prisons and concentration camps, he was sometimes able to write. And he once wrote these words about what he was learning:

“We have for once learnt to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled – in short, from the perspective of those who suffer…”

We have learned to see world events from down below.

Joseph was taken down to Egypt. The Lord was with Joseph.

Prison, darkness, persecution, suffering, illness. Those circumstances destroy many people. For others it seems to bring an almost divine clarity, even an adrenaline. The difference seems to me to be this: The Lord was with Joseph. It changes everything. It doesn’t fix everything. But it changes everything. If the Lord is with Joseph in prison, in Egypt, everything is different.

Wallace Stevens was a 20th century American poet who once wrote a poem called the Anecdote of the Jar that gives a good picture of this, I think:

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion every where.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

Interesting, isn’t it? The presence, the mere presence of the jar on the hill changed the entire wilderness area. It was different. Not entirely, but strongly. Just the presence. The Lord was with Joseph. There. In prison. In Egypt. That changed everything.

So. Where does this part of Joseph’s story leave us? Here’s four quick thoughts.

1. It would seem clear that God has not whisked his people away from living in a very broken, danger-filled world.

Egypt, Potiphar’s house, prison, we find ourselves in exactly these down places. The strategy is not to remove ourselves or hole up somewhere safer. Remember Jesus’ words Todd read earlier? “Count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me.”

2. It is often those down times which seem truly to mold us, to shape us, don’t they?

We seem to be wired that way. If I’m honest, the most cutting edge, growing up, maturing times in my life have been times of difficulty and crises, times of hard decisions. Times when I’ve been forced to look hard for God, to see if indeed he is with me.

Part of the way we know God’s presence in these times is through the presence of God’s people. I mentioned it’s been a tough week or two around Bethany. But I have been so encouraged to watch the Bethany community come around folks in recent weeks who have lost moms, spouses, parents this week, to see people rallying around others who have broken bones and had their lives turned upside down. Homegroups, friends, deacons, neighbors. Verbalized or not, the words echo out: “Even here, God is with you!”

3. Knowing God was with him gave Joseph some staying power.

I like that. When he found himself down in the dumps, he had the choice to give up, or to dig deeper. It seems like he dug deeper. Acted on what he knew was right, regardless of the consequences. Regardless of the empire. Became like the tree in Psalm 1, planted by streams of water.

4. It seems that one way or another, God (and only God) is in the business of redeeming things. Us included.

Philip Yancey once had a friend who was in a hard time: adult children in trouble, sleepless night, attorney fees, a battle with cancer. Nothing seemed to be working out. One night the friend said “I have no problem believing in a good God.

My question is, “What is God good for?”

Yancey and other friends tried various responses, but the man batted them all away. Then they found a little phrase by Dallas Willard: “For those who love God, nothing irredeemable can happen to you.” They went back to their friend. “What about that? Is God good for that promise?” Here and there, now and then, present and future, nothing is beyond God’s redeeming.

Now, here’s where it gets more complicated. It doesn’t break into a nice neat formula, but it bears thinking about. Maybe the words of Paul from Romans echoed in your head like they did mine as we read this story,

“All things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”

It isn’t a formula. But isn’t it interesting that if Joseph had not run into all this trouble, if Joseph had remained in Potiphar’s house and not been thrown into prison, he never would have risen in Egypt’s administration and influenced people and nations.

Because that’s where our story is headed. Through Joseph’s troubles, God was working to preserve the lives of many, many people. Without Joseph going down, down, way down, he could not have raised others up. And in this way Joseph is a mere shadow, a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the one who went down. Down from heaven to earth. Down from God to human. Down from King to itinerant rabbi. Down from exaltation to humiliation. Down from Messiah to crucified. Down from alive to dead. Down into the grave. Down in every way imaginable. Down so that we might be lifted up. All for our sake.

Nothing has befallen us that is not known to the God we worship. God has lost a loved one. God has been betrayed. God has been alone. All so that we might be raised up. All so that we might never have to be alone. All so that we need not fear life or death.

God can redeem anything. God is with us. And like Jonah, Jeremiah, the Apostle Paul, Bonhoeffer, Pastor Moses, Philip Yancey’s friend…it makes all the difference.

And the Lord was with Joseph.

May it be so with us. Amen.