Suffering
Good Results Out of Evil
Part Four of a Seven-part Series
Evil often has its way in this world. When evil is busy, it leaves behind a wake of frustration, suffering, crippling, and death. It is right to eliminate evil wherever it crops up. This is called liberation and justice. Justice involves punishment but, primarily it means the discontinuation of the oppression of the weak and the innocent. But putting someone behind bars for murder does not correct the problem of the murder. Life has been stolen from one who was living. A life has been stolen from all that person’s loved ones, as well. There is no real remedy for it. Or is there?
In the book of Genesis we can read about Jacob and his twelve sons. Joseph was Jacob’s favorite son. This did not sit well with Joseph’s ten half-brothers. Besides jealousy, they were annoyed with Joseph for what seemed to be his delusions of grandeur. They were so angry they nearly murdered him but, constrained by conscience, they sold him to a passing caravan instead.
Those in the caravan took Joseph to Egypt, where they sold him into slavery. In Egypt Joseph endured a number of difficult years, including a lengthy stay in prison. But Joseph had a gift: he could interpret dreams. One night Pharaoh had two dreams. They must have been extraordinarily vivid because Pharaoh couldn’t rest until he learned their meaning. He called his wise men and magicians together and asked them to interpret the dreams, but they could not. Then one in the court recalled Joseph’s ability. He was summoned from prison and brought to Pharaoh. God gave Joseph the meaning of the dreams, which Joseph conveyed to Pharaoh. The dreams were prophecies about seven years of bounty, followed by seven years of famine in the region. Pharaoh, convinced that Joseph was a man of great wisdom, essentially made him Prime Minister, which included oversight of Egyptian agricultural strategy.
When the years of famine arrived, Egypt was well prepared. Not so the neighboring nations. During the seven years of famine Egyptian wealth multiplied, as caravans crowded the highways, importing precious goods in exchange for Egyptian produce. One such caravan was manned by Joseph’s brothers. The family was reunited and it relocated to Egypt. After a number of years in Egypt, Jacob died. At this point the brothers thought, “Joseph will take his revenge on us now that our father is not here to stand in his way.” The brothers’ great fears proved unfounded. With grace and insight, Joseph remarked to his brothers, “While your action toward me was meant for my harm and for evil, God was behind it the whole time. He brought me here to Egypt in order to save many lives.”
The central event in Christian history unfolded in a similar fashion. Jesus was despised by the Jewish religious leaders. They trumped up charges against him. They brought him before the occupying Romans, who didn’t have the slightest interest in Jewish legal squabbles. But the Jewish leaders persisted and argued that Jesus was a disturber of the Roman peace. The Romans (Pilot), for the sake of expedience, agreed to crucify Jesus.
So Jesus, the one who had amazed the crowds with his teaching authority, his boldness, and with his miracles, was framed by the very leaders who should have recognized he was sent by God. He was abandoned by his friends, who were afraid to be associated with him. He was slandered. He was ridiculed. He was tortured. And finally, he was brutally murdered.
By all ordinary measures, his life ended in complete failure. He was dead; his movement, without its head, collapsed.
Or so it would have been had he not risen from the grave. Everything that was sealed by his crucifixion, including the literal Roman seal on his gravestone, was unsealed. Death experienced its first failure as it was overrun by life. The chains of sin were snapped. The sniveling disciples became bold and compassionate, so much so that nearly every one of them eventually ended up martyred, as well. It was not so much that God had snatched victory out of the jaws of defeat, as he had manipulated defeat as the means to victory. Just as he had created the world out of nothing, out of death he reestablished life. The resurrection of Jesus was a glorious singular act but, in this case, the glory spilled over without measure. The resurrected One was granted authority to pass on this resurrection to all who would trust in his wisdom and in his power. It seems that, more than just putting a stop to evil, it is possible to reverse the work of evil.
The stories of Joseph and Jesus are highlights, but not exceptional in terms of God’s work. Consider other examples: there was Sampson, a foolish and proud man who, by giving up the secret of his supernatural strength, ended up blinded and in chains. But this put him in a place where he was able to execute a severe judgment against the Philistines. Consider David, who committed adultery with Bathsheba, and who murdered to cover up his sin. But out of that illicit marriage came the wise king Solomon. Consider Mary, who appeared to all, including Joseph, to be pregnant from adulterous behavior…but who had behaved only honorably, and so became the mother of Jesus, himself. Consider Paul, a zealous persecutor of the fledgling Christian movement, who was struck blind by Jesus, and who did a turnabout to become the greatest missionary in Christian history. And consider how he spent much of his time in jail, but that out of that prison time sprang several New Testament Epistles.
What we learn from these examples is that God is busy bringing good results out of evil. Are the examples exceptions or are they examples of the rule? If He is good and sovereign, they are the rule. He is also bringing good results out of good actions. Metaphorically speaking, its as if world history is on steel rails going due west. Sin and foolishness can cause our little carts to jump the tracks. We can wander about in circles, get stuck in mud up to the axles, or tumble down a hill and lose sight of the tracks altogether. But at some point a powerful electromagnet in the cart is activated by Him, and the cart bolts back onto the rails. This is God’s fingerprint. He is relentless and in charge of history. We all serve Him, willingly or unwittingly.
But wouldn’t the world have been better without all the melodrama? Why is it necessary for so much of history to be spent off the rails? Knowing that good can be wrung out of evil seems to demonstrate God’s brilliance, but couldn’t He have been brilliant in a way that didn’t include all the misery?
(End of Part Four of a Seven-Part Series)
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