Every day of Lent, Bishop Edward Malesic writes a Scripture reflection for the faithful. Follow the bishop on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Click HERE for the readings.
Envy is a dangerous sin. It makes us lose our senses. Have you ever been so jealous of another person that you literally lost your mind over the good things that person had that you didn’t? This was the case for Joseph’s brothers. They were jealous because their father loved Joseph “best of all his sons.” There was no brotherly love for dad’s favorite in that family.
After a bit of back and forth, most of Joseph’s brothers wanting to kill him outright, they eventually stripped him of his favorite coat of many colors and threw him into a desert cistern where they hoped that wild animals would devour him.
God came to the rescue in the form of a caravan headed for Egypt. The brothers changed their plans. Instead of letting their brother die in the cistern, they sold him into slavery. At least they spared his life. Years later Joseph would be the source of their salvation when they were starving, and he had become the man in charge of Egypt’s stockpiles of food. God has a way of turning a bad thing into a good thing.
Jesus, knowing the story of Joseph, also knew that he was taking the place of Joseph as the Christ. He would also be betrayed by his own. But God will turn a bad thing, the crucifixion, into a good thing, the resurrection. As God’s son, Jesus would be raised. And the same people who betrayed him would be the ones who came to him for salvation. In that way, Jesus is very much like Joseph. He is different in this way: the food that Jesus gives to his hungry brothers and sisters is food for eternal life, not just food for the day.