Epiphany 7

The topic would be perfect for Dr. Phil: Siblings who sell each other into slavery.

Picture the sons of Jacob on stage, a line-up of coarse and questionable characters who openly admit to selling their teenage brother Joseph down the river. No doubt they’d bluster about why they did it:

I hated him.

Dad loved him best.

He had the fancy robe, and wouldn’t get his hands dirty.

The kid drove me crazy with his dreams.

Thought he was the king of us!

And then they’d explain just how they pulled it off:

We thought about killing him.

Wanted to throw dream-boy into a pit.

Yeah, kill him and throw him in a pit.

Say that the wild animals ate him.

But Reuben said no – said we shouldn’t kill him.

So we stripped him and we sold him.

Yeah – sold him to some Ishmaelites.

Got 20 pieces of silver for him.

Pretty good money.

Finally, Dr. Phil would bring out the surprise guest: Their long-lost brother Joseph, who ended up as chief minister in Egypt. “I’m your brother,” he’d reveal. “And now don’t be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life” (Genesis 45:5). Joseph would promise to feed the brothers in their time of famine, and all would be amazed at his generosity.

But what about the scars? You know there would have to be scars. All those years of hatred and jealousy, abuse and violence … there would have to be scars.

Liana Gedz knows all about scars. She went into the hospital for the birth of a child that was delivered C-section. Later, she noticed that the physician who performed the surgery had carved his initials – “AZ” – into her belly.

Bizarre. Jerry Springer stuff.

But how do you get rid of a scar like that? The answer for Liana was a tummy tuck that would hide even the C-section scar. Both the AZ and the C-scar disappeared with one additional surgical procedure, while the offending surgeon was hauled into court and thrown into the slammer.

Unfortunately, there are times when you can’t hide your scar with a tummy tuck. If a large area of skin has been lost – as with burn victims – a surgeon will have to remove the entire scar and shift a piece of healthy skin, complete with fat, blood vessels and muscles, to the injured site.

Even better, scientists have come up with recipes for advanced bandages that jump-start the repair of injured skin, but then break down – leaving behind only healed tissue. These bandages are “biodegradable scaffolds” that improve the odds of scar-less healing – bandages made of synthetic polymers, crab shells, and pig intestines. Other treatments include silicone gel sheets, mineral oils and steroid creams, as well as a surgical sanding technique known as dermabrasion.

But injuries are everywhere, and not every scar can be treated. Some five million wounds will occur this year in the United States alone. And this doesn’t even count the wounds that are psychological, emotional and spiritual – wounds that ache and fester for so many years after an injury.

Think of the deep and numerous scars in the life of Joseph and his brothers. The constant taunting when he was a child. The plot to murder him. The heartless sale into slavery.

How do you heal these wounds? A tummy tuck’s not going to do it.

Today’s Old Testament lesson tells us that Joseph and his brothers reconcile, and they kiss and weep and talk (v. 15). But the scars that this family bears are not easily sanded away through dermabrasion – in fact, their story illustrates well the medical axiom “once scarred, always scarred.” As one doctor has observed, “You can’t airbrush out a scar, but you can create great camouflage.”

Joseph’s scar won’t go away. He knows it won’t, and he doesn’t pretend it will. In fact, he points to his scar and reminds his brothers that they sold him into slavery (v. 5). He makes no attempt to airbrush the fact that something terrible was done to him. But in spite of this history, Joseph is somehow able to heal and move toward reconciliation with his brothers.

How does he do it? By seeing that the Divine Physician has built a spiritual scaffold over his wound – a scaffold that will prove to be much more healing than any modern biodegradable scaffolds made of clam shells or pig intestines. Looking back over his life, Joseph sees that God has managed in a truly mysterious way to bring good out of evil, using even the dastardly act of his jealous brothers to put him in an important position in the land of Egypt.

“God sent me before you to preserve life,” Joseph explains to them all. “God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors” (vv. 5, 7).

The scar is still there. But now it looks beautiful, instead of ugly. God’s spiritual scaffold has changed its appearance forever. Does this mean that every tragedy we experience has a silver lining? That all evil is really good, and that all our suffering is somehow being orchestrated by God?

Not at all. The world is full of senseless violence, horrifying hatred and a whole range of actions and attitudes that attempt to thwart the will of God.  

It would be absurd to assert that the Lord is orchestrating all this evil, as the tension of life builds toward some grand and glorious ending. But one thing that both the Old and the New Testaments teach us is that God has the power to transform human evil into divine good. He used the slavery of Joseph to save a family, and he transformed the death of Jesus into the salvation of the world.

Presumably Jesus could have had any resurrected body he wanted, and yet he chose one identifiable mainly by scars that could be seen and touched. Why?

Because the story of Easter would be incomplete without those scars on the hands, the feet, and the side of Jesus. When human beings fantasize, we dream of pearly white straight teeth and wrinkle-free skin and muscular, well-toned bodies. We dream of an unnatural state: the perfect body. But for Jesus, being confined in a skeleton and human skin was the unnatural state. The scars are, to him, an emblem of life on our planet, a permanent reminder of those days of confinement and suffering.

We can take hope in Jesus’ scars. From the perspective of heaven, they represent the most horrible event that has ever happened in the history of the universe – the crucifixion. But because of Easter, we can know that the tears we shed, the blows we receive, the emotional pain, the heartache over lost friends and loved ones, all these will become memories, like Jesus’ scars. Scars never completely go away, but neither do they hurt any longer. We will have re-created bodies, a re-created heaven and re-created earth. We will have a new start, an Easter start.

We should never ask for a scar to be removed. Joseph didn’t, Jesus didn’t, and neither should we. The scars tell our story. And God can create a life in which our wounds are transformed into something good, and we are propelled toward new and abundant life.

In his book, The Wounded Healer, Henri Nouwen reflects on what it means to minister in a hurting and alienated society. He recommends prayer, not as a “decoration of life,” but as the breath of human existence. A Christian community is a healing community, says Nouwen, not because wounds are cured and pains are alleviated, but because wounds and pains become openings or occasions for a new vision.

Take a look at your scars: physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual. How can they be openings or occasions for new visions? Joseph looked at the scar of his sale into slavery and saw that God had a saving plan for his life. Perhaps some abuse you have suffered will enable you to serve people who have been abused. Maybe some hurt you have endured will equip you to ease the pain of another. It could be that some loss you have experienced will put you in a powerful position to assist those who are grieving.

Instead of ignoring our scars or wishing them to disappear, we can prayerfully reflect on them. And we can then discover new opportunities for service.