One summer night in 1923, Joseph Stalin sat down with Dzerzhinsky and Kamenev. They each, in turn, told what was, for them, the sweetest experience in the world.
When it came to Stalin’s turn, he opened his heart to his “friends”, and told them: “To choose one’s victim, to prepare one’s plans minutely, to slake an implacable vengeance and then to go to bed… There is nothing sweeter in the world.”
After that (it is said) no one spoke.

The spectre of implacable vengeance

It was a tense moment in Egypt.
Out of  malice, back in their home country, ten brothers had sold off their younger brother as a slave. That was about a quarter of a century before: Joseph was only a teenager back then.
By now, Joseph had so changed in appearance, as well as in his station in life, that his brothers hadn’t recognised him at first.

But Joseph had recognised them!

So much water had passed under the bridge:
For some years, after arriving in Egypt, Joseph had served as a slave in Potiphar’s household.
“But the Lord was with Joseph” and he gained the trust of his master.
Then it all fell apart when the miffed mistress of the household had him carted off to prison through her false accusations.

“But the Lord was with Joseph” in prison, and he gained the respect of both prisoners and keepers.
One prisoner (whom Joseph helped gain his freedom) had promised to present his case when released; but then did nothing.
Joseph languished in prison another two years.

“But the Lord was with Joseph” – at last, his prisoner friend remembered and Joseph was released.
Through his counsel, Joseph was able to avert disaster in Egypt when famine devastated the region some seven years later. As a result, Pharaoh promoted him in the kingdom, to second only to Pharaoh himself.
The same famine had now driven Joseph’s brothers to Egypt, to seek relief there that they could bring back to their own land.
But they had not recognised Joseph.

Now, Joseph has revealed himself, and told them to go back to their own country and return with their father and his household, so that they could all be provided for.
They did as Joseph told them. It all seemed too good to be true to the ten brothers.
And, as long as their father lived, they were reasonably confident that Joseph would let them live too.

But now, their father was dead!
They are worried.

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “Perhaps Joseph will hate us, and may actually repay us for all the evil which we did to him.” (Gen 50:15)

“To choose one’s victim, to prepare one’s plans minutely, to slake an implacable vengeance and then to go to bed… There is nothing sweeter in the world.”
They hurry to get an audience with Joseph in order to plead for mercy.

But they need not have worried:

Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God?  But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.” (vv 19-20)

At this point I always wondered as a child…

“Why did God make it so complicated?”

I mean if it was all about preserving His chosen family throughout seven years of famine, why make it so complicated:
– the brothers’ plotting,
– Joseph sold as a slave,
– falsely  accused,
– languishing in prison,
– eventually released,
– exalted in Egypt…etc etc.??
Why not just rain bread on His chosen family?
Or not even send famine in the first place?

Yes, I know some would say that there were a lot of historical-redemptive lessons to be learned here: Israel had to go down into Egypt, had to suffer 400 or so  years, had to be redeemed out of bondage etc.
But did it really have to be through the complex of 25 years of trauma for Joseph?
Could there not have been a simpler way?

It reminds me of when we used to play “Mousetrap”:
You turn a crank, which rotates a vertical gear, connected to a horizontal gear, which turns and pushes an elastic-loaded lever until it snaps back in place, hitting a swinging boot, causing it to kick over a bucket, sending a marble down the “rickety stairs” etc …
…until finally a cage drops down on the mouse.
Complicated.
But fascinating at the same time.

So, too: God’s works of providence can be complicated, but fascinating.
God, in His providence “is free to work without, above, and against means”.
Yet ordinarily, “in his ordinary providence, He makes use of means” (Westminster Confession ch 5, § 3)

It is His ordinary means that can be so wonderfully complex and intricate.
What I have learned is that, as wonderful as it is when God “works without, above, and against means”, it is no less wonderful to witness how “He makes use of means.”

Either way, in the end, we can only wonder and adore.

Eileen and I witnessed this in the past week

Eileen’s father (Dad) had been deteriorating in health over the previous two weeks. He had had two visits to the hospital early on, but they had found nothing and sent him home.
Eileen’s sister and her husband had been taking good care of him all this time, but were due to go away; so we went down to Sydney to continue caring for him while they were away.

While we were there Dad continued to deteriorate; Eileen took him to the doctor’s – but again, nothing.
The next day Eileen suffered severe pain herself and had to go to hospital. She ended up being there the next two days while her illness was treated.
The day after, Dad (he is in his early 90s) had gone down hill to the point that there was nothing for it but to take him to emergency. That evening, tests revealed his condition was serious and life-threatening, requiring urgent surgery, and he was taken up to the ward to be operated on, scheduled for the next day.
Eileen’s sister and her husband immediately packed up and came back that night.

Suddenly God’s providence in all this became clearer:

• If Eileen’s sister and her husband had not been going away we would not have come down at that time.
• If we hadn’t come down then, and Eileen had gone into hospital in Brisbane, we wouldn’t have been able to be there then for her father.
• If Dad had not gone to go to hospital when he did, his illness could well have been fatal.
• If he had gone to his own doctor again instead of hospital, they probably would have arranged for him to have more tests in a week or so; the hospital was able to organise a CT scan right away, and operate within a matter of hours.
• If Eileen hadn’t gone to hospital the day before her father did she wouldn’t have been there to be with him when he was brought up to the ward the night before his operation.
• In Emergency, before they took Dad to the ward, the nurse said it would be probably one ward; in fact, because of bed space, it was another – the same ward Eileen was in: she in bed 9, he in bed 8 (in the next room).
• Eileen heard her father being brought up next door at about 11 pm, and was able to go next door, and read a Psalm with him.
• If Eileen’s sister and her husband had not come home when they did, they would not have been present when he had surgery.
• Despite his age, and health (he had deteriorated rapidly at home over the previous two weeks) Dad is doing remarkably well: he came through the operation well, the results so far have been encouraging, and post-op procedures have on the whole also gone well.
• And throughout it all he as been patient and quietly waiting on the Lord.

I could go on…
Dad’s progress has been slow and steady. His surgeon said he couldn’t be more pleased with how things have gone and that they hope to get him out by Christmas.
But he is not out of the woods and has a long way to go yet: the future is far from certain.
We accept that we can’t hang on to our loved ones forever, and need to be prepared to let go. No doubt that time will come – even Lazarus, once revived, still had to die eventually.
But, in the meantime, we rejoice in the present goodness of the Lord.

Crossing Jordan

At one point in the midst of all this, Eileen and I read from Joshua ch 3, the reading for that morning’s devotions:

The Israelites entered the Promised Land by crossing the Jordan (in flood) on dry land.
We thought how merciful God was to Israel.

Yes, 40 years before God had brought Israel through the Red Sea on dry land.
This was a sign to the Israelites who “saw the great work which the Lord had done in Egypt; so the people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord and His servant Moses.” (Exod 14:31)
As well, it put the fear of God in the hearts of the inhabitants of the Promised Land when they heard what the Lord had done.
Had Israel entered the Promised Land back then (as was originally planned) they would have done so confidently; while the people of the land would have feared.

But 40 years had passed. None of the present generation had witnessed the miracle of the Red Sea as adults;  and, after all this time, it would have been beginning to wear thin with some of the inhabitants of the Land too.
So the Lord repeats the miracle, at the raging torrent of the Jordan.

Yes, “God, in his ordinary providence, makes use of means.”
“Yet He is free to work without, above, and against them, at his pleasure” – which we term a “miracle”.
Miracles are rare in Bible history, usually clustered around times of some new revelation being given by God (see also Hebrews 2:1-4). This makes miracles especially special.

God’s miracle at the Jordan struck fear afresh into the hearts of the inhabitants of the Land: when they “heard how the LORD had dried up the Jordan River so the people of Israel could cross, they lost heart and were paralysed with fear because of them.” (Joshua 5:1).
At the same time, God’s miracle encouraged God’s people to go forward to face the looming battles that lay ahead.
There were few miracles in those battles. Mostly God used means: men having to sweat, labour and fight hard – and sometimes, die!
But the miracle at the Jordan encouraged them in the battles that lay ahead.

Did God work any miracles last week?

I don’t know. God knows.

But I do know that His extraordinary “ordinary” providences seemed miraculous.
Either way, they were special to us, sent by the Lord at just the right time.
They encourage us to persevere in the use of means, and to continue to labour in the heat and sweat of the battle.