|
|
PART II
11.
THE CROSS AND JOSEPH OF
“Has your Reverence ever seen a rock in
the sea beaten by a storm? A wave comes furiously and strikes it. What happens?
There is the rock. Another more furious wave comes and strikes it on every
side. What becomes of it? There is the rock. After the storm, if your Reverence
notices the rock, you will see that the waves of the storm have washed and
purified it from all the defilements it had contracted during the calm weather.
Henceforward, I wish you to be a rock; a stormy wave comes; be silent. See, a
hundred, a thousand come! Be silent. The most I give you leave to say in the
midst of the storm is, ‘My Father, I am Yours. Oh dear, oh most sweet Will of
God, I adore You!’”
(
During these meditations, we
have reflected on people and events from the Old Testament, not only connected
with the New Testament, but also with the peak moment in the gospel message,
when Jesus dies on the Cross out of Love for us. We have talked about our first
ancestors, about Noah, about Abraham, about Moses, about King David and about
the role of the prophets as they announced the coming of the Messiah as King,
Prophet, or Priest. But there is one impacting person from the Old Testament I
want to focus on in a special way: it is Joseph of Egypt. Like Joseph, the
husband of Mary and foster father of Jesus, he doesn't usually get much
attention. One thing common to these two Josephs, is that they both had
revelations from God through dreams.
Personally, as has been
highlighted by scholars, I find him to have many parallels with Jesus. We see
him being condemned unjustly to death by his brothers out of jealousy, as he
was the beloved son of their father Jacob. Jesus, the beloved son of the
Father, was condemned to die by jealous religious leaders (Matthew 27:18) who
lost the following of the crowds to Jesus (John: 12:10-11). Like Jesus'
apostles, there were differences among the brothers of Joseph, and their plans
on what to do with Joseph. Ultimately they sold him for 20 pieces of silver,
just as Judas would sell Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
They said to one another: “Here comes
that dreamer! Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the cisterns
here; we could say that a wild beast devoured him. We will see then what comes
of his dreams.”
But when Reuben heard this, he tried to
save him from their hands, saying: “We must not take his life.” Then Reuben
said, “Do not shed blood! Throw him into this cistern in the wilderness; but do
not lay a hand on him.” His purpose was to save him from their hands and
restore him to his father.
So when Joseph came up to his brothers,
they stripped him of his tunic, the long ornamented tunic he had on; then they took him and threw him into the
cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it.
Then they sat down to eat. Looking up,
they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, their camels laden with
gum, balm, and resin to be taken down to Egypt.
Midianite traders passed by, and they
pulled Joseph up out of the cistern. They sold Joseph for twenty pieces of
silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to
One of the dreams that Joseph
had years before, that infuriated his brothers, is similar in meaning to
another dream he had:
Then he had another dream, and told it
to his brothers. “Look, I had another dream,” he said; “this time, the sun and
the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” When he told it to his
father and his brothers, his father reproved him and asked, “What is the
meaning of this dream of yours? Can it be that I and your mother and your
brothers are to come and bow to the ground before you?” So his brothers were
furious at him but his father kept the matter in mind. (Genesis 9: 9-11)
This reminds us of Jesus with
his 12 apostles and his mother. As the father of Joseph, Jacob, kept these
things in mind (Genesis 37:11), so also Mary, kept in her mind, a similar
mysterious answer from Jesus, when he answered her and Joseph, after finding
him 3 days of searching in the temple:
When his parents saw him, they were
astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us?
Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” And he said to
them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my
Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them. He went down with them and came to
Just as Jacob, had a special tunic made for Joseph, so the soldiers
who crucified Jesus cast lots over his clothing.
So they said to one another, “Let’s not
tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it will be,” in order that the
passage of scripture might be fulfilled that says: “They divided my garments
among them, and for my vesture they cast lots.” This is what the
soldiers did. (John 19: 24)
Joseph will get sold to a
chief official of the Pharaoh in
She kept the cloak with her until his
master came home. Then she told him the same story: “The Hebrew slave whom you
brought us came to me to amuse himself at my expense. But when I screamed, he
left his cloak beside me and escaped outside.” When the master heard his wife’s story in
which she reported, “Thus and so your servant did to me,” he became
enraged. Joseph’s master seized him and
put him into the jail where the king’s prisoners were confined. (Genesis 39:
16-20)
In a similar fashion, Jesus
gets unjustly accused by the Sanhedrin and Pilate and condemned to death.
Interesting that the image of the cloak
follows through the story of both stories, as if tying them together! The tunic, for instance that Jacob had made
for Joseph gets soaked in the blood of a goat by his brothers, so as to deceive
They took Joseph’s tunic, and
after slaughtering a goat, dipped the tunic in its blood. Then they sent
someone to bring the long ornamented tunic to their father, with the
message: “We found this. See whether it is your son’s tunic or not.” He
recognized it and exclaimed: “My son’s tunic! A wild beast has devoured
him! Joseph has been torn to pieces!”
Then Jacob tore his garments, put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned
his son many days. (Genesis 37: 31-34)
In his Passion, Jesus gets
mocked by Herod after a special cloak
is placed on Him. This reminds us of the special tunic Jacob had made for Joseph.
Herod and his soldiers treated him
contemptuously and mocked him, and after clothing him in resplendent garb,
he sent him back to Pilate.
(Luke 23: 11)
And the soldiers will mock
Him as a king when a cloak is placed
on Him after the flagellation.
Then Pilate took Jesus and had him
scourged. And the soldiers wove a crown out of thorns and placed it on his
head, and clothed him in a purple cloak, and they came to him and said,
“Hail, King of the Jews!” And they struck him repeatedly. (John 19: 1-3)
After being scourged at the
pillar and crowned with thorns, He is led back to Pilate.
So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of
thorns and the purple cloak. And he said to them, “Behold, the
man!” When the chief priests and the
guards saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to
them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him. I find no guilt in him. (John 19: 5-6)
No doubt His clothing will stick to the wounds,
stained with His blood, which will be re-opened, when the soldiers rip them off
before crucifying Him.
When Joseph was in prison, he
was being punished along with the cupbearer
and the baker of the king of
Now one of the criminals hanging there
reviled Jesus, saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us.” The other, however, rebuking him, said in
reply, “Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? And indeed, we have been condemned justly,
for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done
nothing criminal.” Then he said, “Jesus,
remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
He replied to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in
The mention of a cupbearer and baker here in Genesis 40, gives us a connection with Christ in the
Eucharist who would feed us with the bread
transformed into his Body and the wine transformed into his Blood. Furthermore, the dream of the
cupbearer was about seeing a vine with
branches.
Then the chief cupbearer told Joseph his
dream. “In my dream,” he said, “I saw a vine in front of me (Genesis 40 :9)
This reminds us of Jesus, who
at the last supper refers to Himself as the Vine, and we as the branches (John 15). Chapter 15 is John's
version of the Eucharist concerning the wine
present in the Eucahrist, while Chapter 6 is related to the bread becoming His Body.
When Joseph is finally
released from prison, in order to interpret the dream of the King of Egypt, he
is given clean clothing before
appearing before him. Joseph then would be placed in charge of all the
You shall be in charge of my household,
and all my people will obey your command. Only in respect to the throne will I
outrank you.” Then Pharaoh said to
Joseph, “Look, I put you in charge of the whole
"Joseph was 30 years old
when he entered the service of Pharaoh, king of
Joseph, because he foresaw,
through Pharaoh in dreams, that 7 years of plenty in crops of wheat, would be
followed by 7 years of scarcity, he becomes a savior. "Abrek" we could say has that connotation, as it
indicates the one before all should kneel. It would be shouted out as his
chariot would pass by. In the same way Jesus becomes our Savior, when he rescues us from sure death through spiritual
famine, and restores us to life
through the Eucharist. And as Joseph was honored by the crowds as he rode
through the streets, so Jesus would be honored as he rode into
Joseph, as governor of the country, was
the one who sold grain to all the people of the land. When Joseph’s brothers
came, they bowed down to him with their faces to the ground. (Genesis 42: 6)
Jesus would also not be
recognized on different occasions, when He appeared to His disciples. Joseph
will put his brothers to the test in order to lead them to repentance for their
sin. Finally he reveals himself in tears,
forgiving them, just as Jesus forgives our sins from the Cross. Jesus also
often puts us to the test, so as to lead us to repentance, and reconciliation.
Jesus also would cry over
Joseph could no longer restrain himself
in the presence of all his attendants, so he cried out, “Have everyone withdraw
from me!” So no one attended him when he made himself known to his
brothers. But his sobs were so loud that
the Egyptians heard him, and so the news reached Pharaoh’s house. “I am Joseph,” he said to his brothers. “Is
my father still alive?” But his brothers could give him no answer, so
dumbfounded were they at him.
“Come closer to me,” Joseph told his
brothers. When they had done so, he said: “I am your brother Joseph, whom you
sold into
Joseph is able to realize the
plan of God in the midst of his brothers’ sin, and that of the wife of Putifar.
We are reminded once again, that "God writes straight with crooked
lines", or as mentioned also before, what
If Joseph of Egypt didn't actually be put to death like Jesus, he certainly lived a martyr’s experience, much like Our Lady. Just think how he was able to deal with all that suffering when in prison, thinking back on all he had unjustly gone through. He could have at times felt abandoned by God, like Jesus, when he cries out on the Cross:
“Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which
means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).
In the artistic enactment of
Joseph in prison, in the musical "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat"
(click link to view), I was impressed by the
song in his name, composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice in 1965. It
highlights Joseph's total dependency on God, which keeps him firm in his faith,
no matter what happens to him.
Close every
door to me,
Hide all the
world from me
Bar all the
windows
And shut out
the light
Do what you
want with me,
Hate me and
laugh at me
Darken my
daytime
And torture
my night
If my life
were important I
Would ask
will I live or die
But I know
the answers lie
Far from
this world.
Close every
door to me,
Keep those I
love from me
Children of
Are never
alone
For I know I
shall find
My own peace
of mind
For I have
been promised
A land of my
own.
Close every
door to me,
Hide all the
world from me
Bar all the
windows
And shut out
the light…
If my life
were important I
Would ask
will I live or die
But I know
the answers lie
Far from
this world
Close every
door to me,
Keep those I
love from me
Children of
Are never
alone
For we know
we shall find
Our own
peace of mind
For we have
been promised
A land of
our own.
There is another song by Eric
Bibb, which captures a positive, hopeful attitude towards difficult aspects of
life, and which has an implicit Christian message. As Christians of course, at
a deeper level, we link our own suffering, problems and death to the Paschal
Mystery of Christ. We believe in this way, that we all have a share in His
salvation for Humankind. Click here to listen on YouTube.
Chorus:
Just keep goin’ on (4 times)
Take every knock as a boost
And every stumbling block as a stepping
stone
Lift up your head and hold your own
Just keep goin’ on
(Chorus)
I say to every young woman
Also to every young man
Sometimes you get discouraged
Don’t stop and wring your hands
Your privilege cannot be taken
Your rights cannot be banned
If someone like me can make it
I know you can