Remember the promise God made to Abram in Genesis 12 – “I
will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse”? That promise is being fulfilled in the
blessing of God going with Joseph in Potiphar’s house, “the LORD blessed the
Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake; the blessing of the LORD was on all that he
had, in house and field.” Potiphar’s
wife was attracted to Joseph and attempted to entice him to sleep with her and
his response is interesting since we see so little of his spiritual life at
this stage. After citing the
extraordinary trust her husband has placed in him, Joseph asks, “How then can I
do this great wickedness and sin against God?”
His allegiance is in the Lord in spite of all that has happened to
him. Not surprisingly, Potiphar believed
his wife’s testimony and Joseph is again thrown into a pit of sorts but even
there the Lord blessed him.
In yesterday’s Gospel passage Jesus touches a leper to heal
him. Touch was important in that
healing, imagine not being touched in a long time by another person and then
having Jesus reach out His hands to touch you, the emotional healing alone
would have been extraordinary. Here,
Jesus first proclaims forgiveness to the paralytic. We can be certain that it wasn’t simply to be
provocative although it was certainly that as we see in the reaction of the
scribes, “Who does He think He is?” I
have to wonder if, in this particular instance, the paralysis and some sin in
this man’s life were connected. Nowhere
else do we see Jesus healing anyone and first pronouncing absolution of
sins. The healing is confirmation then
of Jesus’ greatness and the forgiveness He has proclaimed.
“We have the mind of Christ.” What a bold statement. How could a Jew hear that without reacting as
the scribes did in the Gospel lesson to Jesus’ proclamation of forgiveness for
the paralytic? To claim that someone had
the mind of Messiah seems to be the height of presumption. Everything, however, depends on that being
true. If we do not have the Holy Spirit
we cannot accept the truth and believe, we cannot “know” any spiritual
thing. Jesus is all that matters, not
the teacher or any other knowledge. Our
lives and our wisdom are to be based solely on the foundation of Jesus and our
confession of Him. In that confession we
will see a different truth than the world sees, we see the matrix of our world
fall apart if Jesus is indeed who we confess Him to be. We see that all sin is primarily sin against
God, just as Joseph understood it. We
know that to Him is our greatest loyalty and that nothing in this world matters
at the same level. We have been forgiven
and we have thus received the mind of Christ concerning all things but our
minds still need renewing to move forward.
Our God comes; he does
not keep silence;
before him is a devouring fire,
around him a mighty tempest.
He calls to the heavens above
and to the earth, that he may judge his people:
“Gather to me my faithful ones,
who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!”
The heavens declare his righteousness,
for God himself is judge!
before him is a devouring fire,
around him a mighty tempest.
He calls to the heavens above
and to the earth, that he may judge his people:
“Gather to me my faithful ones,
who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!”
The heavens declare his righteousness,
for God himself is judge!
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