Redemption

Sibling rivalry is as old as humanity. From spats over whose side of the back seat is whose to arguments over who parents like best and who is never quite good enough it seems that siblings are almost designed to spend at least some of their time not getting along. In movies siblings are portrayed in different ways - an often bittersweet combination of companionship and unspoken hurts from the past seems popular - as does the rivalry which either simmers behind the storyline or erupts onto the screen.

However good Hollywood is at capturing the sibling relationship it would have a problem coming up with a storyline more dramatic than the Genesis account of Joseph. However strained our relationships may sometimes be with our close relations I suspect most of us would have difficulty imagining that we would actually want to get rid of them completely. This is where Joseph's brothers (all except one) seemed to be. They planned to kill him but in the event they sold him to some passing traders and then told their father that he had been eaten by a wild animal.

As the story goes on we see how God redeems the situation but this does not let the brothers - who act appallingly, off the hook. God can bring good out of the worst of situations. I do not believe that God sets out to hurt people, to teach them a lesson or make them stronger - I think humanity and the human condition do that hurting very well by themselves. God simply takes a bad situation and brings good into it. This is redemption.

Redemption is the theme I am adopting for Lent this year. Not just thinking about the Jesus on the Cross but thinking about all those places where things are broken or cut off in my life and asking God to redeem them. This sort of redemption is not just about a moment in time, it is about a process of constant invitation and reminding. It is like a dry sponge being put in water and gradually soaking up the moisture - but the sponge has to sit for a while to get saturated, so that it does not have that rocky hard pebble of dryness in the middle.

God's time is good time and Lent should be God's time. Lent is always a redeeming time, a time to allow God to recolour and reinvent. But it is not just a surface makeover - it is inside out time.

I wonder how Joseph felt as he was taken away and sold into slavery - afraid, betrayed, angry. All that swathe of human emotion which displays itself when we are let down by those we trust. But somehow, even through that, he held onto God. Somehow he did not seek the easy solution of blaming God and closing his heart - such trust is the path of those who believe in God's power to heal, God's power to redeem.