Everything Happens for a Reason or Does It?

“Everything happens for a reason.” Perhaps you’ve heard someone saying that to you, or maybe you’ve said it to someone else. Frequently, this declaration is shared to comfort someone who has suffered a terrible loss or setback. The idea is that if we can frame the loss as part of God’s plan for our lives, we can start looking for the blessings that are supposed to come our way out of the experience. 

But is this true? Is this the way God works in the world, or does God work love and life amid our messes?

This past Sunday, the dramatic conclusion of Joseph’s story was read from the Book of Genesis in many churches. This is Joseph, the favored son of Jacob/Israel and one of twelve brothers (not Joseph, the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus). Joseph’s story covers over one-quarter of the chapters in Genesis. It concludes with his dramatic reunion with his brothers and father after decades of estrangement brought about through unspeakable betrayal. Joseph’s ten older brothers were envious of Joseph’s privileged status with their father, and Joseph’s precocious self-promotion only strengthened their resentment. Joseph has dreams that portend his supremacy over them, and he freely shares accounts of his dreams. They resolve to kill him, but then, at the advice of Judah, one of the brothers, they sell him to a group of traders who are passing through their territory. Why not make a little money and shift the killing of their teenage brother off to someone else?

Joseph ends up in Egypt, where, through a remarkable turn of events (I encourage you to read it for yourself), he becomes the Pharaoh’s right-hand man in charge of the royal food stores by the time he’s 30. Joseph’s management of the royal granary makes Egypt a destination for people nearby during a prolonged famine. Consequently, one day, Joseph finds himself unwittingly granting an audience to his brothers who have come to trade for grain. He recognizes them, but they do not recognize him.

There they are, standing in front of him, seeking his favor. They’re all there except for his younger brother, Benjamin. Joseph makes judicious inquiries; “Have you any other brothers?” “How is your father? Is he still alive?” The brothers answer his questions without a thought. They are there to try to make a deal with a rich and powerful man. Joseph sends them on their way with the grain they sought and the directive that should they need to return for more, he won’t see them unless they bring their little brother with them.

They do need to return, so they bring Benjamin along against their aging father’s wishes. There’s a meeting, money, and grain are exchanged, and the caravan of brothers is on their way back home again, still unaware that they’ve been trading with Joseph. Unknown to them, they are also carrying a silver cup from Joseph’s house that was planted in Benjamin’s sack. The cup give’s Joseph’s men the excuse to apprehend the brothers and bring them back to Joseph with a charge of theft. An “outraged” Joseph demands restitution. Benjamin must remain behind as Joseph’s slave.

Here is where the story takes an important turn. Judah, the one who talked his brothers into selling Joseph into slavery, pleads to be enslaved in his younger brother’s place. His reason for this offer of self-sacrifice isn’t fraternal love. Benjamin is the youngest and the only full brother of Joseph, the son of Jacob’s favored wife, Rachel, who died in childbirth. Judah knows that with Joseph gone all these years, his father Jacob hangs on to Benjamin as the only living legacy of his beloved late wife. He tells Joseph, “If the boy doesn’t return home, our father will die.”

Judah has taken responsibility for selling Joseph all those years ago.

Joseph, moved by his half-brother’s confession, reveals his true identity.

Imagine their shock. One minute Judah is begging for Benjamin’s life, and the next minute they’re all confronted with the awful reality that they are in the presence of someone powerful whom they brutally wronged years ago. This can’t end well.

But Joseph is not speaking in anger. He is not seeking revenge. He says to his brothers, “Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.”

On first read, it appears that Joseph is sweeping all that they’ve done against him because “everything happens for a reason.” But Joseph isn’t minimizing what they’d done. When he revealed himself to them, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.” That is telling it like it is. And then, after he has forgiven them, this one who made his brothers angry with stories of his dreams of superiority commissions them to return to their father with the news that it’s all come true. He says to them, tell him “God has made me lord of all Egypt.”

Nobody is a pawn in a divine plan. Everyone is accountable for their actions. Forgiveness is given as a gift of grace.

How is Joseph able to do this? It is through the spiritual gift of hindsight. As Joseph looks back on his life, he sees with the suffering, one example of divine grace after another. Such understanding only comes with hindsight. 

In the sixth chapter of Luke, Jesus is recorded telling his hearers to “Love their enemies.” We have no idea what his hearers thought of his teaching in the moment. Luke doesn’t tell us. What we do know is that Luke compiles this record after Jesus’ resurrection when the whole community of Jesus’ followers, including those who heard him teaching about loving ones enemies, could look back on all that had happened with the spiritual gift of hindsight and see how powerful Jesus’ life of love was for them and for everyone. They know that love and mercy define their lives, not an enemy’s hatred. May it be so among us.

Pr. Jim 

Rev. Katherine Museus and Rev. James A. Wetzstein serve as university pastors at the Chapel of the Resurrection at Valparaiso University and take turns writing weekly devotions.

February 26, 2025