Threads in a tapestry, links in a chain, cupbearers in Pharaoh’s court…
God’s plan is always convoluted. He weaves divers threads from the beginning of time knowing precisely where He will bring them together millennia later so that events will converge just so and individuals will be presented with choices that will determine their status in the world to come.
Consider the long chain of events that brought Joseph into power in Egypt. God gave him dreams and caused Jacob to give him a peculiar coat so that his brothers would be jealous and betray him in time to sell him to the Ishmaelite caravan that delivered him to Potiphar who threw him in prison where he met the baker and the cupbearer who told Pharaoh about him so that he could save both Egypt and his own people, all the while laying down patterns that foreshadowed the ministry, betrayal, death, and resurrection of the Messiah who would also save both the world (Egypt) and Israel.
Complex, convoluted, and–in the end–all wrapped up with no loose ends. Not even Hollywood could tie a plot together like God does.
Joseph isn’t the only person for whom God arranged the threads of existence.
Let’s zoom in on Pharaoh’s cupbearer for a moment. Whatever his crime had been, God needed him to be in prison so that he could meet Joseph who could interpret his dream so that he could later tell Pharaoh about it. The plot grows thicker.
Pharaoh restored the chief cupbearer to his position, and he placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand. (Genesis 40:21)
Read this verse again, paying special attention to the second half. Isn’t that an odd statement? “He placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand,” as if there was only one cup and it was a one-time event.
Throughout the Scriptures, cups are used to portray what we might call fate. God gives to one person or nation a cup of wrath and to another He gives a cup of blessing.
I will take the cup of salvation. (Psalm 116:13)
and
Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath. (Jeremiah 25:15)
So the cup that the chief cupbearer placed into the hand of Pharaoh is not just a cup, but a Cup of either curses or blessings. Whether it was one or the other depended on a series of choices:
- Would the cupbearer remember Joseph to Pharaoh or not?
- Would Pharaoh tell Joseph his dream?
- Would Pharaoh believe Joseph’s interpretation and heed his advice?
If any of these had gone the wrong way, Egypt would have suffered in the coming famine while God would have saved the Hebrews some other way. As it was, the cup was full of blessing until Egypt once again forgot Joseph many years later.
| Interestingly, the baker and the cupbearer foreshadow another aspect of the story of Yeshua. One of them (the cupbearer) was released and the other (the baker) condemned during a national holiday (Pharaoh’s birthday). Yeshua was arrested during a national holiday (Passover) and, after His trial, Pilate reminded the people that it was a tradition to release one prisoner every year at this time. They chose to release Barrabas (the cupbearer) and to execute Yeshua (the baker).
It makes me wonder if the cupbearer was actually a murderer and if the baker was innocent. |
God’s story-telling mastery is so complete that He has done the same thing for every one of us. You are somebody’s cupbearer, choosing in each moment to deliver the truth about God, His Law, and His Messiah or to withhold that truth. If you behave or speak in such a way as to deny someone God’s Truth, you become partly responsible for the resulting curses in that person’s life, and you have no way of knowing in advance which moments, which choices will have the greatest impact. It’s your responsibility to do right when you are able, to put the cup in Pharaoh’s hand, so to speak. When you have spoken the Truth, when you have shown the love of Messiah in the world by doing good to those around you, then your cup becomes one of blessing to you, and the power to transform the contents of the cup in one way or the other devolves to the next person.
We are all threads in a continuous fabric that stretches from one end of time to the other. God sees the overall pattern and places us where He needs us. We don’t always have a lot of control over the basic circumstances in our lives. We do, however, have control over how we choose to interact with those circumstances. We can be like Joseph, speaking the Truth, doing what’s right, and forgiving those who meant to do us wrong, or we can keep silent, look after ourselves, and resent those who appear to have imprisoned us.
You can choose to drink from a cup of salvation or be forced to drink from a cup of wrath. However the world appears around you, the choice remains yours.
Everything that Yeshua (aka Jesus) & the Apostles taught
Come with me as I draw out the connections that are so often missed |
The idea of being part of a majestic and huge tapestry was revealed to me in a vision almost ten years ago. A Christian friend’s husband was incarcerated in the local jail, and while transporting her to the jail for a visit with her husband, my friend was distraught and kept asking “why?” “Why has this happened to us?” I had no answer to give that would comfort her, but as I meditated on that very issue, a saw a vision of a huge tapestry woven of multiple colors. As I stared at this tapestry, a hand came down towards the upper left corner. Two fingers of the hand picked a colorful strand from the tapestry at that corner, and begin to slowly pull up. As the thread was pulled with the fingers, I saw a movement in the lower right-hand corner of the tapestry. A totally different colored thread there was beginning to move upwards. The fingers continued to pull up on the thread at the upper left corner, the thread at the lower right corner continued to move up. The Holy Spirit showed me that what God allows to happen to us will be used by Him to affect others we may not ever know. I have never forgotten that image, and I now recognize that the events that come into my life are a vital part of a total picture I may never see. Joseph’s multi-colored coat brought results in a prison many years and miles from its origin.
Prisoners of Hope Ministries, Inc.
PO Box 428
Youngtown, AZ 85363