Deep Magic From the Dawn of Time

Most of you will be familiar with the Chronicles of Narnia. I've read through the books with my children, and since we own the movies (old BBC versions and the newer Disney ones), we've recently used those films for family movie nights.

As a child, listening to my mother read the books to my brother and me, I found so much enjoyment in identifying parts of the allegory where I recognized them. "The stone table is like the cross Jesus died on!" "The White Witch is like Satan, and Aslan is like Jesus!" 

Those were the most obvious things. As I've grown older, I've appreciated more and more the story of Edmund, the traitor, Edmund, whose intended destiny is to be a king of Narnia along with his brother and two sisters... but who digresses from that destiny and chooses sin instead. When Aslan rescues Edmund from the clutches of the White Witch, she presents herself before Aslan and demands the blood of Edmund, citing the Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time, in effect...

That she herself holds the rights to the blood of every traitor.

As the story continues, Aslan offers his own body as replacement for Edmund, and so the White Witch kills the lion instead, slaughtering him on the stone table. The next morning, as the sun rises, the stone table cracks in half, and Aslan comes back to life. The children ask him how he'd broken death; they'd all been witness to the Witch's claim regarding the Deep Magic.

"It means," Aslan explains, "that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a Magic deeper still, which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the Dawn of Time. But if she could have looked a little further back into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack, and Death itself would start working backward."

Jesus cracked Death in half; He was the willing victim who had committed no treachery. He provided the once-and-for-all sacrifice of His blood in place of ours, traitors as we all are. I'm a good person-- No, you're not. Okay, I've done a few really minor things, but really, in the grand scheme of things-- There is no one righteous, not even one (Romans 3:10). All of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), but because God so loved us (John 3:16) He sent Jesus to the stone table, to the cross, to satisfy the Deep Magic, to fulfill the requirements of restitution. He redeems us, justifies us, makes us perfect when we could never be that on our own.

All right. When I started to read Genesis 44 this morning, I thought the story was going to be about Joseph. After all, he's the one who holds the power in this situation happening here. His brothers have returned to Egypt, they are staying at his house for the night, and they've brought Benjamin, proving to Joseph that their hearts are a bit softer than they were twenty-two years earlier, when they'd sold him into slavery despite his weeping and wailing and pleading.

Joseph issues one final test. He tells his steward to once again return the silver the brothers had used to pay for their grain to their grain sacks, and then to take his own recognizable silver goblet and place it in Benjamin's grain sack. You'd think the brothers would have learned their lesson the last time and checked their bags before heading out... but nope.

They ride away, and then Joseph sends his steward after them. Per Joseph's instructions, the steward demands to search the brothers' grain sacks to find that silver goblet. The brothers are surprised and horrified and, per every other Genesis story, make grand sweeping statements: "If any of your servants is found to have it, he will die; and the rest of us will become my lord's slaves!" (Genesis 44:9)

The steward, who is the one who put the goblet in Benjamin's grain sack in the first place, knows that in just a few moments, the brothers will bitterly regret such a statement, so he softens it a bit: "Whoever is found to have it will become my slave; the rest of you will be free from blame" (Genesis 44:10).

The steward searches the brothers' grain sacks, and of course, Joseph's silver goblet is found in Benjamin's bag. "At this, [the brothers] tore their clothes. Then they all loaded their donkeys and returned to the city" (Genesis 44:13).

There's no return to Israel without Benjamin. Judah, now the brother's spokesman, has placed himself as a guarantee before his father that Benjamin will return safely... or Judah will bear the blame all his life. In those days, bearing the blame didn't just mean slumped shoulders and sad feelings; it often meant shunning, disinheritance, or other tangible reminders that they carried blame. Judah's guarantee was no small thing.

So the brother's head back to Joseph's house. And here's where Judah becomes the main character of this whole drama. The brothers throw themselves at Joseph's feet, once again fulfilling Joseph's prophetic dreams of twenty-two years ago. Judah speaks up. "What can we say to my lord? What can we say? How can we prove our innocence? God has uncovered your servants' guilt."

I think it's incredibly interesting that though they are innocent of stealing Joseph's silver goblet, Judah still allows them to be guilty in the sight of God... likely in reference to their horrific act of selling Joseph into slavery. This is a ghost that just won't go to bed. It has haunted them for years, and they have been unable to rid themselves of the specter of treachery.

Then Judah opens up. He tells Joseph all about how Benjamin is the favored child of Jacob. How his brother is no more, and how Jacob will not survive should they return to Canaan without the boy. As he says in Genesis 44:30-31: "So now, if the boy is not with us when I go back to your servant my father, and if my father, whose life is closely bound up with the boy's life, sees that the boy isn't there, he will die." 

Interestingly, the Hebrew that is used in the clause: "...whose life is closely bound up with the boy's life," is the same Hebrew used to describe David and Jonathan's closer-than-a-brother friendship in 1 Samuel 18:1.

Judah recognizes what is happening. He recognizes that his and his brothers' sin has brought events full circle to where they are now facing judgment for their action so long ago. Instead of trying to talk his way out of it, he instead offers himself in place of Benjamin. "Now then, please let your servant (Judah) remain here as my lord's slave in place of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers."

His heartfelt plea resounds through Joseph's house, lingering in the air in a cliff-hanger before Genesis 45. What will Joseph say?

Psalm 51 holds the same resonating, heartfelt plea, this one from David as he pleads with God for forgiveness of his sin of adultery with Bathsheba, for plotting the murder of her innocent husband, and for taking her as his own. "Create in me a pure heart, oh God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from Your presence or take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me" (Psalm 51:10-12).

Next comes a word that I just love and I think is the most powerful word in that Psalm.

Then. 

Then signals transition. Then signals the end of something and the beginning of something else, a change, a new direction, a turn of events from one thing to another thing.

David is putting to bed the sin that has haunted him and he is taking up the new responsibility of mission work: "Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners will turn back to You." He is shoving his sin into the Lord's forgiveness, and He is taking up the unmitigated wholeness and freedom of a pure heart.

Judah does the same thing. "God has uncovered your servants' guilt" (44:16), and then, his self-sacrificial words: "Please let your servant remain here as my lord's slave in place of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers."

In place of the boy.
In place of Edmund.

"But if she could have looked a little further back into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack, and Death itself would start working backward."

Granted, Judah is not a sinless victim; his action is merely a precursor, a shadow of what Jesus Himself does on the cross. 

"Grant me a willing spirit to sustain me." Judah's willing spirit is flying its flag in full evidence of the enemy. Capitulation from sin to grace, from evil to good happens in real-time in this chapter. 

Most of us know what happens in the next chapter, but I'm still excited to explore it with you. If there was a musical soundtrack to accompany this, after Judah's ringing words end the last verse of chapter 44, I think there needs to be a loud, dramatic duh, duh, duuuuuuhhhh!

Cliffhanger.

Until tomorrow! :)