I intend to use chapters 39 and 40 of Genesis as the backdrop to the easter story over the next few days.
“Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there. 2 The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favour in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. 5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. 6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate. Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, 7 and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!” 8 But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. 9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” 10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her. 11 One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. 12 She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.” (Genesis 39 v 1-12)
There is a cloak left behind, in the hands of what was the enemy. She will hold it up as evidence. It becomes the thing that condemns an innocent man.
Maundy Thursday is, among many things, a night of betrayal. Judas goes out into the night with thirty pieces of silver jangling in his pocket. The disciples argue about who is greatest even as Jesus wraps a towel around his waist and kneels at their feet.
“Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. And after a time, his master’s wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, ‘Lie with me.’ But he refused.” V 6-8.
Joseph refuses. He refuses on the grounds of loyalty to his master and to his God.
The irony of the Thursday night in Gethsemane is that Jesus had every opportunity to leave. Three times he prays; three times he returns to find the disciples asleep.
Joseph could have made a different calculation. Potiphar’s wife was persistent — the text tells us she pressed him “day after day.” He could have reasoned that one small compromise would avoid catastrophe. Instead, on the day she grabbed his cloak, and he ran, he chose integrity over safety. “She caught him by his garment, saying, ‘Lie with me.’ But he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out of the house” v12.
Something is always left behind when innocence is betrayed. Joseph leaves his cloak. Jesus, in a detail only Mark records, leaves a young man running naked into the night when the soldiers reach for him (Mark 14:51–52). Joseph’s abandoned cloak and Jesus’ arrest in Gethsemane share the same shape: an innocent man, a false accusation, a garment left behind.
Today, sit with the image of a man fleeing a house, leaving everything in the hands of those who wish him harm. And then remember that this is not only Joseph’s story. The cloak has been left behind. Thursday ends in darkness. But there’s more to come.
Joseph will not stay in that house. He runs. And what he leaves behind, that cloak, will be used against him. Innocence, it turns out, is no protection. It never has been. But the story does not end in Potiphar’s house, just as it does not end in a dark garden. Friday is coming. And beyond Friday, something no one in either story could yet see.
Missions Paul 