Charity Preventeth A Multitude of Sins

Francois Pascal Simon, Baron Gerard, Joseph Recognized by His Brothers, 1789

This has been an interesting week.  The end of Spring Break is almost as disappointing as the end of Christmas because the beginning of the Winter/Spring semester is usually so long and dreary.  Cold temperatures, trees without leaves, a lack of bright flowers and sunshine all seem to make those first eight weeks of this semester seem like an entire year.  And then the break comes and is over in the flash of an eye and you remember that the semester is still in progress.  Anyhow, this week I had a lot of moments where I was just wishing for it to be May because May means being close to home and family again.

This week I was preparing my Sunday School lesson on Genesis 40-45 and Joseph's time in Egypt, who knew a lot about what it meant to be away from home--and his absence, of course, was not of his own choosing.  It is a familiar story.  We all know about Joseph's brothers, Potiphar's wife, the dreams, etc.  But perhaps lost in the familiarity of this story is a powerful message about how the Savior can and will fix broken families.

If you read Genesis carefully, it is quite easy to ask how Jacob's family ever managed to become the family of the faithful.  There is rampant and egregious immorality, there is murder and violence, there are hurt feelings, there is jealousy.  The truth is that the House of Israel--the original House of Israel--was a very dysfunctional family.  This dysfunction was so deep that ten of the brothers sold their younger brother into slavery and then lied to their father about what had happened, pocketing their meager profits along the way.  How could such an offense ever be repented of?  How could such an offense ever be forgiven?  How could the wounds resulting from that action ever possibly be healed and the relationships involved be mended?

But that such offenses could be repented of and forgiven and the relationships and wounds associated with this story could indeed be healed.  And more than that, this very family could claim the highest blessings our Father has to bestow upon His children.  It is the message of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  As President Howard W. Hunter put it, "Whatever Jesus lays his hands upon lives.  If Jesus lays his hands upon a marriage, it lives.  If he is allowed to lay his hand upon [a] family, it lives" (Howard W. Hunter, "Reading the Scriptures").

The story of how that family is healed is well known.  But one aspect of it stood out to me in a new way yesterday as I read it.  It is the instance where Judah--the very brother who had once proposed the idea of selling Joseph into slavery--offered himself to Joseph (whom he still did not know) in the stead of Benjamin for the proposed offense of stealing Joseph's silver cup.  Judah said, "Now therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant abide instead of the lad a bondman to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brethren.  For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with me?" (Genesis 44:33-34).  Up to that point, Joseph had been hiding himself, disguising himself from his brethren.  Even though he had been assisting them to obtain the needed food, he still did not trust them and was testing them because of how they had once treated him.  But upon hearing Judah's words, "Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me.  And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren.  And he wept aloud. . . . And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live?"  (Genesis 45:1-3).

We speak of how Judah saved Benjamin in this instance.  But yesterday as I read these words it occurred to me that Judah also saved Joseph here.  He did not save him from slavery or bondage, of course.  Rather, he saved Joseph from any potential bitterness that a lesser action might have caused.  He saved Joseph from the very fears that had caused Joseph to keep from revealing himself to his brothers the very instant he first saw them.  He saved Joseph from his past by showing him that the men who stood before him were no longer the same men who had sold him into slavery.  With that act of charity, Judah tore down the barriers that had prevented Joseph from fully embracing and forgiving his brothers.

Peter declared, "And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins" (1 Peter 4:7).  The Prophet Joseph changed the words "shall cover" to "preventeth" so that it read "for charity preventeth a multitude of sins" (JST 1 Peter 4:7).  In this story of Judah and Joseph, I believe we see both effects.  Charity had covered up the sins of the past, had freed Joseph from any lingering feelings of resentment about what had once happened to him, allowing him to see God's grander purpose in having sent him to Egypt as a slave.  But charity also prevented a multitude of sins.  It prevented bitterness and resentment from moving into the future.  Judah's loving act for his brother Benjamin allowed Joseph to give full sway to the charity within his heart for his brethren.

From time to time in our lives, we are confronted with our past.  If we are not careful, past hurts and pains can well up in us like a backed up sink, bringing back the waste and refuse of the past.  In such moments, a simple act of charity, our own or--as is most often the case--someone else's, can save us from ourselves and the bitterness within us.  I thank the Lord for good friends and family, who in moments of need have shown forth charity, the power of which overwhelmed the bitterness within me, allowing me to move forward in faith.

Brett