9 Aug 2026, No Pit is Wasted, Text: Genesis 37:1-4, 12–36

I’m the kind of person who eats pretty much anything. But there is one snack, just one, that I really try to avoid. Anyone want to take a guess? Number 1, fish and chips. Number 2, a meat pie. Number 3, ice cream. Number 4, chicken nuggets. Or number 5, popcorn. The answer is number 5. Popcorn. A bit weird, right? I mean, it’s the classic movie snack. Everyone enjoys it. So why would I avoid it? I used to love popcorn, but that all changed back in December 2005. Just after I experienced a “White Christmas” right here in Australia, the smell of popcorn started to make me turn the other way.

What happened, you may ask? It’s been a while, but you might remember December 2005. The cinemas were absolutely packed with massive blockbusters. We had Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, King Kong, and Star Wars was still going strong. Every single cinema was full. At the time, I was a full-time student, a part-time youth pastor, and at night, I worked as a cleaner at Hoyts Cinemas in Blacktown, NSW. My shift was from 9 PM to 6 AM. On Christmas Eve, December 24th, I went straight to work after the Christmas Eve service. What a way to spend Christmas Eve! When I got to the entrance, I smiled at the security guard and said, “Merry Christmas.” He smiled back, but then he added one more thing. He said, “Good luck tonight, mate.” I had no idea what he meant by that. So, I just started my job.

I could tell it had been an incredibly busy day. But when I finally opened the doors to the main cinema and turned on the lights, I just froze. It was a literal “White Christmas.” The entire floor, the steps, and the seats were covered in white popcorn. With the strong smell of butter and the cold temperature coming from the air conditioning, it felt like a perfect winter scene. Many people were singing, “Let it snow!” But I was singing, “Let it pop.” My workmates and I were just devastated. We had to call the manager and ask him to bring in a blower just to push all the popcorn into the front corners. We received complaints from Hoyts because we couldn’t finish. And because of the blower, dust ended up settling all over the screen. It was a nightmare. There was popcorn flying around like actual snow. After that, I completely broke up with popcorn. And after that experience, I pretty much lost my appetite for going to the movies altogether.

But last Friday, I had to go to the movies by myself. Spider-Man. Have any of you seen it? I’m someone who could never imagine going to an action movie alone. But that day, I had a compelling reason. It was for today’s sermon preparation. Because of the spectacular CGI, the sound, and the story, but mostly, I think, because I was trying so hard to stay alert and avoid the smell of popcorn. So, instead of popcorn, I sat there watching the movie with a piece of paper and a pen in my hand. The brilliant visuals and thrilling action captured my attention, but in the darkness, what my pen was actually tracing was the deep loneliness faced by the main character, Peter Parker.

You see, he used to be the hero of New York City. When he swung between buildings on his webs, people cheered, and his name was all over the news. He was someone’s hero, someone’s love, and someone’s closest friend. He was a “Somebody.” But as the story goes, he experiences a massive loss. He loses someone he deeply loves, and that guilt leads to an even deeper isolation. Eventually, he is completely erased from the memories of his most precious friend and the woman he loves. And then comes the heavy silence. A rundown attic room. Eating meals alone. Staring at his mobile phone. No one to call. And the person who was once a “Somebody” now lives as a “Nobody,” completely alone. That reality was like a cold, narrow “pit” without a single ray of light. He couldn’t even take off his mask and ask them to recognise him.

Watching that scene, I couldn’t help but think of Joseph in the pit in today’s passage. Suddenly, Joseph also went from being “someone’s beloved son” to “someone nobody was looking for.” From a “Somebody” to a “Nobody.” When his brothers saw him from a distance, they said, “Here comes the dreamer. Let’s kill him.” But one of his brothers stepped in and said, “Let’s not take his life.” Instead, they stripped him of his beautiful coat, the very symbol of his status and his father’s love. They grabbed him and threw him into a pit. None of this was Joseph’s choice. The people closest to him were the ones who put him there. Sitting alone in the darkness, he probably felt even more lonely, remembering how much he was loved. He wouldn’t have known why he was there, or whether anyone even remembered him. “Hey, why are you doing this?” “I’m telling Dad!” “What did I do wrong?” “Please, let me out!” His cries would have been filled with a deep sense of injustice, anger, and despair.

We know the story of Joseph so well. But sometimes, knowing the story so well is actually the problem. Because we already know the ending, the story doesn’t really hit us. We think, “Well, God is going to save him anyway. After a bit of suffering, he’ll become the Prime Minister, and in the end, he’ll forgive everyone.” Joseph is on our side. But what if we didn’t know the happy ending? What if we had no idea what was coming next? Joseph himself had absolutely no idea what was going to happen to him while he was in that pit. His dreams and his future seemed shattered. And God must have felt utterly silent. If it were you, how would you understand God in the middle of that loneliness?

And then comes an even more disturbing scene. While Joseph was crying out from inside the pit, his brothers sat down to eat their meal. They were sitting there, enjoying a bucket of popcorn and watching the next chapter of Joseph’s life unfold. The sound of them talking and eating. Their laughter. The sound of them bargaining over his life. Even the smell of their food. How incredibly lonely must Joseph have felt? Knowing that someone’s entire life is falling apart, while everyone else simply carries on as if nothing has happened, I think that may be one of the deepest kinds of loneliness. Because sometimes the deepest pain is not that the world has ended. It is that your world has ended, but the world around you keeps going. Everyone else keeps eating. Everyone else keeps talking. Everyone else keeps laughing. And you are the only one sitting in the dark. So, where was God in that dark pit?

God was surprisingly quiet. There was no voice. No miracles. But right here, there is an amazing verse: “The pit was empty; there was no water in it.” (Genesis 37:24)

Why does the Bible record this specific detail? I realised there was a powerful reason. What if that pit had been full of water? It was actually made to catch rain. If it had been full, Joseph would have drowned. Strangely enough, that dry, empty darkness is exactly what kept him alive. Or think about it this way. If there had been water in it, the brothers might not have had another choice. They needed the water, so they would have had to kill him as they originally planned. So, because it was a dry, empty pit, he lived. We realise something. That pit wasn’t his grave. It was an incubator.

Looking at the story again, things were already moving in the background. An empty pit. No water. The exact moment his brothers sat down to eat. And right then, merchants just happened to walk by, heading straight for Egypt. Can we really call all of this just a coincidence? I don’t want to stand here and simply say, “Well, it was all part of God’s plan.” I don’t want to say that God put Joseph through this hardship simply because He loved him and wanted to make him new. Because honestly, sitting in that dark pit, Joseph wouldn’t have felt that way at all.

When we fall into a pit, we usually want one of two things. We either want to give up, or we want a miracle. We want God to drop a ladder into the pit and pull us out right away. We want to see it with our own eyes. But we have to remember, true hope can be very quiet. It works in small, unseen ways, and we usually don’t realise it until much, much later. But one thing is absolutely certain. God did not waste a single second of Joseph’s lonely, silent time in that pit. But God didn’t explain any of this to Joseph at the time. The meaning of that pit was something Joseph would have to discover much later in his life.

And this is really important. Joseph didn’t make his great confession of faith while he was inside the pit. He didn’t say it when he was sold as a slave. He didn’t say it when he was locked in a cold prison. It was much later, when he finally stood before his brothers and said, “Do not be distressed. God sent me ahead of you to preserve life.” “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.” He didn’t say that in the pit. It took him many years to make that confession. And because it took that much time, that much living, and that much wrestling with God, I believe we have no right to interpret someone else’s pit for them.

Telling someone, “Everything happens for a reason,” might not be wrong. But it is not necessarily what they need to hear right now. That kind of confession is something God slowly shapes within a person’s own heart over a long period of time. It is not a quick answer we can simply hand to someone while they are still sitting in the dark.

In fact, right now here in Australia, we’ve been marking Loneliness Awareness Week. The numbers tell us that one in two Australians experiences some form of social disconnection or loneliness. Like Peter in Spider-Man, and like Joseph, there are far more people around us than we realise who are trapped in a pit of total isolation, even in the middle of a crowd. While someone else is cheering with popcorn in their hand, another person is forgotten, left in the dark, going from a “Somebody” to a “Nobody.” How should we face a pit like this? Today, I don’t have the confidence to just casually tell you, “Rejoice in your pit,” or “Hang in there. It’s all for a purpose.”

Instead, I want to share the words of Isaiah 45:15: “Truly you are a God who hides yourself, O God and Savior of his people.” Sometimes, in the darkest and deepest pits of our lives, God seems completely silent and hidden. Yet even in those moments, He is still our “Father” who keeps us alive. This doesn’t mean you need to put on a mask to sugarcoat the dark reality right in front of you, or pretend that everything is okay. The pit is still cold, lonely, and terrifying. We can’t always change our situation. But how we choose to look at that dark pit is entirely up to us. That is how we choose to see it. It comes down to trusting the God who might seem hidden, yet loves us deeply. When we do that, the pit becomes an incubator that shapes us anew, just as it did for Joseph. It becomes another hidden, precious gem in the journey of our lives.

So, my dear friends, we don’t need to prove our faith or force ourselves to be happy right now. We don’t need a big miracle. If we are simply getting through today, quietly facing our loneliness in that empty pit, or if we are encouraging someone who is in their own pit, we are already living a beautiful life of faith. It’s okay if we aren’t a “Somebody” the world cheers for. Even if you feel like a forgotten “Nobody,” we are still deeply loved by God. Though you might feel completely disconnected and lonely right now, I am absolutely certain of this: Nothing can separate you from Him.

Because of that, whether we are inside the pit or outside of it, He is the One working behind the scenes. He is with us, suffering with us, and quietly working in ways we cannot yet see. So, in every pit we face in life, let us trust in the goodness of our God, who may hide Himself, but still keeps us alive. And in that trust, I pray that we will choose to see today with hope and live a truly blessed life. May the same blessing that rested on Joseph be upon all of us, and upon our brothers and sisters anywhere in the world who are crying out for help in the darkness of loneliness today.

And maybe, one day, even the smell of popcorn will remind us that we made it through the pit. I pray this earnestly in the name of the Lord. Amen.