Out of the Woodwork: Hope Shows Up Where You Least Expect It
Mark 15:42–47 (MSG)
Late in the afternoon, since it was the Day of Preparation (that is, Sabbath eve), Joseph of Arimathea, a highly respected member of the Jewish Council, came. He was one who lived in expectation of the Kingdom of God. He went to Pilate and boldly asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate, surprised that he was already dead, called for the centurion and questioned him to make sure that he was dead. Assured by the centurion, he gave Joseph the corpse. Having already purchased a linen shroud, Joseph took him down, wrapped him in the shroud, placed him in a tomb that had been cut into the rock, and rolled a large stone across the opening. Mary Magdalene and Mary, mother of Joses, watched and saw where he was placed.
Nobody saw Joseph coming.
That is what keeps pulling me back to this passage. The crucifixion is over. The disciples have scattered. The women are standing at a distance, watching, and doing what grief-stricken people do — just trying to stay upright. And then, out of nowhere, Joseph of Arimathea steps forward.
He was a member of the Jewish Council — the same body that had voted to hand Jesus over to Pilate. Which raises questions I keep sitting with: Was he outvoted? Was he there and did he object? Did he stay silent, calculating the risk? Or was this the moment something broke open in him — watching a man he had quietly believed in breathe his last breath — and he decided he had nothing left to lose?
Whatever happened inside Joseph before he walked through Pilate's door, the text tells us he went boldly. He did not slip in through a side entrance. He asked for the body of the man the religious establishment had just executed, the man whose name was now political dynamite. That kind of ask is bold. It could cost him his seat on the council. His reputation. His standing. And he went anyway.
He came out of the woodwork. And because he did, Jesus was not left in an unmarked grave. He was wrapped with care and laid in a tomb. Even in death, Jesus was honored — and it came from a direction no one expected.
I have been thinking about this while listening to a podcast this week — an episode of Ian Morgan Cron's Typology where he interviews Jen Hatmaker. The conversation is about her memoir, Awake, and what happened on July 11, 2020, when her marriage of twenty-six years ended and her life changed in ways she was not remotely prepared for. She had built something carefully, faithfully, and very publicly: a life as a pastor's wife, a voice in family ministry, a platform built on the assumption that her story was settled. And then in a single night, it wasn't.
Listening to her talk about grief and betrayal with that kind of unflinching honesty was powerful. Not because it was dramatic, but because it was real. She talked about having to shed scripts she had been handed — about who she was supposed to be, what her life was supposed to look like, what approval was supposed to feel like. The life she had built split straight down the middle, and she had to figure out what mattered in the second half. Not the scripts. Not the platform. What actually mattered.
I kept thinking about Joseph while I listened. Because Joseph, too, had a script. Highly respected member of the Jewish Council. Part of the establishment. One who operated within the accepted structures of religious and political life. And then Jesus died, and something inside him refused to let the script keep running. He stepped outside of it. He did something costly and unpopular and deeply human — he went and took care of someone.
Sometimes it takes an ending to really see the impact someone made. The crucifixion was an ending, and it drew Joseph out into the open. Jen Hatmaker's marriage ending drew her into a kind of painful honesty she had not been living in before. I understand something about that. When the thing you built breaks open, you find out what is actually underneath it — what has been true all along, quietly waiting for the script to stop.
What I keep returning to is this: Joseph did not know what was coming. He had no idea that three days later everything would change. He was not making a strategic move. He was doing what the moment called for — honoring someone he believed in, even when that belief was going to cost him, even when it looked like the story was over.
That is the thing about hope showing up in unexpected places. It usually does not arrive with fanfare. It arrives looking like a man walking into a governor's office to ask for a body. It arrives in the middle of a podcast conversation that you were not expecting to need. It arrives in someone doing a small, costly, ordinary act of care after everyone else has already gone home.
Most of the time, we do not get to see the full impact of what we do. Joseph did not know he was stepping into the pages of Scripture. He was just doing what was in front of him. And sometimes life changes — circumstances shift, scripts get rewritten, the thing we thought was settled turns out not to be — and the question is not whether we will keep going. The question is whether we will let the change open us rather than close us down.
Joseph leaned in when everyone else leaned away. That is worth sitting with for a while.
Reflection Questions
Where in your own life have you experienced hope arriving from an unexpected direction — a person, a conversation, or a moment you weren't looking for?
When the script of your life has been rewritten — by loss, change, or circumstances outside your control — what has that forced you to pay attention to?
We often don't see the full impact of what we do. How does that reality shape the way you think about the small acts of faithfulness in your daily life?
