How is it that we so easily forget what we have? Spend any time outside our borders and you’ll see real poverty, lives shaped by drought and dust, subsistence farms, cattle raised not for market but for the family table. Living with little is hard. Don’t misread this. We have poverty here too, but it’s not the same. We have a lot. And still, we want more. That is its own kind of hardness, the kind that makes you miss what is already in your hands.

One man will never be forgotten, dropped into the story of Jesus without introduction, almost a footnote. His name is Joseph of Arimathea. A member of the Jewish High Council. A good man. We know almost nothing about him, only his status, where he lived, and that he was waiting for the kingdom of God to come.

I read that and thought, why him? He had wealth. He had position. He had every reason to stay quiet and let someone else handle it. Instead, he went to Pilate, used his own tomb, and rushed to prepare the body for burial before the Sabbath closed the day.

I stopped thinking about the why.

I started thinking, would I?

Would I do the same for another person? For any person? If I am called to love God and then love others, would I show up the way Joseph showed up?

The honest answer is, I don’t know. I want to say yes. I want to believe I would step out of the crowd, walk up to whoever held the power, and ask for what no one else was willing to ask for. But I have stayed quiet plenty of times. I have let someone else handle it. I have watched hard moments pass and told myself I was not the right person, not the right time, not my place.

Joseph could have told himself the same things. He had more reason to than I do. His career was on the line. His standing in the council. His safety, maybe. Going to Pilate that afternoon was not a small ask. It was a public move by a man who had been quiet until then.

Maybe that is the part I keep missing. He had been quiet, too. And then, on one afternoon, he wasn’t.

He was a Jew on the council, probably one of the few who voted no when they condemned Jesus. I am neither. But at the end, when most had run, Joseph stayed. He took great care. He made sure Jesus was honored before sundown.

A prominent man mentioned briefly, who did the right thing at the right time, when it cost him everything to do it.

I hope I remember. I hope I show up and stick around, doing what small things I can do. And maybe, when my one chance comes, I do what Joseph did.

Joseph is remembered for one afternoon.

May ours count, too.