By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions about his bones.

There is something about the Christian faith that can seem overdone sometimes, as though we are making more of our situation than it really is.  Joseph is a good example of this because he had a way of making statements that struck you as over the top, as though there was some enormous thing happening that you didn’t realize or as though he was completely overreacting to something innocuous.  There are enough examples of this to make the thought noteworthy: Joseph’s blurting out his dreams of his family bowing down to him and ticking them all off royally, the testing of his brothers when they came to buy food from him in Egypt by accusing them of being spies, his mistaken rebuke of Jacob at the blessing of his sons Ephraim and Manasseh, and finally a request of his brothers to carry his bones up with them when God brought them back to Canaan – not his brothers, however, but their descendants some 200 years later.

That last directive is either a little melodramatic or it a lot megalomaniacal, by anyone’s standards.  At the age of thirty Joseph had been named Chief Operating Officer, so to speak, of one of the most powerful countries in the world, married to the daughter of the priest of On (the highest caste in the culture), put in charge of a huge economy, and called Preserver of Life by the Pharaoh himself.  For him to reject the promise of a rewarding afterlife as it was offered by the Egyptian religion, by consigning his body to be carried out with his people when they left for the Promised Land, was political madness.

But that is the nature of our faith.  God’s Word unveils a startling reality that is usually at odds with the way we live our daily lives.  It calls us to build a kingdom that may not be seen with the eye, to speak words that people will not understand, to do good works not because we have to but because we want to, and to live lives that are not centered on our own personal gain.  Such a faith when uttered as oracle must seem astonishingly childish to those who are wise in the ways of this world.

I was thinking about that the other day.  The accusation often leveled at us, that as Christians we are like little children merely playing at religion, ought not to be grievous to us.  Because my little girl loves to cook pretend food and tuck dollies in bed and firmly exhort her brothers to obey her, does that mean my wife’s calling as a homemaker is any less real?  Is it not rather a confirmation that what Emily does is far more important than she is able to articulate right now?  Because my sons love to follow me out to the shop and hammer nails into the floor, does that mean my work is any less meaningful?  Is it not rather a confirmation that they are following in the footsteps of someone who knows what they’re doing?  (on second thought, don’t answer that…)  If children only did what they thought up themselves and received no training, their work would lack the authentication of experience and would therefore have no value.

Perhaps that is why the Scripture calls us to remember that “Little children… he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”  We are indeed little children, playing at obedience and faith and love, in preparation for the day when we will rule angels in the coming heaven and earth.  Not many of us were wise, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.  But it is just such a people Jesus came to save, for the first transgression we committed as a race was that of pride; and I believe pride will be the last sin we are sanctified from.  God give us a faith that is not too proud to believe his promises and to speak them with our very last breath, no matter how incredible it may seem to those who hear.  He will surely come to the aid of this fallen world and carry our bones up out of the land of captivity, and after our skin has been destroyed, yet in our flesh we will see God.

Author: Jeremy Vogan

My name is Jeremy Vogan. I live in Staunton, VA with my wife and four kids. I love to write, and seek to honestly explore the intellectual and emotional implications of following Jesus as a deeply broken person in a twisted, cruel world that is full of veiled beauty and meaning. Writing is part of how I faithfully look for Jesus Christ to someday make all things new. I'd enjoy hearing your feedback! JV