What Are You Doing Jesus? Oh That? We Don’t Get It.
Luke 18:31 ¶ And taking the twelve, he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished.
Luke 18:32 For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon.
Luke 18:33 And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.”
Luke 18:34 But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.
Imagine something so foreign that when somebody told it to your face, you still didn’t get it.
We have heard the concept of Jesus dying on the cross so much that we almost take it for granted.
But there are people that haven’t. Even in Evansville, I told some kids once that Jesus rose from the dead 3 days after He died and one of them said “Nuh Uh!” in shock and surprise.
So here are the disciples and they aren’t getting it. They couldn’t grasp it. It says it was hidden from them.
That’s probably an expression. Peter got it earlier and had a fit. A fit so big that he told Jesus to shut up and Jesus called Peter Satan.
There was some conflict!
And now Jesus gives really graphic details. He’ll be flogged and killed. Every one of them knew how bad that was. Floggings were done in public and it didn’t take much to hear the screams of those being flogged around town when it happened.
The thing that hits hard here is that even though the disciples didn’t get it, Jesus didn’t try harder to get His point across. He knew Himself what was going to happen. He knew how awful it would be.
And He kept on going.
How many of us have done something, not knowing how awful it would be, and then regretted it afterward? The next level is doing something and knowing how awful it could be but then we press on, do it, and find out it wasn’t that bad. (But it was still difficult).
There are a lot of levels of regret before, during, and after a hard event. We carry that regret with us into our next opportunity — into our next decision.
Jesus left His throne in heaven (Phil. 2) and lived among us. That was a huge step of separation and change. He knowingly marched towards Jerusalem knowing that He’d get a flogging and death. That was a greater separation and change than anyone has ever experienced!
And nobody got it.
This is where the real love of Jesus shows. Even though He knew it would take a lot for us to understand it, even though the people around Him that saw it first hand were uneducated and thoroughly confused, He died for us. Romans says that we were still sinners when He died for us. Not only that, but we were clueless!
That’s the love of God in action. Not for the fame, not for the selfie, but for our salvation and the fulfillment of His love.
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