You're Killing Me Smalls! (Matthew 20:17-19)
"As Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside privately and told them what was going to happen to him. “Listen,” he said, “we’re going up to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence him to die. Then they will hand him over to the Romans to be mocked, flogged with a whip, and crucified. But on the third day he will be raised from the dead.” (Matthew 20:17-19 NLT).
Jesus often spoke in mysterious parables leaving a lot of people scratching their heads. But every once in a while He took His disciples aside and spoke as clear as day.
Just a few weeks before His death, Jesus pulled His disciples aside and explained to them in explicit detail what was about to happen to Him and how His imminent murder was all part of God's will. I imagine the disciples with a glazed look over their faces nodding silently in agreement with absolutely no clue as to the significance about He was saying.
Of course, this was not the first time Jesus has said this. At this point this is at least the third time in this Gospel it has happened, yet again we find the disciples completely clueless. But why? Were all twelve of them really that slow or were they just not paying attention? What's the deal?
It's easy to give the disciples who heard Jesus' audible voice for three years a hard time while secretly thinking, "man, if I had had the chance to follow Jesus like that, I certainly would have done a better job than those guys." But then again even hindsight isn't always 20/20. Sometimes it's hard to see the raw truth even after the fact.
The fact is, we all have a tendency to hear what we want to hear and ignore what we don't. No different than the first disciples of Jesus, we too have a hard time following Jesus simply because He's out of our league and nobody on the planet can hang with Him.
The Jesus of Scripture often says things and does things that are contrary to our will. He intentionally leads us into places and calls us to sacrifice in ways we'd rather not. He's complex and unpredictable and yet amazingly straightforward.
I can't help but feel the embarrassment of the disciples as Jesus appeared to them for 40 days after His arrest, betrayal, death, and resurrection that He had previously highlighted and outlined for them in triplicate and then spent the following weeks explaining the significance of, who later, only seconds before His final ascension into heaven, are still asking about the details for His plan to overthrow Rome (Acts 1:5-11).
I can't help but hear a sigh of relief escape Jesus' lips as He rockets off towards heaven like Ironman mumbling under His breath, "You're killing me Smalls!"
They just didn't get it; and a lot of times neither do we.
We rack our brains trying to figure out God's plan only to find out we weren't in the same book let alone on the same page as God. I think sometimes we beg God for answers that He knows all to well our brains just won't comprehend. Fact is, just like the disciples butchered the clear meaning of God's audible voice, we probably shouldn't wonder too much why God doesn't feel compelled to explain Himself to us nearly as often as we think He should.
When it comes to the things about God we just can't wrap our minds around, we will probably be better just meditating on the truths He has already revealed rather than spinning our wheels over things the questions He has yet to answer.
There will be a time and a place for answers. Scripture says that, "now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. (1 Corinthians 13:12).
In the meantime, we should be content knowing that even if God were to explain to us every mystery of the universe, we probably still wouldn't get it. We're all just a little slow. But on a positive note, He loves us anyway.
Jesus often spoke in mysterious parables leaving a lot of people scratching their heads. But every once in a while He took His disciples aside and spoke as clear as day.
Just a few weeks before His death, Jesus pulled His disciples aside and explained to them in explicit detail what was about to happen to Him and how His imminent murder was all part of God's will. I imagine the disciples with a glazed look over their faces nodding silently in agreement with absolutely no clue as to the significance about He was saying.
Of course, this was not the first time Jesus has said this. At this point this is at least the third time in this Gospel it has happened, yet again we find the disciples completely clueless. But why? Were all twelve of them really that slow or were they just not paying attention? What's the deal?
It's easy to give the disciples who heard Jesus' audible voice for three years a hard time while secretly thinking, "man, if I had had the chance to follow Jesus like that, I certainly would have done a better job than those guys." But then again even hindsight isn't always 20/20. Sometimes it's hard to see the raw truth even after the fact.
The fact is, we all have a tendency to hear what we want to hear and ignore what we don't. No different than the first disciples of Jesus, we too have a hard time following Jesus simply because He's out of our league and nobody on the planet can hang with Him.
The Jesus of Scripture often says things and does things that are contrary to our will. He intentionally leads us into places and calls us to sacrifice in ways we'd rather not. He's complex and unpredictable and yet amazingly straightforward.
I can't help but feel the embarrassment of the disciples as Jesus appeared to them for 40 days after His arrest, betrayal, death, and resurrection that He had previously highlighted and outlined for them in triplicate and then spent the following weeks explaining the significance of, who later, only seconds before His final ascension into heaven, are still asking about the details for His plan to overthrow Rome (Acts 1:5-11).
I can't help but hear a sigh of relief escape Jesus' lips as He rockets off towards heaven like Ironman mumbling under His breath, "You're killing me Smalls!"
They just didn't get it; and a lot of times neither do we.
We rack our brains trying to figure out God's plan only to find out we weren't in the same book let alone on the same page as God. I think sometimes we beg God for answers that He knows all to well our brains just won't comprehend. Fact is, just like the disciples butchered the clear meaning of God's audible voice, we probably shouldn't wonder too much why God doesn't feel compelled to explain Himself to us nearly as often as we think He should.
When it comes to the things about God we just can't wrap our minds around, we will probably be better just meditating on the truths He has already revealed rather than spinning our wheels over things the questions He has yet to answer.
There will be a time and a place for answers. Scripture says that, "now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. (1 Corinthians 13:12).
In the meantime, we should be content knowing that even if God were to explain to us every mystery of the universe, we probably still wouldn't get it. We're all just a little slow. But on a positive note, He loves us anyway.
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