22After they gathered again in Galilee, Jesus told them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of his enemies.23He will be killed, but on the third day he will be raised from the dead.” And the disciples were filled with grief.
When Jesus tells the disciples what is going to happen to him, he is giving them the opportunity to avoid the entire situation. He tells them both the bad (death) and the good (raised from the dead), but they wouldn’t have had any idea what was meant by “raised from the dead”. The term “Son of Man” was a Old Testament term that clearly would have meant Messiah to the disciples. So let me paraphrase a little:
“I am the Messiah you have been told for 2,000 years was coming to rescue you. Now I’m going to go to Jerusalem and be killed by those you thought I would conquer. Your hopes of freedom from the Romans is not going to happen. You left your families and your businesses and your jobs to follow me and I’m on my way to die and I’m not telling you that you will be OK. For all you know they will kill you when they kill me. But I will rise on the third day – and I’m just leaving you guess at what that means, if anything and I didn’t say you would rise if they kill you. Now lets keep walking right into the arms of my killers and your enemies. Are you coming?”
Yeah that is a bit depressing isn’t it? And the disciples that follow Jesus (I’m sure some of them left along the way) end up experiencing incredible fear, loss, pain, distress…joy, hope, love, and faith. They didn’t know or understand, they just followed. Can we do that? Can we be at a place in our lives where we know things are going to get ugly and painful and we really can’t see the Light at the end of the tunnel, but we just follow Jesus right into the enemy stronghold, die, and wait on Him to make it all work out, whatever that is? Beginner’s Online Bible Study *obbs*
