From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead. But Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. “Heaven forbid, Lord,” he said. “This will never happen to you!” [Matthew 16:21-22 (NLT)]
While talking with a friend, I mentioned how many people of our generation seem unprepared for the challenges of widowhood. Having relinquished certain responsibilities to their spouses during the decades of marriage, they’re ill-equipped when they lose that spouse. There are men who have no idea how to do laundry, grocery shop, clean the bathroom or use the microwave. On the other hand, many of my women friends have never done minor repairs, paid bills, made an investment or purchased a car. “That was me!” replied my friend whose husband died of cancer. His death, while unwelcome, was not unexpected so I asked why they hadn’t prepared her for widowhood. “He tried to,” she said, “but I wouldn’t listen.” As long as they didn’t talk about his imminent passing and her future life without him, she still could deny its reality.
While thinking of her experience, I thought of the disciples’ behavior when Jesus spoke of his death. At first, He spoke metaphorically: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” At least three times, however, He spoke quite plainly about what the future held: he would be killed and raised from the dead. He didn’t mince any words when he described his death but the disciples didn’t understand. Jesus forewarned them but they were confused and frightened when He died, hid in a room instead of waiting expectantly at the tomb, and didn’t believe the women who said the tomb was empty.
Jesus spoke of fulfilling the prophecies and the disciples knew those prophecies. They preferred the ones about the messiah’s glory, however, to those of the suffering servant. Still thinking about an earthly king, Jesus’s words were contrary to their expectations and the disciples couldn’t reconcile what Jesus said to what they wanted. How could suffering and death accomplish anything? Like my widowed friend, they didn’t want to face the truth of what the future held. Perhaps, like her, they thought their denial would keep the horror from happening.
We aren’t all that different when it comes to seeing and hearing only what we want. In his Bible commentary, Matthew Henry cautions that we’re like the disciples when we read the Bible “by halves” – only the half we like. Consistently, the top three searched-for Bible verses are John 3:16, Jeremiah 29:11, and Philippians 4:13; the rest of the top twenty are other reassuring verses of comfort. If the Bible was a buffet, we’d find those feel-good verses on the dessert table. Dessert is great and so are those verses; nevertheless, they only tell part of the story. The other half of the Bible, while just as nourishing, isn’t quite as sweet; it’s the meaty stuff on the main dish table that tells us we’re going to have trials, temptation, affliction, and persecution. It tells us of mankind’s failures, God’s warnings, and why He had to redeem the world He created. It speaks of sin and God’s wrath and uses words like sacrifice, suffering, judgment and tribulation.
Let us never turn away from God’s word because we don’t like what it says. Ignoring the prophecies didn’t keep Jesus from being crucified and ignoring the still unfulfilled ones will not keep them from coming true! As for me, I want to be prepared for what the future brings (both in this world and the next).
In C.S. Lewis’ fantasy The Horse and His Boy, Aravis, a young noblewoman, is attacked by a lion. After her wounds are cleaned and dressed, she’s told that the cuts on her back are neither deep nor dangerous and no more serious than the cuts of a whip. Aravis later learns from Aslan, the lion who attacked her, that the gashes on her back, stripe for stripe, equal the stripes laid on the back of the maidservant she’d caused to be punished. At first, this seems more like the Old Testament retribution of “an eye for an eye” than something Lewis’ Christ-like character of Aslan would do. What if the maidservant had been hung or beheaded? What then?
Hurricane Irma did quite a number on our southwest Florida bird sanctuary. Unfortunately, much of the boardwalk was damaged (some of it beyond repair) and there were several casualties among the trees, including two 100-foot cypress trees that proudly stood for over 400 years. Like them, many smaller trees were uprooted and now lie dead on the forest floor. Irma’s high winds did some violent and cruel pruning as it stripped bark, tore off branches, and splintered mature trees as if they were mere matchsticks. Cypress trees that were over 40-feet tall are now little more than stumps. Nevertheless, trees I thought were goners are recovering and greening up; new foliage is emerging out of their fractured tops and sides. In spite of the incredible damage they suffered, their roots still support and feed them with life giving water and they’re surviving. They may be down but they’re certainly not out.
Jesus had returned to Capernaum and the word was out—the rabbi from Nazareth could heal. People were flocking to Him and the crowd followed Jesus right into the house where he was staying. Four friends of a paralyzed man carried him to see Jesus but the house was so full they couldn’t get through the door. Determined to get to Jesus, they carried the paralyzed man up the outside stairs to the rooftop and started to dig through the thatch. Picture the scene. The room is jam-packed when a disturbance is heard overhead. Dried mud and straw start to fall into the room, a head peaks through, more straw and dirt come spilling through the opening, a mat is dropped, and then four men lower their paralyzed friend down to the ground right at the feet of Jesus.
Back in January, many people made resolutions to read the Bible. If you pledged to read the entire Bible this year, good for you. Like many who make that resolution, however, you may already have fallen behind schedule and are tempted to quit. Having tried to do it in a year, I feel your pain. After finally getting through Leviticus, Jeremiah nearly did me in with his doom and gloom. It’s not just the reading that takes time; it’s the understanding, the digesting, of what we’ve read that can slow us down. After all, there’s no point of reading it if we don’t understand it! I could read the words in a college astrophysics text but, if I didn’t understand them, I’d know no more about astrophysics on the last page than I did on the first. This year, I’m reading the Bible in chronological order and, in spite of my goal to do it in a year, it will probably take longer. For those who are discouraged or soon will be, I thought I’d rerun a previous devotion for you.
Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you. I’ve called your name. You’re mine. When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you. When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down. When you’re between a rock and a hard place, it won’t be a dead end—Because I am God, your personal God, The Holy of Israel, your Savior. [Isaiah 43:2-3a (MSG)]
