Luke 18

Jesus told his disciples, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him; they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.” (Verses 31 - 33)

Imagine hearing this as a disciple, it was devastating news. Maybe, if I were one of Jesus’ disciples, I’d say something like, “Let’s not go to Jerusalem then, I hear Jericho is nice this time of year.” But that’s not how the disciples responded. Actually, they didn’t respond at all.

“The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about.” (Verse 34)

They didn’t understand? The meaning was hidden from them? What does that mean?

This wasn’t a parable or a story. Jesus was very straight forward. I don’t understand how it was hidden from them, who hid it from them? Jesus, the Son of God, was telling them this information; he wanted them to know! Clearly, God would not be hiding it from them if Jesus was telling them.

Maybe they were hiding the truth from themselves. Maybe they were only hearing what they wanted to hear.

It is human nature to want to believe something is true, even if it’s not. We often ignore the truth so that we can continue to live in our fantasy world.

This is true in many ways.

When I was in college, I had a girlfriend that was dating someone else at the same time. I saw the signs that this might be happening, but chose to ignore them because I thought I was happy. Looking back, I can’t believe I was such a fool!

Scientific evidence has convinced me that it would be better for the world if we all used less oil to power our lives. I feel like I should be driving a vehicle that gets very good gas mileage, but I love my pick-up truck. Maybe one day, we will all look and think we were fools.

I’m sure the disciples felt like fools on Good Friday. Jesus told them it was going to happen, and it did. 

We may all be fools, but Jesus died because we make bad decisions. That is the truth.