Saying, The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day. Luke 9:22
You can’t say He didn’t give them plenty of advance notice! During His earthly ministry, the three years of His companionship with His twelve disciples, the Lord Jesus never made any secret of what lay before Him. The events surrounding our text occurred considerable time before He went to Jerusalem to be crucified. The details are spelled out very clearly, as He reveals what is to happen, omitting only the means by which He was to die. He knew those details because they described His purpose for coming into the world, the very plan of God for our Salvation. But despite having such a clear revelation of what the future was to hold, the disciples missed it. We read of no great debate at this occasion, or of any acceptance of the events that Jesus foretold when they began to occur. It was as though He had spoken a riddle that they could not solve. And yet, He wanted them to know.
If men so close to the Lord Jesus missed the message of His upcoming sufferings and death, we would surely have missed it too if we had been there. We have the advantage of being able to look back and read of the completion of all of those events that Jesus described. We understand them as history verified by many witnesses, not as prophecy as the disciples heard our text. Although they should have believed His words, the disciples can be excused in part because of the unusual nature of what they were told. Perhaps they thought He was warning them of something that might happen, not something that He knew would happen. And for someone to be raised from the dead, they had never heard of such a thing, and may have thought He was speaking in an allegory or a parable. We don’t know. But we do know they were told. And they should have believed. So should we.
A scoffer recently told me that he could not understand how anyone could believe that somebody could rise from the dead. Of course he could not. He has no ability to understand and accept the truth of the resurrection. Things that are spiritually discerned are hidden from him, and will be until he is saved. But you and I are not so handicapped. Just as the Lord Jesus spoke directly and clearly to His disciples, so the Holy Spirit uses the Word of God to speak directly and clearly to us. How much of what He teaches us do we accept, understand, and act upon? Concerning the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we can have no doubts. But how much of a difference does it make to us? Does it bring forth worship and adoration from our hearts? Does it bring forth service in grateful response?
Nothing more important has ever happened in this world than that the Son of Man suffered, was rejected, was slain, and rose from the dead. Believing that should make a difference to us. -Jim MacIntosh