Let These Words Sink In Your Hearts

Luke 9: 43And they were all amazed at the greatness of God But while everyone was marveling at all that He was doing, He said to His disciples,

 44"Let these words sink into your ears; for the Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men."

 45But they did not understand this statement, and it was concealed from them so that they would not perceive it; and they were afraid to ask Him about this statement.

Ah... these are very hard words. But I want to live by the truth, no matter how hard it is to swallow and digest. I have often taught that the Scriptures should be held up like a mirror to our faces. They are to expose our sins and this one surely does. But when I am cleansed I will be healed, is that not the promise given us so far? 

Yes, it appears that the works of Jesus can dazzle the disciples. Even though they marveled at the works of God, they also were marveling at the wondrous working powers of God. It is easy as a disciple to get stuck on that. It is easy to get enamored of the power gifts and then to begin to build upon your own successes in wielding such power. In the verses following verses 45, we see exactly that. They argued among themselves, which would be the greatest. I don’t think Hans and I were any different from these ragtag guys either. We were not consciously doing that but it is, nonetheless, part of the waters we swim in. And so we were “very busy” in our lives, not making our own name great but certainly consumed with the “works of God.”  

And while we were marveling at these things, Jesus said to us, “Let THESE words sink into your ears, the Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.” So while we did the “works of God” and marveled at them, for our teachings were no small matter, Jesus had hoped that we would let a different set of words sink into our hearts. He was saying to me, “while you are thinking about success, I am thinking about my suffering, and the cup that you both will also drink at the end.” Jesus was already praying for us at the beginning of our union, knowing that a deeper work would have to be done in our hearts than any earthly success could bring—a deeper death to self. The same held true for all the apostles did it not?

But these truths were also “withheld” from us. We could not have borne it. Even in the purchase of our beautiful building on Oxford, the only warning of impending doom was that we would only be there for five years. I too was afraid to seriously ask, “Why? Will one of us die? Be paralyzed?” What will happen, never entered my mind. But it was withheld from us, for we could not have borne the grief back then. We were full of plans and life and dreams and energy. Yet it is a word to the wise, that we must be taught to number our days. Our cloak will be given to someone else, so let us hold it lightly.