31st Day of Lent

Wednesday, April 9, 2025

Luke 18:31-34, NIV

Then he took the twelve aside and said to them, “Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be handed over to the authorities, and he will be mocked and insulted and spat upon. After they have flogged him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise again.” But they understood nothing about all these things; in fact, what he said was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.

Reflection - Pastor Taylor Walker, Zion Lutheran Church, Spring City

This wasn’t the first time the disciples had heard this, about Jesus. Actually, this was the third time. They weren’t being willfully obtuse – at least, I don’t think so, but I wouldn’t put it past Simon Peter. I think what was really happening is cognitive dissonance. The disciples had this understanding of the Messiah being the one who would rescue them from everything terrible about the world – everything terrible about empire. When the Messiah came back – and surely Jesus was the Messiah, given the signs and wonders – everything would be different. Life would be easy and comfortable and perfect. No more pain, no more tears, no more worries.

And Jesus agrees, things will be that way in the kingdom of God…

It’s just that we’re not there yet. And the way between here and there is long and twisty. Turns out, having the messiah here with us doesn’t take away the troubles of this life. Some of them, it seems to make even more complicated… like how, on top of dealing with terrible things death and cancer and war, we have to figure out how to trust our God, be God’s people, in the midst of death and cancer and war.

I wonder what the disciples were thinking in this moment, as the reality of Jesus’s impending arrest hits them for the third time. I wonder if, this time, it’s starting to sink in… he really is going to die, and for some reason nobody can understand, God isn’t going to stop it.

Meditation: Have you ever had to hold bad news alongside your faith in God? What happened, and how did you move through it?