…”Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. 32 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.”
“The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about.”
The part that really stands out to me is: Its meaning was hidden from them….they did not know what he was talking about.
An odd thing to glean from this passage. However, think about it.
What does this teach us about God? And what does this teach us about us?
First of all, it teaches us that God’s ways are not our ways; that he knows of things that we cannot understand. In fact, this was Jesus’ third time telling the disciples of his coming death. So even when something is repeatedly told to us, we still might not understand it.
But you know what?
“Its meaning was hidden from them.”
That means that Jesus is withholding the knowledge from us at the present because somehow, if we knew what He was talking about all the time, it would be worse for us than if we didn’t.
We can also apply this verse to things happening to us at the present. Is there anything very hard you are going through?
God is perfect, so how could He let this happen?
This verse, however, tells us that the meaning can be hidden from us.
I always have to remind myself this when times get hard, that God’s in control, and that just because we don’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s not going to work out well. For,
…we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose…
thoughts of a wanderer 