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Good morning my ‘Walking with Jesus” friends,
Your life journey and mine have been filled with ‘defining moments’ which sometimes affect the rest of our lives. For the past three days in our “Walking with Jesus” journey we’ve been experiencing a ‘defining moment’ with Jesus and His disciples at Caesarea Philippi as recorded for us in Matthew 16.
Today the story continues with another ‘defining moment’ as Jesus is preparing His disciples for what Jesus knows will happen on Passover/Easter weekend, only a few weeks away, but the disciples don’t have any idea, nor could they imagine it!
Matthew gives us his eye-witness account and let’s watch: “From that time on Jesus began to explain to His disciples that He MUST go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that He MUST be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” (Matt. 16:21)
Wow, what a powerful statement! Did you notice the word “must” appears twice here? Jesus clearly understood that God the Father had sent God the Son from heaven to earth at this specific time in history, with a very strategic mission to accomplish and that mission REQUIRED certain things from Jesus.
Pause for a few seconds and see how many things you can name, which were required for Jesus to do if His God given mission was to be accomplished. I’ll get you started…
1. His incarnation! Jesus had to become fully human as well as fully divine, thus His birth in Bethlehem. (Luke 1:31-35; Matt. 1:20-23)
2. Jesus had to live a sinless, perfect life. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
3. Jesus had to teach God’s truth. (John 8:26-29)
4. Jesus had to die in order to be our atonement. (Col. 1:21,22)
5. Jesus had to rise from the dead in order to be our living Savior. (Rom. 4:25; Heb.7:25)
I wonder what other things you can list, my friends, which were required of Jesus if He was to accomplish His God the Father given mission?
When Jesus told His disciple friends that He was going to suffer greatly at the hands of the Jewish religious and civic leaders, can you imagine how confusing that must have been? From the days of Moses, the primary role of the religious leaders was to help the people know God, know God’s truth, worship God and live God honoring lives in obedience to God.
Their worship and their festivals were always calling the people to look forward to God sending His Messiah and coming to be among them. Considering all the good things Jesus was doing and the wonderful, truthful God messages He was delivering, why would Jewish leaders reject and persecute Him?
Years later one of those disciples, John, spent a good portion of the first chapter in his account of Jesus’ life to make this reality very clear. John wrote: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Through Him all things were made; and without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it… He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him…” (John 1:1-5, 9-12)
If you know the story of Jesus, as told in the Bible, from His birth through all His earthly life to His ascension, Jesus was strongly opposed by those Jewish leaders who should have been His strongest supporters!
But Jesus was not only explaining to His disciples that He would suffer greatly at the hands of Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, but here Matthew also tells us Jesus BEGAN to explain to His friends that He “must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” (Matt. 16:21) I think it’s safe to say these words shocked the disciples to the very core of their being. Both concepts, Jesus’ execution and His resurrection, were far beyond their ability to comprehend or make any sense of.
They’d seen Jesus do incredible miracles and His power seemed unlimited, therefore no matter what size of army or group or how vicious they might be, surely Jesus could not only defend Himself, but He could also easily strike them all blind or paralyze them or even kill any adversaries.
So it made no sense at all that Jesus would predict His execution. And if Jesus was invincible, then there was, of course, no reason to talk of resurrection. No, this entire notion of persecution at the hands of Jewish leaders, or execution, or resurrection was surely nonsense.
But for these disciples who knew Jesus well and were following Him full time, what could it mean that Jesus would even suggest these things? Was He delusional? Was He hallucinating? Was He suicidal? As the disciples wrestled with trying to understand, Peter, as he often did, took matters into his own hands and drew Jesus aside to have a chat with Him.
Matthew records it this way: “Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke Jesus.’Never, Lord! This shall never happen to You!” (Matt. 16:22) If this conversation could be overheard by the other disciples, I’m sure they were all nodding in agreement, perhaps slapping Peter on the back for his courage. Yes! Peter was right. They could not possibly imagine any of these terrible things happening to Jesus.
Let’s pause right here friends and consider these questions:
* When things happen in your world, which don’t seem right or certainly not under the watchful eye of God, what do you say or do in those situations? Do you conclude God is not paying attention to what’s going on in your life?
* If you get a sense God is leading you into or asking you to be part of something that is painful to you or contrary to your preferences or values, yet you sense God is calling you into it, how do you respond?
* When life storms are raging all around you, yet God seems far away, how do you respond to that?
Let those questions ruminate in your heart and mind, perhaps leading you to other, similar questions, and worship with this powerful song. Tomorrow, join me again and we’ll see how Jesus responded to Peter and what it means for you and me today.
Today’s Scripture: Matt. 16:21, 22.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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