Luke 9:43b-45
While everyone was amazed at all that he was doing, he said to his disciples, “Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands.” But they did not understand this saying; its meaning was concealed from them, so that they could not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask him about this saying.
“Let these words sink into your ears.”
I’ve read Jesus’ predictions of his passion in all the gospel accounts on numerous occasions and I have to admit that I’ve never before noticed this preface. I can only imagine the way it struck the disciples. Jesus is obviously about to tell them something important, something of great significance, something he wants them to pay attention to and remember.
And then it comes: the ominous, dread, nearly unbelievable news that he will be betrayed. This isn’t the first time he’s told them. He did so less than two weeks earlier when he had asked his disciples what people were saying about him and Peter made his great confession. And now he tells them again, prefacing his prediction with this attention-getting command: “Let these words sink into your ears.”
The timing of this second prediction is again significant. Just as earlier, when Jesus linked his death to Peter’s confession that he was God’s messiah, so also Jesus now predicts his death just as the crowds are amazed at his ability to heal. It is as if Jesus wants to make sure that his disciples – then and now – are not misled either by what people are saying about him or by his miraculous deeds. It’s not that these things aren’t significant – he is indeed God’s messiah just as Peter confessed, and the things he does are miraculous. Rather, it’s that these things alone are incomplete. They do not provide a full picture of what God is accomplishing in and through Jesus. That work, that mission, will reach its climax only in the cross, where God’s love for the world will be made most fully and painfully manifest.
The disciples, it appears, do not know how to respond. They are too confused, too afraid to ask him any questions. What a shame. I don’t know how much further conversation would have helped them understand or cope with what was about to happen, but it couldn’t have hurt. But trapped in their fear they cannot find the words to ask the deep questions they are holding in their hearts. May it not be so with us.
Prayer: Dear God, you show us your love most fully in the cross, but we do not always understand what we see. Help us to share the questions we have – with you in prayer and others in conversation – that we may comprehend and share your grace and love with others. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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