Something I've always puzzled about is when Jesus warns people not to talk or tell others about things that He's done or who He is. Why? Don't we need to share Him with others? So I think I got the answer in today's reading...
"Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. And he said, 'The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.' "
There needed to be an atmosphere of rejection and suffering in that area because Jesus' main purpose in His life on earth was to suffer and die! Obviously He didn't try to hide Himself, or His power (feeding over 5,000 people with one lunch is a pretty news-worthy item). But for some reason, certain things and certain times, Jesus wanted people to stay quiet. If too many people believed He was the Messiah before He suffered and died, maybe those people would have tried to stop Him from fulfilling His most important goal... and so doing what they thought was good at the time -- saving Him from the present suffering -- would have caused them to loose out on the tremendous, powerful, awesome gift that came through the suffering.
So that's why Jesus then tells them: " 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will loose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.' " and oh, please keep reading!!
Thursday, May 22, 2008
The Son of Man Must Suffer
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1 comment:
Good to see you are back!!
I have wondered about Him asking the disciples to keep things quiet, too, but I think you are right on with your conclusion. It must have been weird for them to switch back and forth from sharing Jesus with others to keeping quiet. It's good that they were able to obey and accept His request even though they didn't really understand the greater good in it at the time.
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