Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Easter Together, Day 12 - 'Amazed and Afraid'

And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem[1], and Jesus was walking ahead of them. And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. And taking the twelve again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise. Mark 10:32-34 (see also, Matt. 20:17-19, Luke 18:31-34)

Love does strange things to us. On one hand it brings us joy but on the other it can also grip us with fear.  As Jesus continues traveling south along the Jordan, He is ‘going up’ to Jerusalem (whether south, north, east or west, the Jew’s always ‘go up’ to Jerusalem, which is on a hill). As He travels He invokes two, quite varied responses – ‘amazed’ and ‘afraid’.  We are not privy as to who gives these - whether the whole of them give both or whether they were divided by group – but my suspicion is the crowd was amazed and the disciples were afraid.  

Now I really believe the disciples loved Jesus.  But when we love someone we can also be gripped by fear.  We can be afraid we might lose them or that something might happen to them - or fear that something might happen to us because of them. This is what I think is going on. The disciples knew the ‘Jews’ were conspiring to trip Jesus up – even kill him. This had been their plan since the raising of Lazarus.  Their loyalty and love kept the disciples with Christ but their fear over what might happen made them cautious. In response Jesus tells them plainly - “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him" - which is opposite of what we think He should say were He wanting to comfort them.  Then adds - "And after three days he will rise" - and we can only wonder whether they understood Him, or what they even thought at all of this.  Indeed, the crowds were amazed but the disciples afraid.

Do you ever find yourself afraid in following after Christ?  Has He asked you to follow Him into places and though circumstances that you fear? He has me. Many times!  As humans we may fear, but in Christ we can be assured that ‘perfect love cast’s out fear.' (John 4:18)  And though we are not perfect this side of glory – Christ is, and His perfect love wins. Always 

Pastor Sam




[1] A T Robertson footnotes in his A HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS FOR STUDENTS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST, that Jesus had left Galilee in § 122, crossing the Jordan into Perea, probably in company with many Jews from Galilee (who regularly went this way to Jerusalem), and will now soon cross the river again and reach Jericho (§ 126).


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