Matthew 26:1-4 "Hearing What We Want To Hear"

When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples,  “As you know, Passover begins in two days, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.”
At that same time the leading priests and elders were meeting at the residence of Caiaphas, the high priest,  plotting how to capture Jesus secretly and kill him. “But not during the Passover celebration,” they agreed, “or the people may riot.”

 
Jesus clearly understood the path before Him.  He knew what was about to happen.  He knew what the religious leaders were plotting.   He tells His disciples that He is about to be handed over to His enemies and that He will be crucified.  The disciples, somehow did not catch on. 

The book of Luke tells this story even more bluntly.  There Jesus lays it out in detail.  He says, "We are going to Jerusalem where I will be arrested and handed over to the Romans -I will be mocked and flogged and spit upon and treated shamefully and then killed, but on the third day I will rise from the dead."  Luke goes on to say that the disciples did not understand the significance of His words and failed to grasp what He was talking about. (Luke 18:31-34)


It is not that Jesus was being evasive or unclear.  Yet the disciples did not understand, and, apparently heard what they wanted to hear.  We have the ability to do that -to pick and choose what we hear.  

I regularly minister to people who are angry with God because some facet of life did not happen according to their expectations.  I have, no doubt, occasionally been guilty of this myself. This little story is a reminder that sometimes my expectations are simply a matter of me hearing what I want to hear instead of hearing what God is actually saying.  When Jesus says that we must pick up our crosses and follow Him, does that actually sound like a life of prosperity and ease?  How about when He says, "If they hated Me, they will hate you too?"  or that whoever clings to life will lose it, but whoever gives up his life for the Kingdom's sake will gain?


We hear clearly when Jesus tells us that He came to give us "abundant" life.  We don't hear as clearly when He tells us that we must die to ourselves or when He says, "If they hated Me, they will hate you too."

Of course, all of what Jesus told us is true.  In Him we have abundant life and joy and peace -and at the same time we will be hated and persecuted and misunderstood.  Both are possible -just as when Jesus said "I will be crucified, but on the third day I will rise again."  And not only are these seeming contradictions possible, they are connected.  Before Jesus could rise from the dead, He had to be killed.  Maybe before we have abundant life we have to surrender the lives we have.  Maybe before we experience the fulness of His love and joy and peace in the spiritual realm, we must experience the absence of those things in the physical.  Maybe the true Christian life is both difficult and good.


Lord, help me to lay down my expectations of what I think ought to be for the reality You have lovingly put before me.  Help me to hear You more clearly and follow You more closely.   In Your reality I find love and peace and joy in the middle of my brokenheartedness.