and the One who walks with me on it.

Thursday, May 01, 2014

Would You Have Understood?

       Many times I’ve wondered what I would have said or did if I was following Jesus and He alluded once again to His death.  The followers didn’t seem to understand the full concept behind what He was saying, but they knew the words He spoke and what they entailed- death.  And He spoke more than once about it.  Here are two specific times:

Then Jesus said to them, When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you shall know that I AM, and that I do nothing of Myself, but as My Father has taught Me, I speak these things. Jh. 8:28
Now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to Myself. But He said this, signifying what kind of death He was about to die. Jh. 12:31-33

       Jesus said He would be lifted up from the earth, an idiom that the people knew meant death (v.34).  Being lifted up signified unnatural death, violent and public, and would symbolize Jesus’ mediation between God and man.  The mediation is because of the reference Jesus spoke of which is found in Numbers after the Israelites escaped Egypt.

(synopsis mostly) Israelites were complaining once again, discouraged because of the way, and so spoke against God and Moses.  God sent fiery serpents as judgment, the people repented and Moses prayed. God said, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole. And it shall be when everyone that is bitten, when he looks upon it, he shall live.” Nm. 21:6-9
But even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  Jh. 3:14,15


       So Jesus here prefaces His teaching on being lifted up by likening His death to Moses lifting the pole with the serpent on it with Him.  The people looked on the statue and they were healed, thereby saved.  After we repent, we must ‘look to the cross’ to be saved.  Jesus became our mediator between us and God, using His blood to wash away our sins, thus opening our way to God’s presence again.  He died that we should not perish for eternity, but would be able to have everlasting life. 

       At the end of His mortal life, Jesus lost many followers who truly didn’t understand who He was and His purpose for being.  Most did not understand He HAD to die or they could not be eternally saved.  I’m sure many who watched Him actually die on that cross didn’t quite comprehend it still, not until after His resurrection and subsequent teaching.  I can’t imagine I would have been any different than His disciples.  Would you have understood?