An attempt to understand
As one from whom others hide their faces
He was despised, and we held him of no account. Isaiah 53:3
Read Luke 18:31—34
The events that Jesus predicted I can look back on as past tense. For me they have been turned into a precious, immeasurably precious saving work. I can even have a cross as a jewel. I can wear it as a personal decoration, or have it tattooed into my skin. This night I can again pray, ‘Thank you for the cross; thank you for the cross; thank you for the cross, my Friend.’ But, strangely, this reading invites me to go back before all that, to sit with the disciples. If I do that I will realise that none of this has ever been easy to understand. Jesus says it was all written up, as spoken by the prophets: the mocking, the spitting, the abandonment of the Son of God to the Gentiles. I ought to know it in advance. It’s God’s purpose being worked out in God’s place, Jerusalem. But I just can’t see it at all. If I am to understand a thing, Jesus will have to come to me when it is all done, and explain to me what it is that he is achieving for me.
Lord Jesus Christ, I thank you. You have shown me what it is that you endured. You prepared for it. You suffered what you anticipated when you suffered on the cross. I know now that it was for the sin of the world. I know that it was done in love for the world, to claim the world, to restore the world. I know that it was fundamentally God’s purpose. I know it was for me. And I know that there is more and more for me to learn from you. Thank you for the cross, my Friend.