31 Then
saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for
it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be
scattered abroad.
32 But
after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.
33 Peter
answered and said unto him, Though all men shall
be offended because of thee, yet will I never be
offended.
34 Jesus
said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow,
thou shalt deny me thrice.
35 Peter
said unto him, Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee.
Likewise also said all the disciples. (Matt. 26:31-35)
It is interesting to see what scripture Jesus is
quoting. It comes from Zechariah
13:7:
Awake, O sword, against my
shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow,
saith the Lord of hosts: smite the shepherd, and
the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.
If you take the time to look at the context of Zechariah 13,
this verse comes in the middle of prophecies about the second coming of
Christ. The context maeks it
confusing, but evidently Jesus had such a firm testimony of His coming
sacrifice that He knew exactly what it was about.
Of course, when He tells His disciples, they can’t imagine
any of it happening, even though He’s told them a number of times He’d be
killed. When He tells them they
will be offended because of Him, they deny it.
This causes me to ask, “Why even tell them they will deny
Him?” If He were a manipulative
person, it would have been to bind them even closer to Him through their
protestations, but He’s not manipulative, so that can’t be it. In some way it must actually benefit
them.
The way they react with horror, we can see they think He
means they will be permanently offended, but you can see that at the same time
He warns them He also promises to lead them again to Galilee after He was
risen. ("after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee") He was trying to show them
that they were going to act in an aberrational manner because of what would happen
to them and Him. He anticipated
not only their self-preservational fear and scattering and Peter’s denials, but
also He anticipated the shame and self-reproach that they would go through when
they later considered their actions.
He wanted to comfort them ahead of time that they would re-commit to be
true. I think He hoped they
wouldn’t cut themselves off from Christ, thinking He couldn’t forgive them.
Imagine if after He was resurrected, His disciples were
reluctant to believe He could receive them because of their defection at His
arrest? What if they left their
callings forever because of feeling unworthy? I think that is precisely what Jesus hoped to avoid.
I think it also would help build their faith in Him because
it showed He did know how the
prophecies would be fulfilled, that He fulfilled them, so He was the
Messiah. Even prophecies that
seemed to show them in a bad light
while He suffered would be fulfilled.
Many of us are hesitant to share unpleasant truths with our
friends and family, but Jesus seems never to have shrunk from it. (I think His demonstrated love played a
big part in that in anyone being able to receive those things.) His commitment
to truth and His mission was paramount, and He always seemed to share those
things in such a way as to benefit His listeners most.
What’s kind of sad is that any way you look at it, the way
His disciples protested their faithfulness would be painful to Jesus when He
know they wouldn’t hold out. It
hurts to not be able to believe your friends. But if He let Himself believe them, it would be much worse
because He’d find Himself watching them run away and feeling bitter, saying,
“They said they would never be
offended or deny me!”
Another thing this story shows is the human tendency to disbelieve
warnings when they indicate imminent dangers that are a reversal of our
experience. But our disbelief
means we will be doomed to suffer for our lack of preparation unless we can
have the faith to prepare for dangers we hadn’t ever imagined.
Also, this story makes me question how true to the Lord I can
be. I can’t condemn the disciples
because I, like them, don’t yet know to what extremities I shall be brought to
prove my faithfulness. I do know,
however, that if I am to make it through and remain true, it will be by relying
on the Lord and not on my own strength.
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