……….When Jesus talked, people listened, but they often did not hear.
……….Jesus spoke often of his death and resurrection:
John 2:19 Jesus answered, “Tear down this Temple, and in three days I will build it again.”
……….His disciples didn’t understand him. The priests used it as criminal charges against him. Quite often, people do not understand the holy so much, it doesn’t make sense to them, think its crazy or even something to jail or execute people for. In Iran today, for instance, they will arrest and murder you in prison if you speak a religion that is not theirs. In Israel then, many of these priests knew Jesus knew more than them. Maybe some believed Jesus was God. The problem is that instead of lifting Jesus to a position in the priesthood, each were foolishly afraid of losing their position & didn’t want to risk losing their ride on the gravy train.
……….Even Jesus Christ’s own followers had a hard time understanding him:
John4: 31 In the meantime the disciples were begging Jesus, “Teacher, have something to eat!”
32 But he answered, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
33 So the disciples started asking among themselves, “Could somebody have brought him food?”
34 “My food,” Jesus said to them, “is to obey the will of the one who sent me and to finish the work he gave me to do. 35 You have a saying, ‘Four more months and then the harvest.’ But I tell you, take a good look at the fields; the crops are now ripe and ready to be harvested! 36 The one who reaps the harvest is being paid and gathers the crops for eternal life; so the one who plants and the one who reaps will be glad together. 37 For the saying is true, ‘Someone plants, someone else reaps.’ 38 I have sent you to reap a harvest in a field where you did not work; others worked there, and you profit from their work.”
……….Jesus here, not being understood is saying that what maintains him is not physical food, but the work he has to help others in the spirit of love.
……….Jesus spoke in parables, things that must be interpreted by the spirit, wisdom or simply could not be understood:
Mark 4: 10 When Jesus was alone, some of those who had heard him came to him with the twelve disciples and asked him to explain the parables. 11 “You have been given the secret of the Kingdom of God,” Jesus answered. “But the others, who are on the outside, hear all things by means of parables, 12 so that,
‘They may look and look,
yet not see;
they may listen and listen,
yet not understand.
For if they did, they would turn to God,
and he would forgive them.’”
……….Jesus openly explains why the things he says and the things he did confused some people and understood by others… It was by design of the Father. With Jesus, though the lens of love, life makes sense. We live to help all around us… Without Jesus all of life is confusing, life makes no sense to non believers. Non believers do not know where they come from, do not know where they go, and have no confidence in any of it, having to manufacture fake confidence and cognitive dissonance. Followers of Jesus know one way in, one way out: God. Love made us, love sustains us, love will let us live forever.
[From OT] Proverbs 21:29 Righteous people are sure of themselves; the wicked have to pretend as best they can.
John 10: 10 Jesus said, “I am telling you the truth: the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in some other way, is a thief and a robber. 2 The man who goes in through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him; the sheep hear his voice as he calls his own sheep by name, and he leads them out. 4 When he has brought them out, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they know his voice. 5 They will not follow someone else; instead, they will run away from such a person, because they do not know his voice.”
6 Jesus told them this parable, but they did not understand what he meant.
7 So Jesus said again, “I am telling you the truth: I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All others who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate. Those who come in by me will be saved; they will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only in order to steal, kill, and destroy. I have come in order that you might have life—life in all its fullness.
11 “I am the good shepherd, who is willing to die for the sheep. 12 When the hired man, who is not a shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees a wolf coming, he leaves the sheep and runs away; so the wolf snatches the sheep and scatters them. 13 The hired man runs away because he is only a hired man and does not care about the sheep. 14-15 I am the good shepherd. As the Father knows me and I know the Father, in the same way I know my sheep and they know me. And I am willing to die for them. 16 There are other sheep which belong to me that are not in this sheep pen. I must bring them, too; they will listen to my voice, and they will become[a] one flock with one shepherd.
17 “The Father loves me because I am willing to give up my life, in order that I may receive it back again. 18 No one takes my life away from me. I give it up of my own free will. I have the right to give it up, and I have the right to take it back. This is what my Father has commanded me to do.”
19 Again there was a division among the people because of these words. 20 Many of them were saying, “He has a demon! He is crazy! Why do you listen to him?”
21 But others were saying, “A man with a demon could not talk like this! How could a demon give sight to blind people?”
…The Saturday that Jesus was in the grave, people just didn’t get it. There’s many other things Jesus said that people did not get, such as Communion in God where we share a little of his bodily suffering to have some measure of the spirit. Yet I do not want to write a book here… I just wanted to remind you that this Saturday the good guys thought they lost and the bad guys thought they won, but Sunday’s coming.