Thoughts for the Day

Luke 9:22 And [Jesus] said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”

Peter must have thought things were going well.  His own trial spell of preaching and healing had borne results, he had witnessed miracles, and Jesus was drawing crowds who were calling him a prophet.  And when Jesus asks the disciples who they think he is, Peter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, declares, “God’s Messiah” (Luke 9:20).  Wow!  But then Jesus begins to explain what the next steps will look like, and Peter is appalled.  He is going to be killed and on the third day raised to life, but Peter cannot see beyond ‘going to be killed’, and, in fairness, who can blame him?  Until after the event only Jesus could see that far ahead.  What utterly outrageous confidence! Where did it come from? Can we also be this confident? One clue, from the pattern of his life, is his trust in the character and promises of God as revealed through the Scriptures he studied.  The only specific Old Testament reference to recovery ‘on the third day’ is Hosea 6:1-2, and to base such confidence on this alone is far too much of a stretch (certainly for me!)  No, it was much broader and deeper and fixed in God’s repeated promise of covenant relationship with Israel.  As an especially poignant example, Jeremiah 31:9 reads “I will bring them back … because I am Israel’s father and Ephraim is my firstborn son”.  If God will not abandon his rebellious son, how much more his obedient one?