Jesus died.

As we were going through John 14 tonight something struck me - we often gauge our suffering based on something so much less than what Christ new the disciples were going to face. This chapter begins and ends with Christ saying - "Let not your hearts be troubled." This begs the question, "Why would our hearts be troubled Jesus?" They are clearly sitting around the table asking questions about where Jesus was going, what he was doing, and he is very frank on the fact that they are not getting it, perhaps most clearly when he says in v29 that he is telling them these things so that later they will believe.

Perhaps all this is to you, like it was to me - just the beginning of a really bad week for Jesus.

But then these verses came alive with the blood of the Gospel - "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live."

I often read this from the standpoint of knowing the end of the story. "Yea yea Jesus, they get it, you will die, and you will return." That is such a terrible look at what is happening. Jesus, the Creator of the universe, the Author of life, God - is telling his friends, friends that have traveled with him for three years, are very committed to him, and are dear to him - that he will not leave them orphaned. He is not talking about the second coming here - he is talking about those three dark days that he was in the ground.

One.

Two.

Three.


Three days he was gone, and not expected to return. But then, PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW - HE RETURNS.

He comes back. He visits them before he goes to heaven. They see this and they do in fact believe.


Because he lives we too may live. Paul tells us that "...if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins...If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men."

Jesus actually died. It is so easy to see life, death, and resurrection in such a sequential and single dimensional aspect but think about the disciples. Jesus was a real person, who lived in a real place, who suffered a very real death.

Oh to Grace how great a debtor -


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