Matthew 20.17-19

This small passage comes after three intense encounters with the Pharisees (Matthew 19.3), Jesus' Disciples (Mt. 19.13) and the rich young ruler (Mt. 19.16). After all this,  it seems that Jesus stops teaching, and sets his sights, again, on Jerusalem. Luke 9.51, Luke says that "As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem." During this period, all kinds of conflicts occurred that could have derailed him, but Jesus kept his eyes on the prize, which was a cross. Read Jesus' third and last prediction of his death:

¹⁷ Now as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside and said to them, ¹⁸ “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death ¹⁹ and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!”


This prediction consists of six elements:

1. It is taking place in Jerusalem
2. There will be a betrayal
3. The Jewish Leaders will be responsible
4. He will be handed over to the Gentiles for a death sentence
5. he will be mocked, flogged and crucified
6. He will rise again on the third day

This was the third time that Jesus told his disciples that he was going to die, and each time they just didn't get it. Even after this, James and John's momma comes to Jesus trying to make sure they get the best seats when Jesus' kingdom is established. The disciples just didn't get it. How dull are they????!!!!

Yet how dull are we.

Jesus as told us over and over again what it means to be kingdom citizens. We are called to pick up our crosses daily and follow Jesus. We are called to resolutely set our sites on Jerusalem, on death, on dying to our own selfish desires for the needs of those around us. This is what we are called to do, yet we just don't get it.

We don't help the poor. We don't tell our coworkers and friends and neighbors about Jesus. We don't adopt children to keep them from being aborted. We don't take care of the elderly, instead we throw them in nursing homes and visit them once or twice a year. We spend money and big fancy cars and vacation homes, rather than on water wells for communities that have no clean water, or for the homeless in Joplin, MO. 

We don't get this concept of the cross. Yet, this is how we are supposed to live everyday. So sets your sights on Jerusalem, maybe even put a sticky note on your bathroom mirror that says, "Go to Jerusalem". Because in Jerusalem is where we die, and in when we die, the world is blessed. So get your passport ready, pack your bags, remember your tickets, and Go to Jerusalem. Don't forget, we go there to die.