Always remember that the section headings (and indeed the chapter and verse numbers) were not part of the original text. Jesus is about to tell His disciples that He will be handed over to die. This comes immediately after verses 29 and 30 where Jesus has told them that those who have left homes and families will be amply rewarded. We need to hold these two sides together. Similarly on the matter of prosperity we need to beware of becoming unbalanced. There are some who focus unduly on the prosperity verses in the Bible, ignoring the rest. This can lead to serious error. But we need to beware of ignoring what the Bible says about prosperity. The Bible talks about prosperity, it talks about the realities of life where things go wrong (and we go wrong!), and, perhaps most importantly, it talks about us sharing in Christ's sufferings. We need to hold all of this in balance. The best way to do this is to read the whole of the Bible!
Jesus knew where He was going. He knew that the plan was for Him to go to Jerusalem and be handed over, for the prophets had clearly foretold this. Jesus would be flogged, killed and then would rise again. At no point was Jesus surprised by what unfolded. However, this was not true of the disciples who at this stage did not understand a word of what Jesus was saying.
Although Jesus was on the way to the most momentous event in history He still had time to heal people. On the way to Jericho He healed a beggar of his blindness.
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