Luke 9:21-24 - Suffering servant and suffering servants

9:21,22

The disciples had little idea of the full implications of Jesus being the Messiah, so the people would have even less idea. This is probably why Jesus instructs them to keep quiet about the matter at this stage, for there is no way they could properly communicate something they did not even understand themselves. Jesus then reveals what His mission entailed, and that was suffering, most serious suffering. He would be rejected by all the religious leaders and killed. Not only would this happen, but it must happen. His death was not a mistake, not an unfortunate consequence, but central to the plan of salvation. Then on the third day He would be raised to life.

9:23

The consequences for Jesus of His mission were clearly very serious, to say the least! However, the same also applied to His disciples, and that includes us. The gospel is not about self-fulfilment, but about Christ-fulfilment. Jesus came to do the will of the Father, we come to Christ to do His will. That is what we are signing up for when we give our lives to Christ. We should remember what “taking up the cross” meant. The disciples may well have witnessed a man who was convicted to crucifixion by the Romans, and such a man would have to carry his own cross to the place of execution, the place where he was going to die a torturous death. Jesus is not mincing His words to the disciples about the cost of following Him, and most of the them would indeed die for the gospel. There is no cheap prosperity in the gospel.

9:24

The gospel is no glitzy offer, but a most serious matter. One might wonder if it was going to involve such a cost why would anyone ever want to choose to follow Jesus? Part of the reason is that the alternative is even worse, and the other reason is that the cross is not the end, but the mean to the end. The logical response might seem to be that if the cost is so high, then no sensible man would choose to follow Christ, but Jesus tells us if we try to save our own life then far from saving it we will lose it. Conversely, if we do lose our life for Christ’s sake, which is what happens, then we will find that we actually find it. We truly find life when we choose to follow Christ.