Mark 9:30-32-- How Can We Accept This?

From there they went out and began to go through Galilee, and He did not want anyone to know about it. For He was teaching His disciples and telling them, "The Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him; and when He has been killed, He will rise three days later." But they did not understand this statement, and they were afraid to ask Him.

Jesus is speaking of his death and resurrection for a second time.  In this prophecy, he proclaimed that he would be “delivered” or placed under the authority of men.  Jesus is right then under no authority except God’s law, but he would be offered to others who would have authority to kill him.  The text mentions that the disciples did not understand him.  In Hebrew idiom to “not understand” often means to refuse to understand.  The disciples here understood his clear words—but they could not accept them.

Jesus speaks plainly that which could not be accepted by any human.  Jesus speaks to the disciples of the death of their hopes.  He says that their commitment was in vain.  That the very one on whom they completely relied and trusted would just be gone.  And he planned it that way.

How can any of us endure the dashing of our hopes?  We all live in some sort of fantasy.  The discples' dreamed that they would go with Jesus to Jerusalem and just take over.  God would be with them and bless their efforts.  Perhaps we have a dream about God blessing our efforts.  A ministry plan we hope will succeed.  A love we want to marry.  A new direction for our life.  They are a fantasy, but perhaps they could be done, with God's help.

What we need to understand is that God has a direction for our lives that we cannot imagine or fantasize about. And our future is not a straightforward line toward our dream, or even a wobbly one.  Our future is our dreams being destroyed, dashed to pieces.  We won't see a single piece of it come to pass.  Sometimes God will tell us ahead of time, and sometimes not.  But one day we will wake up and find out that our dream was ethereal, untouchable. 

Yet God gives us shattered hopes in order to help us live in a brand new world.