Taken Aside: Matthew 20:17
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What does it mean, when someone takes you to the side, and explains something to you? “Hey, real quick; come over here. I want you to hear this…” It means that person wants your full attention. He or she wants you to be able to respond authentically and privately. It’s either good news or bad, a correction or a praise, but it’s private, and you need a chance to collect yourself. Often, it means this person cares about you. Your emotional processing is important to them and your relationship.
Jesus did this with his disciples one day; he took them aside:
“And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, ‘See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.’”
(Matthew 20:17–19 ESV).
It wasn’t the first time he had said this (Matthew 16:21). It wasn’t the second (Matthew 17:22- 23). It was the third time he had given them this very same news! He knew it was upsetting. He knew it would shake up their expectations. He knew that when it happened, they would be distraught and confused. Never mind how Jesus felt about what was going to happen to him—the personal betrayal, the false accusations, the beatings, the undeserved covering of our sin, the execution—Jesus wanted them to have a memory marker for making sense of the events, so that they could pull through it. So that he could pull them through it. So that when he arose from the dead—wow!!—they’d be able to comprehend such wildly incredibly good news!
Jesus took them aside. Jesus loved them.
Jesus loves each of us too. His word takes us aside and helps us comprehend the events of our lives. God is with us in real time, because he is really there, a real Person in a real relationship with us as we believe in Jesus our Savior. Though we are not able to predict our twists and turns, we have someone who walks with us, prepares us (often without our full awareness), and loves us enough to be concerned about our mental and emotional processing.
You are not on your own. God loves you.