Taking it like...the son of man

Living in a hostile world…

 

 

And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And some of the bystanders hearing it said, “Behold, he is calling Elijah.” And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.”  (Mark 15: 34-36)

 

In God’s crushing of his son for our sins, Jesus endured all levels of suffering.  He stands boldly as an example for us to follow.   (see 1 Peter 2:21 ff)  In his most ardent moment of pain he quotes Holy Scripture in his comfortable mother tongue to express his anguish, his cry for help, and a plea for understanding.  He cried out “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?”  This is Aramaic, his mother tongue.   Some of those people who had nothing better to do than to stand around gawking and mocking, did not understand Aramaic.  (Or they purposely misunderstood.)   They said he was calling for Elijah.   They thought this was funny, so they wanted to keep him alive a little longer to see what would happen next.   That seems to be the reason they quickly tried to get him something to drink.   By God’s grace the suffering was just over at this time.  I’m sure the “bystanders” were disappointed that the show was over. 

 

One thing that impresses me here is that Jesus was so constantly misunderstood, but often he simply took it.   He had a perfect trust in the ultimate justice of God the Father.   Jesus just did not have to win every argument, or work hard every moment to correct all the misunderstandings around him.  Here is the perfect one enduring mocking misunderstanding for us. He is taking our mocking for us. 

In our personal guilt we deserve to be misunderstood, and mocked.  Most, if not all, of our actions are polluted to some extent by our own sin.  We are sinners, so when people misunderstand us we should expect no better treatment than our Lord.   We should try to explain, but also allow the misunderstanding to humble us.  If Jesus could take it, shouldn’t we?

 

How should we respond when people misunderstand us?

 

1) Trust God’s providence.  This is his plan.  

2) Patiently look for an opportunity to explain what you meant. 

3) After all is said and done you will just have to live with the truth that some people will misunderstand you.  Go back to step one!

4) Thank God that Jesus bore our mocking so that for eternity we will not suffer from the misunderstanding that we deserve.