How Much Things Change – John 11:25

Text: John 11:25

It’s amazing how much one thing changes everything.

It happens in life – a job, a marriage, a baby – and suddenly your world is never the same.

It also happens in areas that matter even more.

The apostles were sometimes so spiritually blind.

At least it seems that way to us.

They once tried to prevent Jesus from going to Jerusalem to die . . .  for their sins, and ours.

How could they?

Why would they think of calling down fire from heaven on a village of people who wouldn’t listen to them?

How could they leave Jesus alone on the night before he died?

The truth is, they weren’t any different from us.

They were no less spiritual or mature, no more shallow or superficial.

But they could only see a portion of the picture that was yet to be completed.

As Mark finishes describing the Lord’s transfiguration, he gives us a clue:

Now as they came down from the mountain, He commanded them that they should tell no one the things they had seen, till the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept this word to themselves, questioning what the rising from the dead meant. (Mark 9:9-10).

That’s an interesting phrase, isn’t it?

… what the rising from the dead meant.

They had no idea, not really.

Not having the advantage that we have of reading the completed Bible, they struggled.

Why does he talk about dying? What’s this about a cross? And a resurrection?

Then they went to an empty tomb on a Sunday morning

And it changed them.

Forever.

Peter denied Jesus on the eve of the crucifixion but later gave his life for his faith.

His good friend James ran from the soldiers in Gethsemane but a few years later lost his head to an axe when he wouldn’t stop preaching about Jesus.

In fact, all the apostles except John were executed because of Je