Have you been in a class and not really understood what was being taught until much later? Has someone tried to explain something to you, and you just didn’t get it? Did it all of a sudden make sense several minutes, hours, or even days later?
We have all had times when we didn’t understand something initially, but it made sense later. We have had that “Ah-ha” moment. Something happened that caused us to put the pieces together. We remember what we were told earlier.
I can remember being told to do something a certain way, not understand why, did it the way I thought, and things didn’t turn out well. I remember thinking, “I should have done it the way I was told.” Being a parent, I have given advice to a child, seen it ignored, seen them struggle or fail due to not listening, but not said, “I told you so.”
In today’s passage, we see both of these situations play out. The disciples did not fully understand what Jesus was telling them until after the resurrection. Jesus had told them on multiple occasions He would be tortured and killed. They couldn’t or didn’t want to believe it. After seeing the resurrected Jesus, what He told them made sense, they saw it come to fruition.
Nowhere in Scripture do we see Jesus say, “I told you so.” Instead, Jesus allows them to see the truth for themselves. He allows them to put the pieces together. They then go about doing the work He set before them. They understood they needed to tell others about what happened. The news was too good to keep to themselves.
I pray we all listen to good advice. I pray we seek to understand what God is telling us. I pray each one of us follows Jesus’ commands rather than finding out later we should have. Listen to good guidance. Follow Jesus’s commands. Seek to understand. Know that God wants the best for you.
John 12:16 At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him.
Marty Pressey 