An Understanding that Most Don’t Have

Luke 24:44-45 – “Then He [Jesus] said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’  Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures…”

I have recently been watching this show called Grimm on NBC.  It is about a police detective who finds out that he can see things that most people can’t see.  This detective can see that some people are actually not humans but these creatures from fairy tale lore that are hiding in plain sight (in the show they call them wesen [pronounced “vesen”]).  Because of this ability, he is able to solve criminal cases that most people cannot solve, because he has insights that no regular human being has about this “hidden” world.  In the show, only he and other people with that same ability can see these wesen, unless the wesen willingly transforms into its creature-like form for an ordinary human being.  Until that time, an ordinary person would just be left out of the loop never seeing or understanding what was going on in the world around them.  I’m sure we have felt this feeling of being out of the loop many times in our own personal lives, whether it be with inside jokes among friends, with scientific knowledge in the classroom, or with general understanding of a topic that we have never spent the time studying.  Unless, somebody willingly teaches us, we have no way of understanding what is going on.

In our passage today, I believe that the disciples were in a very similar position.  Before Christ’s resurrection, even though, Jesus would repeatedly tell them of his death, burial, and resurrection, the disciples had no understanding of what He actually meant.  Even the ones who had probably known and studied the Scripture intensely were still surprised with all that happened in those eventful three days.  They didn’t understand the multiple prophecies about the Messiah and how they all applied to Christ.  For example, they surely did not grasp that Christ was to die lifted up on a cross, just like the brass serpent was lifted up in the days of Moses.  They probably did not understand all the suffering that the Messiah had to go through as described in Isaiah 53, where He was to be led like a lamb to the slaughter.  They must not have grasped Psalm 16:10, describing how the Holy one would not see corruption, prophesying the resurrection of Christ.  Passage after passage in the Scriptures was probably overlooked due to a lack of understanding from the disciples.  It wasn’t until Christ appeared after the Resurrection to His disciples in this passage, that the disciples finally had their minds opened to understand the Scripture.  They needed Christ to reveal all of this to them, just like a wesen would need to reveal himself to a human, a friend would have to explain an inside joke, or a teacher would have to teach a subject to his class before they could understand.  The only reason the disciples could finally grasp the Scripture was with the Lord’s grace to reveal it to them.  Right after, in the book of Acts, we find these same disciples preaching Christ to the world and having a full knowledge of Scripture.  This all came from Christ providing them this understanding, an understanding fully given when the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost (Acts 2).

It is this same understanding that has been granted to each and every disciple of Jesus Christ.  For right when you receive Him as Lord and Savior, you receive that same Holy Spirit, the one who is a Comforter and Reminder of all the Lord’s teachings.  That is why you as a Christian can see the Bible in a different light than your unbelieving friends.  God has opened your eyes.  This knowledge reminds us that we have no excuse for not understanding God’s Word when we read it, because He specifically has provided His Holy Spirit to help us understand it.  In addition, it also reminds us that we cannot judge non-Christians for not grasping our beliefs, because they cannot see what we do until the Lord works in their hearts as well.  It is all a matter of His grace.  This should move us to gratefulness to our Lord Jesus Christ for His willingness to remove the scales from our eyes, as well as, to compassion for our fellow men whom have yet to have these scales removed.  Let us have this knowledge drive us to prayer and praise – prayer for those we know who do not understand as well as for additional understanding in our lives and praise for His wonderful mercy and grace to include us in His “secret.”