I find it amazing that Christ so clearly informed the disciples regarding his upcoming death and resurrection and yet they were fully taken aback by the event when it happened and were unwilling to even believe that he had risen from the dead! The only answer that I can find to their confusion was that they had a completely different hope for their future and were unwilling to accept Christ’s clear description of what the future would be. It seems to me to be a pattern among us that we have a quite different agenda for ourselves that what Christ has for us and that we spend a significant amount of effort in attempting to persuade God to adjust to our agenda (and that tends to be the most exhaustive effort of our prayers). It would seem to me that a very significant demonstration of our submission to Christ would be our willingness to live our lives as he in his perfect love and wisdom has ordered and transcribed them. What else could be the force and use of such verses of Scripture as the following:
Hebrews 13:5
Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
Imagine the disciples experiencing the most wonderful event of all history, the redemption of man, and their response is despondency! Heaven was bowing in honor and praise of the Savior’s love and mercy and the disciples were groveling in a sense of totally despair! It seems that altogether too often we are out of step with heaven.
