Luke 18:34

‘And they understood none of these things, and this saying was hid from them, and they perceived not the things that were said.'

We are again reminded that the horrific truth did not come home to the disciples until after it had happened. They could not conceive of such possibilities. They probably thought in parabolic terms, and that He was depicting vividly His own faithful walk as God's Servant, a walk of service, sacrifice and hardship, as though it were the same as the call to them to take up the cross. He too would ‘take up His cross'. But they closed their minds to the impossible idea of it actually happening. They probably did not even think of it as a possibility. They were used to only half understanding what Jesus was talking about, and probably wrote this off as another example.

‘This saying was hid from them.' Compare Luke 24:16. This was probably describing God's merciful action lest they be unable to go forward to Jerusalem. But they would not be able to say that they had not been warned. And once it had happened they would recognise that Jesus had know about it all along. This would help to explain the triumphant way in which they so quickly went out to proclaim His death, resurrection and victory. They immediately recognised that it was all within the foreknowledge of God, and that God had brought it about, indeed had predestined Him to it from the beginning (Acts 2:23). What He had said would happen had come about! So God was in it after all.

What kept them firm throughout was their faith. They would be baffled, devastated, unsure. But their confidence in Him never wavered. Even in the darkest moments they stuck together and still did not doubt that it had been worth following Him. They did not understand what was happening but felt that somehow, in some way, they would rescue something from the future. For when the resurrection appearances began they were still there together. It was faith in the midst of thick darkness.