Luke 18:31-34. Jesus says to his apostles that they are going to Jerusalem where everything prophesied about the Son of man will be fulfilled. Jesus says He will be delivered to the Gentiles, mocked, shamefully treated, spit upon, scourged, and killed, and on the third day He will rise. But the apostles "understood none of these things; this saying was hid from them, and they did not grasp what was said."

The apostles knew the prophecies, and they knew that Jesus was the fulfillment of them. They knew that he was the Messiah and they knew how the Messiah was going to be treated. So why, then, did they not understand Jesus' very plain words here? Luke tells us that their meaning was hidden from them, what does that mean? Did God just not let them understand for some reason? Why then would Jesus say anything at all?

I think it is more that they just mentally could not hear what Jesus was saying. They knew who He was and how He would be treated and they could not allow themselves to face the fact that His time had come. They weren't ready, they would never be ready, they loved Him too much. So they remained in the dark until they actually had to see His passion and death.

I keep encountering this same phenomenon - I say simple, plain things to people and they either don't hear me at all, don't understand what I'm saying, or hear something completely different than what I am actually saying. Sometimes it seems like my words are almost gibberish to them, other times they interpret my words in the most outlandish way to accuse me of hatred or mean spiritedness. It is so, so strange and I have been struggling with it a lot lately. This passage helps me realize that sometimes our brains just are not ready to hear the truth. The apostles could not hear it, so they had to see and experience it. I guess this is what has to happen now, too, but it is going to be so hard on the people who don't see it coming!