Unnecessary grief and trauma …

I’ve started publicly issuing a warning that we’re beginning to treat the concept of trauma like we did the concept of co-dependency during the ’80’s and ’90’s.

A few decades ago, pop psychology was so obsessed with the topic of co-dependency that it was described in such a way that everyone would had to have been co-dependent. Everyone wasn’t. Today, we’re doing much the same thing with trauma, but the fact is every difficulty or tough experience isn’t a traumatic event, and not everyone is suffering from trauma.

But many are.

Trauma and grief are real and serious issues that many experience and suffer mightily from. In most cases, for reasons they can’t control. You can’t control losing a loved one to cancer, or being a victim of violence.

But the story leading us to the great event of Easter actually contains an incident of unnecessary grief and trauma.

Okay, it is true the disciples of Jesus witnessed a truly traumatic event of their friend and Master being beaten and publicly crucified. It is true that grief is a natural, even healthy response to the death of a loved one.

But step back and let me ask you a couple questions …

If you witnessed a loved one be the victim of brutal violence, but you knew just three days later every ounce of that violence would have no impact whatsoever … would you really be traumatized?

If you sat in a hospital with a loved one that was dying, but you knew just three days later your loved one would be alive and healthier than ever … would you really be traumatized?

Or would you wait with hopeful expectation for that third day?

The fact is, the disciples knew that Jesus would be killed and three days later would be raised from the dead … because Jesus told them!

In fact, it was early in His ministry that Jesus began to give hints of what would happen to Him, and He became increasingly blunt about it.

One of the first hints Jesus gave is recorded in John 2:18-22:

“But the Jewish leaders demanded, ‘What are you doing? If God gave you authority to do this, show us a miraculous sign to prove it.’ ‘All right,’ Jesus replied. ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ ‘What!’ they exclaimed. ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple, and you can rebuild it in three days?’ But when Jesus said ‘this temple,’ he meant his own body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered he had said this, and they believed both the Scriptures and what Jesus had said.”

Another clue about what was to come is found in Matthew 12:38-39:

“One day some teachers of religious law and Pharisees came to Jesus and said, ‘Teacher, we want you to show us a miraculous sign to prove your authority.’ But Jesus replied, ‘Only an evil, adulterous generation would demand a miraculous sign; but the only sign I will give them is the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.'”

Jesus moved beyond clues to telling His disciples with specific detail what was coming:

“From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead,” Matthew 16:21

“As Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside privately and told them what was going to happen to him. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘we’re going up to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence him to die. Then they will hand him over to the Romans to be mocked, flogged with a whip, and crucified. But on the third day he will be raised from the dead,” Matthew 20:17-19.

Look at the amount of details Jesus provided the disciples in that last passage of scripture!

Jesus even explained His power to sacrifice His life AND to raise it up again:

“The Father loves me because I sacrifice my life so I may take it back again. No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again. For this is what my Father has commanded,” John 10:17-18.

While the disciples seemed to be devastated and without hope after the death of Jesus, others actually suspected it might not be so final! Look at this:

“The next day, on the Sabbath, the leading priests and Pharisees went to see Pilate. They told him, ‘Sir, we remember what that deceiver once said while he was still alive: “After three days I will rise from the dead.” So we request that you seal the tomb until the third day. This will prevent his disciples from coming and stealing his body and then telling everyone he was raised from the dead! If that happens, we’ll be worse off than we were at first,'” Matthew 27:62-64.

Let’s be clear – even with knowledge of what would happen, it would be a horrendous experience seeing Jesus treated the way He was, and a sorrowful thing knowing He experienced death, even if only temporarily.

BUT, if you knew all of those initial outcomes would be utterly overcome three days later, shouldn’t that knowledge fuel a great and powerful hopeful expectation that exceeded any momentary sorrow?

It should … but it didn’t.

The disciples locked themselves away, overwhelmed with sorrow, discouragement, and fear.

It can be easy not to hear the clearest of communications when your desires and expectations of someone is greater. I think the disciples had their own version of the kind of king they wanted Jesus to be that they didn’t understand the promises Jesus was making was far beyond, and far better, than their hope of a limited earthly king for the Jews.

How often do we find ourselves with self-induced anxiety and depression, sorrow, and even despair because we’re not listening closely to the promises Jesus made and trusting Him for them?

Just as Sunday would change everything for the disciples, believing Jesus TODAY can change everything for us.

And just as for the disciples Sunday was coming, a greater day is ahead for us.

Believe!

Scotty