The Top of the Hill

During the summer Tabitha and I went on an expedition. We set out at around 9:30 in the morning and caught two buses from the place we were staying to reach the place where we would start walking. The cloud base was quite low and we started walking in the cloud, with grey all around, and droplets of water forming on our clothes. After about half an hour the cloud lifted a bit, and we could see the path, and some of the surrounding scenery, but we still couldn't see where we were going to end up. We continued to climb, back up into the cloud, and the visibility worsened again.

Finally we got onto the home straight, heading to our destination. We still couldn't see where we wanted to get to, but we had met the railway track and knew that that would lead us there. We didn't actually see where we had been heading all that time until we were about 50 yards away, and there it was, the top of .... any guesses.....Snowdon. Even at the top, we couldn't see much, so we sat down and had our lunch and headed home again. Even though we hadn't been able to see it, reaching the peak of Snowdon had been the reason for everything that we had done since we left home, it had overshadowed our climbing, even though it wasn't visible to us.

Jesus and his disciples had been on a three year expedition around Judea. Throughout that expedition, there was also a destination, one thing that overshadowed all that Jesus did, and said. He was also going to the top of a hill, but he was going to the cross on the top of the hill. For most of the journey the disciples didn't know that this was where Jesus was headed, but lately he had begun to tell them, to let them know. Clear glimpses of the destination were breaking through the cloud. In this passage, for the first time, Jesus tells his disciples that he is to be crucified. For the first time on the journey the exact destination is made crystal clear to the disciples. The cross on the top of the hill.

Continued here...