{"id":5147,"date":"2014-03-20T00:05:27","date_gmt":"2014-03-20T07:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=5147"},"modified":"2014-03-19T21:07:16","modified_gmt":"2014-03-20T04:07:16","slug":"5147","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2014\/03\/20\/5147\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cAwake, O sword, against My Shepherd,
\nAgainst the Man who is My Companion,\u201d
\nSays the LORD of hosts.
\n\u201cStrike the Shepherd,
\nAnd the sheep will be scattered;
\nThen I will turn My hand against the little ones.
\nAnd it shall come to pass in all the land,\u201d
\nSays the LORD,
\n\u201cThat two-thirds in it shall be cut off and die,
\nBut one-third shall be left in it:
\nI will bring the one-third through the fire,
\nWill refine them as silver is refined,
\nAnd test them as gold is tested.
\nThey will call on My name,
\nAnd I will answer them.
\nI will say, \u2018This is My people\u2019;
\nAnd each one will say, \u2018The LORD is my God.\u2019 \u201d (Zechariah 13:7-9)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It will only hurt for a moment. When Jesus was arrested and taken away, convicted of rebellion and executed by the Romans on a cross, his disciples fled for their lives. Their hopes had been shattered. They had thought that Jesus was the Messiah: the one to lead a revolution against the Roman oppressors, who would defeat them and replace them with a revived Davidic monarchy, who would sit on a throne in Jerusalem and reign over all the nations of the world, establishing an empire that would dwarf what the Romans had created. Instead, it all came crashing down and the disciples went into hiding, fearing for their lives.<\/p>\n

Matthew quoted God\u2019s words that the people would scatter when the shepherd was struck to describe what happened when Jesus died. But the fear, the scattering, the loss of hope lasted such a short time. The passage through the fire for Jesus\u2019 disciples, their refining like silver, all took barely a weekend\u2014the time from the crucifixion to the resurrection on Sunday morning. Their tears dried up, their perspectives shifted. They came to realize that Jesus was not just the Messiah, but something far more: as Thomas said, \u201cMy Lord and my God!\u201d The kingdom Jesus established was far greater than Rome could ever be, far greater than the disciples had imagined: it was not a kingdom of the world, but rather, the kingdom of heaven. Disappointment and pain are only temporary conditions. In the end, all will be well.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAwake, O sword, against My Shepherd, Against the Man who is My Companion,\u201d Says the LORD of hosts. \u201cStrike the Shepherd, And the sheep will be scattered; Then I will turn My hand against the little ones. And it shall … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5147"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5147"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5149,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5147\/revisions\/5149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}