DAY 3 (Tuesday of 2nd week of lent)

PREPARE TO LISTEN.  Be still for as long as you need, then pray: Dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.  (Psalm 22:28)
READ: Mark 9:9-13 ‘Ordered not to tell!’
9As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.  10So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean.  11Then they asked him, ‘Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?’  12He said to them, ‘Elijah is indeed coming first to restore all things.  How then is it written about the Son of Man, that he is to go through many sufferings and be treated with contempt?  13But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written about him.’
 
FOR REFLECTION
Perhaps the most exciting thing that had ever happened to these three disciples, the one event they were dying to tell about, and Jesus orders them not to tell!  Could you have kept silent?  I don’t know I could have.  Mark doesn’t give any reason for Jesus’ demand, leaving us with yet another mystery to live with.  The mission of Jesus was so contrary to what everyone expected that Jesus was insistent on giving away little to the masses and even his own disciples.  The three disciples, instead asking Jesus why they couldn’t tell, distracted themselves with a question about Elijah.  How does Jesus’ answer make you feel and what does it make you think?  What are some of your distractions to being with Jesus?
 
RESPOND TO JESUS IN PRAYER
Jesus, I don’t fully understand your sayings.  Help me to follow you today with my questions and perplexities.  Amen.
GO AND LIVE IN OBEDIENCE TO CHRIST who sometimes gives surprising orders.