³¹Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of Me this night, for it is written, ‘I will strike down the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered.’ ³²But after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.”

Why would Jesus discourage His disciples in the upper room with comments like this, during His last meal with them? In light of His impending death, one would think He would give them a pep rally, not a prediction of their failure. In today’s way of thinking, they would need all the positivity they could get. So why tell them things that would cause self-doubt or call into question their loyalty to Him?

Earlier in the upper room, Jesus gave some clues about His specific betrayer, but no one thought of Judas (John 13:22), only of themselves (Matt. 16:21-22). Now, the Lord expands the warning to all His disciples—although one would be a turncoat, all of them would “fall away.” He used the Greek skandalizo, from which we get our English word “scandalize.” The term is passive and means “to be led into falling down or led astray.” A variation of this is “to shock through word or action.” In other words, the events about to transpire would be so overwhelming that it will cause all the disciples to fall away. Indeed, that is a scandalous thing for Jesus to say about those who had left everything to follow Him, and even more outrageous that they would do exactly as Jesus predicted.

The irony is that early on when John the Baptist was imprisoned, Jesus summarized the credentials proving He was the Messiah and said to His disciples:

“Go and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.” (Matt. 11:4–6)

The disciples were about to “take offense” at Jesus because in the next few hours, their actions would prove they were not yet willing to die for Him! While Peter wielded his sword later that evening in Jesus’ defense, he would deny even knowing Him soon after!

But Jesus is not and would not be shocked when they would all desert Him. In fact, the prophet Zechariah prophesied that a scattering of followers would result at the death of Israel’s Shepherd (Zech. 13:7), which Jesus interprets as referring to Him (John 10:14). Jesus was preparing the disciples for their failure; there was no need to falsely rouse them up to defend Him. Failure was needed so that they would be ready for the power of the Holy Spirit, of whom Jesus had taught them much in His Upper Room Discourse (John 13-16). But for now, they needed to know their instructions for what to do after His death, namely, that He would go ahead of them (raised) to meet them in Galilee.

Lord, Your wisdom is amazing, weaving together the story from ancient times to our present day, the message of Christ dying for our sins. To You be all the praise and glory.