I wonder if you might put yourself in the shoes of Jesus' disciples for a moment. For three years you followed Jesus and heard him teach with a wisdom beyond any other Rabbi you had ever heard. You watched him perform miracles that nobody could explain. You stood in fear at his command over creation. You had no ability to fault his perfect standard as he lived in the perfect holiness of God. You (which ever disciple you may choose to be) and eleven others were privileged to walk beside the perfect revelation and image of God.
Surely it also wasn't lost on the disciples that there were twelve of them. Within the wider group that often travelled with Jesus, he selected out twelve to be his inner group. Twelve men witnessed, in intimate vicinity, the King coming into this world to inaugurate his kingdom. These twelve men were on a three-year road with Jesus as they travelled toward his death and resurrection. They had been given a blessing beyond the imagination of any of us reading the gospels 2000 years later.
After considering the prestigious blessing placed on these twelve men, imagine being in the upper room and hearing Jesus tell you of the next thing to happen. Matthew 26:21-23 And as they were eating, he said, "Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me." 22 And they were very sorrowful and began to say to him one after another, "Is it I, Lord?" 23 He answered, "He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me. How disappointing to know that one of the twelve would betray the Messiah. And then he was revealed. Matthew 26:25 Judas, who would betray him, answered, "Is it I, Rabbi?" He said to him, "You have said so."
Can you imagine the disappointment. You have not only had the privilege of watching Jesus for three years, but you have lived with each other and loved each other as his disciples. One was about to leave and throw it all away for thirty pieces of silver.
It's difficult to stand back and see a bigger picture sometimes, especially if we are the ones living right in the middle of it. The book of Acts gives us a beautiful answer. Peter spoke to the other disciples as they gathered together. He knew that nothing happens outside of God's greater plan, and he knew this because he had just spent 40 days with the risen Jesus who had shown them how everything in the Old Testament pointed to God's plan to save his people through the death and resurrection of Christ.
Acts 1:16-17 "Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. 17 For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry." The specific Scriptures from David he was remembering were from Psalm 69 and 109. Acts 1:20 "For it is written in the Book of Psalms, "'May his camp become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it'; and "'Let another take his office.'
Peter realized two things. The people of Israel had just come to crucify the Messiah, and they did it with the help of one from the "inner sanctum." He also realized that another must take his office. Why? Why must another take his office? Why is the number 11 not sufficient? The answer is because the number twelve selected out of Israel is showing that there must be a new twelve. The twelve are not a desolate wasteland of betrayers, they are to be a fruitful garden. They are to be the twelve that Jesus uses to show his glory in the restoration of Israel in the New Covenant.
The new twelve cannot be made up of both believers and unbelievers. They all must be believers. Judas was an unbeliever among the twelve, but he was taken out and replaced. In the restoration of the kingdom, all those in the New Covenant will know God in a saving relationship with their God. The twelve would now reflect a regenerate and restored kingdom.
We face so many disappointments in life, and none could be more prominent than the disappointment the disciples must have felt in that upper room. None could be more than the disappointment the disciples felt when Jesus was taken from a cross and put in the tomb. But in the resurrection of Jesus and his ascension, the eleven men left came together to find a twelfth because God's plan is greater and more magnificent than the disappointment of one betrayer and the disobedient Israel who betrayed Jesus with him.
When we understand that God has a greater plan, our disappointment is redirected to see his greater glory. Two thousand years later, that glory in the restoration of Israel is growing ever more prominent in God's church throughout the entire world. When we see that God's great plan is always what he has done for us in Christ, our disappointment is always redirected to something more beautiful.