The Passion Begins

Mark 14:43-52, CEB - Suddenly, while Jesus was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, came with a mob carrying swords and clubs. They had been sent by the chief priests, legal experts, and elders.  His betrayer had given them a sign: “Arrest the man I kiss, and take him away under guard.”

As soon as he got there, Judas said to Jesus, “Rabbi!” Then he kissed him.  Then they came and grabbed Jesus and arrested him.

One of the bystanders drew a sword and struck the high priest’s slave and cut off his ear.  Jesus responded, “Have you come with swords and clubs to arrest me, like an outlaw?  Day after day, I was with you, teaching in the temple, but you didn’t arrest me. But let the scriptures be fulfilled.”  And all his disciples left him and ran away.  One young man, a disciple, was wearing nothing but a linen cloth. They grabbed him, but he left the linen cloth behind and ran away naked.

 

            And now, the high drama begins, with armed confrontation, graphic violence, betrayal with a kiss, and even a man fleeing naked in terror from the scene.  Jesus, fresh from His “please take this cup from me” prayer is now eerily calm and seemingly in control.  He knew Judas was there to betray him and yet Jesus allows the traitor to kiss him.  As Jesus is grabbed by the mob, He points out that this treachery is being perpetrated in the dark of night in a remote garden instead of the temple where the deed would have been much easier, but much more public.  Nevertheless, Jesus announces, let the scriptures be fulfilled, implying that He could have stopped all of this, but is choosing to allow it to happen instead. 

            Mark takes great care to draw the contrast here in this scene between Jesus and everyone else.  A bystander becomes enraged and cuts off the high priest’s slave’s ear.  The mob has come armed for a violent encounter.  Judas, who has followed Jesus for three years, now achieves the peak of treachery by choosing to betray Jesus with a kiss.  And all the disciples fled the scene in a desperate attempt at self-preservation.  One young unnamed disciple even flees naked rather than stay and face arrest.  The only One in this scene not being carried away by their emotion is the One that has the most right to be out-of-control.    

            I find comfort in this, for there have been many times when I feel out-of-control and desperate.  Yet, even now, Jesus is still in control.  When I am enraged, Jesus is able to hear it without returning it.  When I try to hide my betrayals in the darkness, Jesus calmly and non-judgmentally calls me out. When I run away, Jesus allows me to do so, knowing that eventually, I will come back.  In the midst of  scenes of greatest turmoil  in my life, Jesus is the calm-restoring presence of God that I can count on in the moment. 

            Also abundantly clear in this passage is that Jesus chooses to give himself up.  This is not the story of a would-be savior whose plans were foiled by the religious authorities and/or Rome.  When Jesus announces,
“let the scriptures be fulfilled,” he is confirming what He has been telling the disciples repeatedly for weeks now; this was always the plan.  Salvation comes though the transformative sacrifice – a sacrifice made voluntarily by the very Son of God.  Spend a few moments today meditating on the thought that you and me are saved by God’s sacrifice.

 

Question: What does this passage show you about the character of God as seen in Jesus?

 

Prayer:  God, I get angry, confused, scared, and out-of-control, but You are my Rock in all of it.  It is Your unfathomable love that holds me, saves me, and transforms me in my worst moments. To You, Jesus, be all glory and praise forever and ever.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus: Pray for the people of Turkey as they experienced a second deadly earthquake just two weeks after the first that killed nearly 50,000 people. 

 

Song:  Judas is Betrayed By Jesus – Poor Bishop Hooper

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oEq5rGa3lw

 

The Merger of Sacrament and Treachery

 

Mark 14:12-26, NLT - On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go to prepare the Passover meal for you?”

So Jesus sent two of them into Jerusalem with these instructions: “As you go into the city, a man carrying a pitcher of water will meet you. Follow him.  At the house he enters, say to the owner, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room where I can eat the Passover meal with my disciples?’  He will take you upstairs to a large room that is already set up. That is where you should prepare our meal.”  So the two disciples went into the city and found everything just as Jesus had said, and they prepared the Passover meal there.

In the evening Jesus arrived with the Twelve.  As they were at the table eating, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, one of you eating with me here will betray me.”

Greatly distressed, each one asked in turn, “Am I the one?”

He replied, “It is one of you twelve who is eating from this bowl with me.  For the Son of Man[d] must die, as the Scriptures declared long ago. But how terrible it will be for the one who betrays him. It would be far better for that man if he had never been born!”

As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take it, for this is my body.”

And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them, and they all drank from it.  And he said to them, “This is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice for many.  I tell you the truth, I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new in the Kingdom of God.”

Then they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives.

 

                Over the course of my three decades of ministry, I have heard many persons say something to the effect that, “I don’t take communion because I don’t feel worthy.  It’s not a silly concern.  To receive a tangible expression of God’s grace should bring to mind that such a gift is indeed grace.  We don’t deserve such a consideration, but it is extended to us nonetheless.  Of course, we are unworthy. 

                However, reading this account of the institution of sacrament of communion should help us hear that our sense of being undeserving of this grace is precisely why it is offered.  If we were worthy, it would not be called a sacrament of God’s grace, but rather an honor or reward for our praiseworthy efforts.  As it stands, this gift was not withheld from Judas, the man who was about to indirectly cause the death of God’s Son.  Jesus Himself names Judas unworthiness of even having been born.  Then He hands Judas bread and cup with the words, “My body. . . and My blood.  Knowing full well the treachery Judas was about to commit, Jesus states that His sacrifice is for Judas as well as anyone else. 

                As we have traveled through Mark’s gospel, I have often asked you adopt the identity of the villain in these stories because Mark is intentionally trying to get us to do so.  While we would like to dismiss our capacity for treachery against Jesus, Mark gets right up in our face and all but forces us to see it.  We enjoy intimacy (signified by a shared meal) with Jesus while unintentionally (or even intentionally in some cases) working against Him in the background.  When Jesus talks about Judas being better off “never being born,” He is foreshadowing the agony that drives Judas to suicide in the next chapter. 

                Judas is not “bad man.”  He is all of us.  He is a human being that often misunderstands what God is doing and chooses to work against it as a result.  He is one who is all too easily influenced by wealth to betray His core values.  He is one who sometimes thinks he is doing the right thing when he is doing the exact opposite. 

                Enter the sacrament of God’s unmerited grace.  Sin doesn’t separate Judas from the grace of eating (being close to) Jesus.  That grace eventually shows Judas his sin.  It also shows Judas that his sin is forgiven.  It should do the same for us.

 

Question:  Have you ever found yourself knowingly or unknowingly working against God’s purposes?

 

Prayer:  God, please forgive us, for we often don’t know what we do.  Forgive us as well for that which we do knowingly.  Help us see ourselves in Judas so that we will more fully know the magnitude of grace that You offer us in Jesus. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:      Pray for the end of divisiveness among the human family, especially that in the Church.’

 

Song:  Just As I Am – Alan Jackson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAnSmJecnEk&t

More Important Than Serving the Poor?

Mark 14:1-11, CEB - It was two days before Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and legal experts through cunning tricks were searching for a way to arrest Jesus and kill him.  But they agreed that it shouldn’t happen during the festival; otherwise, there would be an uproar among the people.

Jesus was at Bethany visiting the house of Simon, who had a skin disease. During dinner, a woman came in with a vase made of alabaster and containing very expensive perfume of pure nard. She broke open the vase and poured the perfume on his head.  Some grew angry. They said to each other, “Why waste the perfume?  This perfume could have been sold for almost a year’s pay and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her.

Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you make trouble for her? She has done a good thing for me.  You always have the poor with you; and whenever you want, you can do something good for them. But you won’t always have me.  She has done what she could. She has anointed my body ahead of time for burial.  I tell you the truth that, wherever in the whole world the good news is announced, what she’s done will also be told in memory of her.”

Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to give Jesus up to them.  When they heard it, they were delighted and promised to give him money. So he started looking for an opportunity to turn him in.

 

                There is an awful lot to say about this passage, so I will try to economical in my highlights.

                First,  The passage begins and ends with the conspiracy to stop Jesus permanently.  In the beginning, it is the Jewish religious leaders, Jesus’s known opponents since His ministry started three years ago.  At the end, they gain the help of one of Jesus’s closest friends.  The implication here is that any of us on the continuum between friend and foe are capable of betraying the One who would save us.     

                In the middle, we have the controversial story an extremely expensive gift lavished on Jesus. He is anointed with perfume that is worth a year’s wages.  Most Christians have heard this story before and know that Jesus defends the woman’s incredible, if not wasteful gift.  But before we side too quickly with Jesus, I invite you to hear the legitimate protest.   What is your income in a year?  Hold that figure in your mind for a moment. Have you ever given someone a gift worth that amount of money just to show your love for them?  To put this in perspective, the average engagement ring given in America costs 4% of the annual salary of the person who gives it.  Also keep in mind that the woman would have been able to take care of her and/or her family for a year by selling this perfume instead of offering the gift.  To say that this is an extravagant gift is an understatement. 

                So why does Jesus defend the gift.  Jesus gives us a couple of clues in His answer.  First, he highlights that it is her choice to give the gift (She has done what SHE could).  The disciples don’t get to decide what is done with this woman’s resource; she does.  Second, Jesus points out that this is a once-in-history opportunity.  The compulsion to help the poor never ends.  This moment of uncalculated love on the woman’s part has marked a moment that will only happen once in history – the death of God’s Son.  There are rare moments where we have an opportunity to do something beautiful out of love that transcend conventional wisdom about counting the cost.  The extravagance of the gift is not the point.  The love that doesn’t care about the extravagance is.  Obviously, on almost all occasions, supporting the poor would be a better choice than wasting expensive resources on a fleeting gesture. We are reminded here though that we should not judge someone whose heart is driven by only by selfless love.  This woman’s gift foreshadows the unthinkable gift that Jesus Himself is about to give her and all the rest of us.   

                Jesus’s death is made even more imminent because Judas, the friend and pledged disciple of Jesus, helps the authorities do what they could not do easily without him – arrest Jesus discreetly so as not to attract the attention of the crowds of people gathered for Passover.  The fact that it is Passover further intensifies the cosmic symbolism of a sacrifice being given to save a people.  Jesus will become the forever sacrifice for all of us.  This rich and poignant story marks the beginning of Mark’s account of that sacrifice. 

 

Questions:  Two sacrifices are highlighted in this passage:  the sacrificial gift of the unnamed woman and the sacrifice about to be made by Jesus.  As you consider the striking comparison between them, how does what you have offered to Jesus compare? 

 

Prayer:  Dear God, may our hearts be guided by Your presence within us as seek to care for those in need and express our love to You.  May we not shy away from sacrificial giving of ourselves and our resources for Your purposes as we respond to Your sacrificial love for us.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the congregation where you worship as they prepare for the Lenten season.

 

Song:  Lead Me to The Cross – Hillsong

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuR3jXrIiNQ