Good Friday 2022: The Passover-King
Mark 14:1-2
(Read 14:1-11)
Introduction: Occasionally
I’ve heard people mistakenly refer to Good Friday as Black Friday. Of course, that expression refers to crazy shopping
day after Thanksgiving. But you know, the crowds may have been something like
that on Passover week in Jerusalem. Pilgrims were arriving for the feast, guest
rooms filling up, lambs being purchased for the sacrifice. And in this
context in Mark’s Gospel, the blackest of Fridays was approaching. The
greatest transaction in the history of humanity was about to take place. The
reason for the incarnation would soon be realized. As Isaiah the prophet
had written 700 years earlier, “All we
like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, and the
Lord has laid on Him [on Jesus] the
iniquity of us all…” (Isa 53:6).
Jesus shows His authority throughout the Gospel of Mark… He had
authority to heal, to forgive sins, to cast out demons, to calm the stormy sea.
He even had authority over death. Now, amazingly, He would show that He
had authority to lay down His own life, and to take it up again. He spoke as a
prophet in the previous chapter, revealing the coming destruction of the Temple
which would happen in A.D. 70, while also alluding to His own return in messianic
glory at the end of the age. But the disciples did not yet understand that
the time of His Kingdom on earth was yet future, and that the time of His
departure was approaching. Jesus would again show His authority as He
guides the story toward its pre-determined conclusion, in His time, finishing
the work He came to do. No one would take His life, but He would lay it down of
His own accord.
The Passion of Christ confronts us with some challenging theology,
including the intersection of human responsibility with divine sovereignty. The
leaders are culpable for their rejection of Jesus. They should have recognized
their own messiah. But God had a plan, fashioned within the Godhead in eternity
past. It was necessary to accomplish the rescue of His people. Peter
seemed to get it when, on Pentecost, he both rebuked his countrymen for their
unbelief, and affirmed the sovereign hand of God behind the event. He said in
Act 2:22-24 on the day of Pentecost…
Men of Israel, hear these
words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with miracles and
wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves
know- 23 this Jesus, delivered up according to
the definite plan and fore-knowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the
hands of lawless men. 24 God raised him up, loosing the
pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it…
The story of the passion of Christ is
the culmination of Mark’s Gospel. Everything before, it has been said, was an
extended introduction. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is “Gospel,”
that is, “Good News,” because Jesus accomplished what He came to do,
doing for us what we could not do for ourselves, He paid a debt He didn’t owe,
because we owed a debt we couldn’t pay. It is a love story. A rescue story.
Context: After
looking ahead to coming tribulation, judgement, and the return of the King (Mark
13), Mark reminds us that this story will continue to unfold as planned in
God’s time. He is the Lord of History. Today we’ll focus in on two verses, and…
The BIG Idea: Jesus came as the Passover-King, the
Lamb on the throne, who alone could save us, by His blood, from the wrath we
deserve.
I. The hour was approaching for the exaltation of the Son (14:1a).
It was now two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by
stealth and kill him, 2 for they said, "Not during the feast,
lest there be an uproar from the people."
Let’s focus on the first part of
verse one as we consider the revelation of Jesus as Sovereign: He is in
control, guiding the story, to fulfill the Father’s plan. The leaders had been
plotting the death of Christ since His ministry in Galilee. The triumphal
entry, the crowds hailing Jesus in messianic language, the cleansing of the
Temple, the repeated success of Jesus in repudiating the attempts of the
leaders to trap Him with their questions… we’ll see in our study of Mark that all
of these things add tension to the story, and push the leaders forward in their
determination to put an end to Jesus. Even so, they had determined not
to make a move on Christ during the feast. It would have been too public,
too many people, too likely that it might result in a popular uprising against
the leaders. Such a commotion would also draw the attention of the Roman
authorities, which could turn out badly for the status quo which the leaders were enjoying. So, they thought it
better to seize Him after the feast, to wait for a time when there would not be
so much attention and potential for backlash.
But Jesus was in charge. He had repeatedly revealed to His
disciples, at least three times on this trip to Jerusalem, that He would be
handed over by the leaders to the gentiles, tortured and killed, and then be
raised on the third day. They did not under-stand, and would not, until after
the resurrection. But the Father would determine the time, not the religious
rulers. It had to unfold according to the plan of God, at time He had
determined.
Jesus came to fulfill the
Scriptures, that is, the Law, the Prophets and the Writings that pointed to His
death and resurrection. And it was Passover. The hour was approaching
for the Lamb to be slain. After all, Jesus came as the Passover-King, the Lamb
on the throne, who alone could shield us, by His blood, from the wrath we
deserve. He is Lord, King, He also came…
As the perfect Sacrifice: He came to
shed His blood to save His own. Remember the questions Mark is answering as he
writes his account of the life and work of Christ: 1) Who is Jesus; 2) Why did
He come; and 3) What does it mean to follow Him? All three questions are
further answered powerfully in this final section of Mark. He is the Son of
God, the promised Deliverer, the Coming King. But He is not a King like the
nations around them, the nations of the world. He is a Servant-King, a
Passover-King. The King is also the Lamb. In God’s plan the crown and the cross
cannot be separated. We see that picture in Revelation
5:6-12,
6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders
I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain... 8 And when he had taken the scroll,
the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb,
each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of
the saints. 9 And they sang a
new song, saying, "Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its
seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from
every tribe and language and people and nation, 10 and you have made
them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the
earth." 11 Then I
looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders
the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of
thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb who
was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory
and blessing!"
The Lamb who was slain, who alone was
worthy to open the seals, who by His blood ransomed a people from every tribe
and nation, and who would reign in His kingdom on the earth, is Jesus. How do
we get from a reference to Passover, to John’s vision of a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, next to the throne of
Heaven?
By the first century, the feast of Passover and Unleavened bread had
been merged into a week of celebration, remembrance and worship. Passover was
the “defining feast” of Judaism, one of the “pilgrim-feasts” when those who
were able would travel to the Temple in Jerusalem for sacrifice and worship. It
celebrated the deliverance of the first-born from the angel of death, and the
deliverance of the nation from Egyptian bondage. The tenth and final plague
would bring death to the Egyptians, but the Jews were to kill a spotless lamb,
and put its blood over the door and on the door posts of every home. We read in
Exodus 12:11-14,
…It is the LORD's Passover. 12 For I will pass through the
land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of
Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute
judgments: I am the LORD. 13
The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see
the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you,
when I strike the land of Egypt. 14
"This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a
feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall
keep it as a feast.
And God did as He promised. The Angel
of Death passed over those homes that
were marked with the blood. Death came to every home of the Egyptians. The Jews
were told to celebrate that day every year, as a reminder of what God had done.
As clear as that instruction was, it seems that after the time of Joshua, the
nation fell away from celebrating the Passover. We read in 2 Kings 23:21-23,
21 And the king commanded all the people, “Keep the Passover to the LORD
your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.” 22 For no such Passover had been
kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel, or during all the days of
the kings of Israel or of the kings of Judah. 23 But in the
eighteenth year of King Josiah this Passover was kept to the LORD in Jerusalem.
At this Passover in Mark 14:1, 600
years or so after the time of Josiah, the Feast would be fulfilled in the
Sacrifice of the Lamb. Jesus would be slain at the hour of the Passover
sacrifice. As the blood of maybe a quarter of a million lambs was being shed in
Jerusalem for the feast, the blood the Lamb of God, who would take away the sin
of the world, was being poured out. He willingly laid down his life for us.
This is the heart of the Gospel message! Greater
love has no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends. He
is Sovereign and Sacrifice, the Lamb and the King. And so, the apostle Paul
could write to the Corinthians that, “…Christ, our Passover lamb, has been
sacrificed for us…” (I Cor 5:7). Jesus
came as the Passover-King, the Lamb on the throne, who alone could shield us,
by His blood, from the wrath we deserve.
II. The hour was at hand for the leaders to be exposed (14:1b-2).
It was now two days before the
Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by
stealth and kill him, 2 for they said, "Not during the feast,
lest there be an uproar from the people."
We see
the leaders exposed as scheming, murderous conspirators, ironically,
plotting the death of their own Messiah! There is tremendous irony in the
unfolding story of Jesus at this section of the Gospel. The leaders plot
against Jesus, planning to put Him to death, yet also scheming to avoid any
backlash from the people or from the Romans. Even as they reject Him, they
fulfill their own Scriptures, adding one more line of evidence that proves that
Jesus is in fact the promised Messiah!
In addition to the Scriptures, they are also fulfilling the prophesies
that Jesus himself had made to the disciples on the journey to Jerusalem,
showing His omniscience and His authority. Three times He told them what would
happen…
31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and
be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed,
and after three days rise again… (Mk 8:31).
30…he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, "The Son of Man is
going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when
he is killed, after three days he will rise…" (Mk 9:31).
"See, we are going
up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests
and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the
Gentiles. 34 And they will
mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he
will rise…" (Mk 10:33-34).
And then Jesus says more
about why He came, why His story had to unfold in this manner: “For even the Son of Man came not to be
served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many..." (Mark
10:45). Paying a ransom implies delivering someone from captivity, setting them
free. This is why He came. The scheme of the leaders, unknowingly,
carried out the plan that God had established. Recall that their plans had begun
forming almost as soon as the public ministry in Galilee had begun. After Jesus
had healed one man on the Sabbath, we read in Mark 3:6,
The Pharisees went out
and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy
him.
Sabbath controversies,
calling out the Pharisees for elevating the traditions of the Fathers on a par
with Scripture, paved the way. Jesus’ actions since His arrival in Jerusalem
did nothing to lessen their determination to kill Him! When Jesus disrupted the
commerce in the Temple, casting out the moneychangers and overturning the
tables of those selling pigeons, we read in Mark 11:18,
And the chief priests and
the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared
him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching.
Their minds were made up. The
leaders are exposed as scheming, and also as scared, fearful of
rejection by the people, and of oppression by Rome. The leaders were
fearful, they were afraid of losing their power and prestige. We get a little glimpse into the deliberation
of the Sanhedrin in John 11:48,
“If we let him go on like this,
everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our
place and our nation.”
And so, their scheming against Jesus
exposed their hearts. In Mark 7 Jesus spoke of the things that defile, the evil
that comes from the depths of the fallen human heart…
20 And he said, "What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the
heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22
coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride,
foolishness. 23 All these
evil things come from within, and they defile a person..." (Mk 7:20-23).
The wickedness in the hearts of the
rulers was revealed by their deceitful scheming against Jesus. In the words of
the Apostle Peter, speaking on the day of Pentecost, they essentially nailed Him to the cross, by the hands of
godless men (Acts 2:22,23). Yet we see further on in that same passage that
“God has made Him both Lord and Christ…”
(2:36). They were culpable, but it was God’s plan. He did it for us. That
blackest of Fridays purchased for us the greatest gift imaginable: true life
in Christ.
What is God saying to me in this passage? Jesus came as the Passover-King,
the Lamb on the throne, who alone could save us, by His blood, from the wrath
we deserve.
What would God have me to do in response to this passage? Not Black Friday, but Good Friday. A
day when the greatest, most important transaction in the history of humanity
occurred… The price was the Blood of Lamb. The gift that was purchased, life
and redemption, reconciliation with God… for all who believe.
Who is Jesus? Jesus is the Son of God, God the Son, the promised
Messiah.
Why did He come? He came to redeem us, paying the price for our
sins. Christ, our Passover, has been
sacrificed for us, delivering us from wrath and for worship…
to God be the glory!
What does it mean to follow Him? Mark wants would-be disciples to
know that they need to count the cost. As the world is at enmity with God,
under the influence of the prince of darkness, that same hatred will be
directed toward followers of Jesus as well. The Bible says, “All who desire to live a godly life in
Christ Jesus will be persecuted…” (2 Tim 3:11). The disciples would experience
it. The church in Rome to which Mark is writing understood it… believers in
many parts of the world experience it every day. And some day, in some way, so
will you if you determine to follow Jesus.
Easter season is a great opportunity to ask a question about the reason
for the day and turn conversations toward spiritual things. Maybe there is
someone you can invite to our Easter
service. It is a perfect opportunity to share with someone who needs to
hear the good news! You could also invite them to the Sunday service on another
week. As we start a new series on Mark’s Gospel, we’ll stay focused on 3
questions:
1) Who is Jesus? 2) Why did He come? And 3) What does it mean to follow
Him? As we interact with our families
and friends let’s seek to lift up the name of Jesus and even speak of the gift
that He purchased and holds forth to humanity: The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord… AMEN!
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