Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What Led to Jesus's Death | New Testament | Mark 14

Episode Date: October 18, 2023

What were the days leading up to Jesus's crucifixion like? What did he want his disciples to remember? What was the point of the last supper? In today's episode, Jensen unpacks Jesus's final moments in Mark 14. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Mark 14

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. And the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. If you read along this morning already, then you know that Mark Chapter 14 is packed full of the passion narrative. It begins with Jesus preparing for the Passover and festival of unleavened bread with his disciples and ends with him standing on trial, while one of his close disciples denies him. There's so much to pull and learn from the section of Scripture. But I want to focus specifically on two different statements Jesus makes about himself in these passages.

So to start off Mark 14, Mark 14 begins mere days away from the Festival of Unleavened Bread. I'm assuming that many of us, like me, are not entirely familiar with all that goes on during this festival. But Mark's original audience would not only have known about this festival, they would have celebrated it and would have been familiar with its symbolism. And so, in order to understand all that is going on here, I think it's important that we step into their shoes and try to understand the context of this chapter, to know a little bit of what they would have known. So, the significance of the Festival of Unleavened Bread was that it was a time to look back at God's deliverance of the Jewish people from their slavery in Egypt, and their deliverance into God's promised land. During the festival, they would say,

sacrifice a lamb, reminding them of the blood the Jewish people spread over their doorposts during the very first Passover in Egypt. As you remember, they did this so that the angel of death would pass over their doors and only deal the plague of death on the firstborn of the Egyptian families. It was this plague that led Pharaoh to eventually send the Israelites away. And so, in the days of Mark, those who celebrated Passover as part of this festival, we're both remembering what God had done for his people, while also looking forward to their ultimate liberation. So as people are gathering all throughout Jerusalem to celebrate this festival, they have at the top of their minds the hope for the coming Messiah,

hope for the one that God has promised to send to deliver them, hope that God will once again free his people. Now, many of them believed that this freedom would be like the physical freedom from oppression that the Israelites experienced back in Egypt. But as Jesus sits down with his disciples to celebrate the Passover, he does and says something that would hint at a different kind of freedom God was offering his people. Verse 22. While they were eating, Jesus took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples saying, take it. This is my body. Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it. They, This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.

He said to them, truly I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God. The very first communion, something that's probably so familiar to those of us who attend church, that we may just want to skim over these statements that Jesus made. And while it's tempting to skim, we have to think about what Jesus' words would have meant to the people he originally spoke to. Think for a minute about the symbolism of this meal. The body of the lamb broken,

the blood of the sacrificial lamb being spread over the doorpost, giving life to those who take refuge behind it. And then Jesus comes in and says, take this broken bread. It's a symbol for my body. A body that days later would be broken. And then he pours a cup of wine and says, this is my blood of the covenant,

which is poured out for many. And in these words, Jesus tells his disciples that he is the new sacrificial lamb. Just as the people of Israel took refuge in the blood of a lamb, just as God made a covenant to deliver his people from slavery and bring them into the promised land, now through the blood of Jesus, God's people would once again be brought into a covenant with him. And this covenant will be for everyone, not just for the nation of Israel. You see, Jesus is hinting at the truth behind God's ultimate deliverance. While the people celebrate Passover longing for God to overthrow the Romans and give them physical deliverance, the Messiah that God has long promised celebrates alongside them, preparing to shed his blood so that all of humanity, all of creation, could find

freedom from the curse of sin and death brought upon it all the way back in Genesis. 3. Deliverance has come in the person of Jesus. He is the sacrificial lamb they have long awaited, and all those who take refuge in his blood will find the freedom of life, the freedom of the promise of a resurrected body that will live alongside the resurrected Jesus in his kingdom. So when Jesus tells his disciples that he is the bread and his blood is the wine, he is creating new symbols of remembrance, new signposts that his people can look to and remember what God has done and what he has promised to do for his people in the future. Now, what Jesus is claiming to be here is a big deal, and it's this claim that will ultimately lead to his death. Further on in

chapter 14, when Jesus has already been arrested, and he's on trial for his life before the Jewish Sanhedron, the high priest asked Jesus, are you the mischief. Are you the mischief of the same? Are you the Messiah, the son of the Blessed One. I am, said Jesus, and you will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of the mighty one and coming on the clouds of heaven. The high priest tore his clothes. Why do we need any more witnesses? He asked. You've heard the blasphemy. What do you think? They all condemned him as worthy of death. Then some began to spit at him. They blindfolded him, struck him with their fists, and said prophesy, and the guards took him and beat him. it is Jesus's admission to being the Messiah that leads to his ultimate death.

He says, I am. I am the Messiah. But he also adds affirmation of being the Messiah. He says, they will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of the mighty one and coming on the clouds of heaven. Now that's specific phrasing that Jesus uses here, would have pointed back to Psalms 110. Verse one reads, The Lord said to my Lord,

Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. This Psalm is referencing a conversation between God and the Davidic king, whom God has promised will reign over the nation of Israel forever. And in this conversation, God tells his king to sit at his right hand in a place of glory and honor until the day that God delivers his enemies. Then later, in Daniel 7, we read that in one of Daniel's visions he sees this. And behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory

and a kingdom that all people's nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. It's no wonder that the high priest tore his clothes and the Sanhedron called for Jesus's death. In one sentence, Jesus has made perfectly clear what he had hinted at during his dinner with the disciples. He is the long-awaited Messiah, the king who God would glorify by seating him at his right hand. He's the one who would come on the clouds of heaven to whom all dominion and glory would be given, the one whom all people would serve, the king whose kingdom would not. never pass away. As he stands before the Sanhedron on trial for his life, Jesus is letting the

people know that while they have arrested him and put him on trial, he is their king. He has the dominion and the glory and ultimately, it is his kingdom and not theirs that will last. He is the one that God has sent to deliver his people. And instead of recognize him for what he is, they choose to kill him. They attempt to stamp out his movement to show that he cannot possibly be what he has claimed to be. And yet, it's in this attempt that they fulfill all that Jesus had said would be true. Rather than stamp out Jesus' claims, just as Jesus said, through the breaking of his body and the shedding of his blood, he becomes the true and perfect sacrificial lamb. Once and for all, all people can take refuge in the safety of his sacrificial blood.

All people can look forward to ultimate freedom when his enemies are placed beneath his feet and his kingdom is established here on earth with an everlasting dominion. The disciples didn't quite grasp what Jesus was saying at that table. In this chapter alone, some fail to support him in his time of need. One betrays him and another denies him. The Sanhedron certainly didn't see him for who he was. Even as he tried to tell them their misconceptions of the Messiah kept them blind to who they had before them.

You see, in these two statements that Jesus makes about himself, we find the richness of God's rescue plan, one he has been planning from the very beginning. The Passover lamb was always pointing to Jesus. The promise of a king was always pointing to Jesus. The promise of deliverance was always going to come through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. There were many times that Jesus was close to capture, close to death. But his ultimate arrest and death happened during the Passover.

We have to know that this was not a coincidence. God was making something clear to his people. We live under a new covenant. And just like the people celebrating Passover alongside Jesus, we can look back and remember that God has been faithful to protect, provide, and deliver his people. And because of this, we can also look forward and expectant hope for the day when he will, like Daniel 7 says, establish Jesus' kingdom here on earth, and all peoples will serve the everlasting, good and faithful king Jesus. Take refuge in his blood. Allow his sacrifice to grant you the freedom you need to live for his kingdom and to spend each day living with the expectant hope of your future resurrection.