Bible Study on Mark - Part 23, Mark 14:22-52

As we closed our study last week, we heard of the disciples and Jesus celebrating the traditional Passover meal together on what we would call the Thursday evening of Holy Week. Important parts of the Passover meal included unleavened bread (a flat bread with no yeast) and wine. We hear particularly of Jesus using these elements of the meal (Mark 14:22-24).

While they were eating, Jesus took some of the bread and prayed and blessed it and broke it into pieces and gave some to each of the disciples, saying, “Take; this is My body.” He then took a cup of wine, gave thanks to God the Father, and gave it to each of the disciples to drink from and said, “This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” (Other Gospels and 1 Corinthians 10 and 11 and other Scriptures give more detail, but we will focus mainly on what Mark tells us, as God inspired Him to write, and by what He was told by Peter.)

In the original Greek, it is clear that Jesus literally said, “This is My body….This is My blood.”  “Is” means “is." Many churches say that Jesus was speaking symbolically; but there is no indication of that. He was presenting a whole new meal of the New Covenant that he was bringing into the world.

In the Old Testament, God gave the 10 Commandments and other parts of His will, through Moses, at Mount Sinai. Then animals were sacrificed, and their blood was used to seal the Covenant between God and His people. Read Exodus 24:6-9. The blood of animals was sprinkled on the altar and upon the people. God made His promises to the people, and the people said they would follow God and His will. Moses said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord made with you in accordance with all these words” that He had given. Sadly, many of the people of Israel did not follow God’s will and drifted far away from Him and even worshipped false gods. God then promised that He would bring in a whole New Covenant with people, because the old one had been broken by them. See Jeremiah 31:31-34.

Jesus was announcing and bringing in God’s New Covenant at this meal with His disciples. It also involved the shedding of blood - not the blood of animals but the sacrifice of Jesus Himself, His Body and Blood, on the cross the very next day. Jesus would die for the benefit of “many” - a Hebrew way of saying “for the many," for all people in the world.

Jesus was also introducing a new meal for the New Covenant, what we call the Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion. When we receive bread and wine, we are also receiving the very Body and Blood of Christ, Mark 14:22-23 tells us. Jesus promised to be with us always (Matthew 28:20), but He is with us in a very special, personal way in the Lord’s Supper; and this and other Scriptures tell that we receive Christ Himself and His real Presence and forgiveness of our sins and strength from Him for our lives, in this holy meal.

We can’t understand or explain it, but we believe what Jesus clearly says. We receive bread and wine; but somehow, in and with and under these earthly elements, we receive also the Body and Blood of Christ. See 1 Corinthians 10:16, for example. This is the meal we are now called to receive regularly, for our own good and benefit (though we can learn some things through a Passover Seder meal, which some churches sometimes do).

Jesus then told His disciples that he would not receive this new meal again with them until He received it new in the Kingdom of God, after His death and resurrection, and in preparing for eternal life, always in the presence of the Lord (Mark 14:25). Here and in verse 30, Jesus said those strong words, “Amen, I say to you." These things are certainly true and are to be believed.

Jesus and His disciples then sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives, and a garden called Gethsemane, near Jerusalem (Mark 14:26,32). This was a familiar place where they went for rest and prayer. Likely, Psalms 115-118 were used during the Passover meal, according to Jewish tradition, and then the closing hymn was from Psalms 120-130. These Psalms are still used by many Jews for Passover.

Jesus then quoted a prophecy from Zechariah 13:7, that the disciples would all be scattered and fall away, when their Shepherd, Jesus, was “struck." In the context of this passage, a prophet would receive wounds on his back, in the house of his friends, as would soon happen to Jesus (Zechariah 13:6). And yet, through all this, “On that day, there shall be a fountain opened” for God’s people “to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.”

Jesus Himself would be that cleansing fountain, through His blood shed and His death on the cross (Zechariah 13:1) for the forgiveness of all sins. Jesus also predicted  that after His death, He would rise from the dead and see them again in Galilee. They had spent much time in Galilee, as we have heard earlier in Mark’s Gospel; and now some the resurrection appearances of Jesus would happen there and around the Sea of Galilee (Mark 14:28).

As Jesus was “struck," though, He said that the disciples would all fall away. That is exactly what would happen when Jesus was arrested (Mark 14:50). Peter thought that he was so strong, however, that he would never fall away, even if the others did (Mark 14:29). Jesus then had to tell Peter that that very evening, he would deny Jesus three times, before a rooster crowed twice. Peter insisted that he would never do such a thing, and the other disciples all said the same thing (Mark 14:30-31). This was the typical Peter - so strong at some moments and then so weak soon after. (Isn’t that so true of all of us, at times in our lives? We need the warning, not to walk away from or deny our Lord, in difficult times, too.)

Jesus had most of His disciples wait for Him and then took Peter, James, and John with Him further into the garden. He asked them to watch and pray, while He went alone to pray. Jesus was full of sorrow and distress, because He knew that terrible suffering and His death were coming soon (Mark 14:33-34).

As a true man, as well as God, and knowing what was coming, He prayed three times that if there was another way to accomplish the work of salvation, that His Heavenly Father would grant that. Yet He trusted His Father and also prayed, Let it be done, “Not what I will but what you will” “Father, dear Father." He knew that it was His Father’s will that He suffer and die and accepted that He would have to drink “the cup” of God’s wrath to receive the penalty, by His sacrifice for us, that we and all the world deserve for our sins (Mark 14:35-36, 39, 41). (You can look back to Mark 10:38-39, and our study at that point, too, where the “cup of wrath and suffering” was discussed much more. Only Jesus, as true God and true man, could do this saving work and drink that cup for the good and forgiveness of us all.)

Three times Jesus also came back to His disciples and found them sleeping, when they were to be watching and praying for Him. They could not even stay awake and pray for one hour with Jesus. He warned them again to watch out for times of temptation. He knew the human condition, even for the disciples. “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mark 14:37-38, 40-41). That, too, is our own problem, too often. We have good intentions as Christians; but our sinful human nature gets the best of us, and we do not follow through with our Lord and His will as we should. (See Romans 7:18-25, where even Paul speaks of this same struggle, within himself.)

Jesus finally told His disciples that the time had come for all the predictions about His suffering death to be fulfilled, and His “betrayer was at hand” (Mark 14:41-42). At that very moment, Judas came, leading a crowd of religious authorities and the temple guards directly to Jesus. Judas then did what He said he would do to identify Jesus, so that He could be arrested stealthily (Mark 14:1-2,10-11) in this dark, remote garden place. Judas kissed Jesus and betrayed Him Whom he called “Rabbi” - Teacher. People in the crowd then quickly seized Jesus (Mark 14:43-46). Judas had done exactly what he had planned, with all the sorrow that followed for him, as we heard last week.

One of the disciples tried to defend Jesus with a sword and cut off the ear of the servant of the Jewish high priest in the crowd (Mark 14:47). Mark does not identity the disciple, but John’s Gospel tells us it was impetuous Peter. See John 18:10-11. We hear from John and from Luke (Luke 22:50-51) that Jesus told Peter to put away his sword, because He, Jesus, had to drink “the cup” prepared for Him. Jesus also healed the ear of the servant - a sign of care even for His enemies.

Jesus also questioned the courage of the religious leaders. They had plenty of chances to arrest Jesus in a public way in the temple, but did not do so. Again, Jesus pointed to the importance of the Scriptures and this event as fulfillment of what the Scriptures predicted. At this point, all the disciples, including Peter,  left Jesus and ran away, just as Jesus had also predicted (Mark 14:48-50, 14:26-31).

Also, In Mark 14:51-52, we hear of a young man there in the Garden of Gethsemane who had also been a follower of Jesus. People from the crowd tried to seize him, too, but they could only hang onto a linen cloth he wore, and he ran away naked. We don’t know for sure who this man was, but many commentators think it might have been John Mark himself, the author of this Gospel. This might have been a kind of signature to the Gospel by Mark, who had to admit his own failures and his need also for his Savior Jesus. Whoever it was, the Good News is that Jesus was still willing to go on trial, as we will hear next week, and then to the cross to pay for that young man’s sins and the sins of all the other fleeing disciples and even for the enemies who would soon condemn Him, unjustly, to die - and in love for us, too, to forgive all our sins and weaknesses and failures.