Just a couple days before the Passover and the festival of the Unleavened Bread, the priests conspire to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. It is their holiest of seasons, and they’re plotting murder. It is a time of great celebration so they choose to wait until the fun has died down so there won’t be a riot among the people.
Meanwhile – Jesus finds himself in Bethany at the house of a leper. Hear the story from God’s Word:
Mark 14:3-9
But even this act of kindness precipitates anger as some clamor about the poor, and what follows is an act of betrayal as Judas plays his part. Judas goes to these same chief priests and scribes who want Jesus dead and makes them an offer they are pleased to receive. No longer do they have to ponder how to get rid of Jesus. Judas comes to them with a plan in hand and goes away from them with a significant monetary reward.
Then the festival begins.
Mark 14:12-25
Imagine, one of your friends, someone you love who is at your table during a great holiday dipping bread into the same bowl with you – and that person is the one who turns you in, turns you over, starts the wheels in motion to have you killed. Would the bile come up in your throat? Could you look at him? Could you stomach Judas’ hurt and anger as you struggled with your own?
With the news that one of them will betray the master hanging over them, they start their meal. In this meal he gives these friends that he loves his body, he pours out for them his blood. But they don’t understand his words. They are lost at what he’s trying to tell them. He’s describing being torn apart, divided into pieces, crushed like the fruit of the vine, and they go on eating and drinking.
As they are ending their meal, singing their last song, Jesus tells them more of the pain he must endure.
Mark 14:26-31
Jesus knows the truth that they will all fall away - like sheep scattered. Proud Peter adamantly rejects the thought that he could desert his beloved Jesus, but Jesus knows without a doubt he’ll end up alone. With nothing left to do, Jesus goes to pray.
Mark 14:32-42
These friends who just took pains to swear their loyalty can’t even stay awake to pray. Their eyelids are too heavy from food and wine. They don’t know what to say to him. Even prayer fails.
But even as he’s still speaking to them of his disappointment,
Mark 14:43- 52
The deed is done. Judas returns with a bunch of thugs. And Jesus is sent for trial.
Mark 14:53-65
The people he came to save, God’s people, tried him with false testimony, accused him of blasphemy, condemned him to death, spit on him, blindfolded him, and beat him.
Will his friends come to his rescue? Will they cry out, “Untrue, untrue!”? Will they stand between him and the guards? No, no, no. Even in the courtyard, within earshot of the turmoil, Peter denies Jesus.
Mark 14:66-72
In order to wash their hands of Jesus’ blood, the chief priests and scribes turn Jesus over to Roman authorities to do the dirty work. They take Jesus and his list of charges to Pilate so that he will be killed by the state.
Mark 15:1-15
The crowd who had once supported him, who had waved palms for him, and who saw him as a hero and a friend of the people turned on him. Hosannas so quickly turned to shouts of “Crucify him!”
Mark 15:16-20
Hopes were not only lost, they were crushed, shattered in a million pieces. No one believed that he really had to die. That is, no one but Jesus himself. With words drenched in pain and loneliness, we cannot help but hear in this story Jesus’ spiral toward defeat.
It’s an important part of the story. Without the passion of Christ, we would be even more lost than the disciples. It takes knowing the full weight of our sin to know the cost of our salvation. Human beings are capable of atrocious evil. It doesn’t take much of a mob to see how this Jesus goes from a rabbi and healer and lover of God’s people to a hated and despised enemy. Jesus experienced the crush of the religious and political institutions of his day as they came together to kill him – but even more devastating, he felt the agonizing crush of his friends as they left him one by one.
Crucify him! Would we really do anything differently? I doubt that we could. The pain of this story stings us even now.
Mark 15:21-25
We end the story today with no way out. No escape plan from his friends. No loophole to appeal the trial. No objection from those who claimed to be God’s chosen people. No governor to grant a pardon. Jesus is sentenced to death by his own body weight crushing the breath out of him on a cross. In ever expanding horrid detail, he was crushed, crushed, crushed.
Let us pray.