The Last Supper | Mark 14:12-25

Y’all can go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Mark 14.

For the past month as we’ve been studying Mark we have been in Holy Week, which is the week Jesus would die and resurrect from the dead three days later.

A couple weeks ago we were in Mark 13, y’all remember when Caleb talked with us about what Jesus said about the end times?

And tonight we’re gonna be in Mark 14. Specifically we’re gonna focus on what happens in verses 12-25, but I wanna quickly touch on what happened in the beginning of Mark 14 because it kinda sets up what we’re gonna see in verses 12-25.

At the beginning of Mark 14, we see this incredible act of love from this woman named Mary as she anoints Jesus with an expensive jar of perfume. She pours it over His head. She does this because she sees Jesus as her Lord, but what she doesn’t know is she’s actually preparing Jesus for His death.

Back then they would anoint dead bodies in spices and oils out of respect for the dead. So this woman thought she was just showing Jesus how much He’s worth to her by pouring this expensive perfume over Him, but there was a deeper significance to it. Her Lord was about to go to the cross, and she just prepared His body for His burial without knowing it. Pretty cool.

And we see this contrasted with a devastating betrayal from one of Jesus’ 12 disciples. After all this happened with the expensive perfume, Judas (who was very argumentative when this woman poured the perfume on Jesus) would go on to make a deal with the religious leaders to betray Jesus.

So we see the pieces being set up for Jesus’ death. We see Him being prepared for burial and we see the preparations for Him to be betrayed.

And tonight starting in Mark 14:12, we are on Thursday of Holy Week. What day of the week did Jesus die in Holy Week? Friday. So we are looking at the day before the Son of God would die on a cross to pay for the sins of the world.

And y’all I have two goals tonight. Number one is to show y’all that Jesus is in complete control of His death every step of the way. This isn’t something that surprised Him. This isn’t even something that He knew about, but couldn’t do anything about. He is in complete control.

And my second goal is to show y’all the significance of Jesus’ death through the events of the passover. The Passover was a festival the Jews celebrated after the exodus from Egypt. Y’all remember that? This was something they did every year to celebrate God delivering them from slavery in Egypt and the festival was happening during Holy Week. And we’re gonna see in Mark 14 that Jesus is the fulfillment of this Passover and this festival actually displays the significance of His death.

So let’s get into it.

(Break it up; 12-18 and 19-25)

Mark 14:12–25 NLT

12 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?” 13 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. 14 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?’ 15 He will take you upstairs to a large room that is already set up. That is where you should prepare our meal.” 16 So the two disciples went into the city and found everything just as Jesus had said, and they prepared the Passover meal there. 17 In the evening Jesus arrived with the Twelve. 18 As they were at the table eating, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, one of you eating with me here will betray me.” 19 Greatly distressed, each one asked in turn, “Am I the one?” 20 He replied, “It is one of you twelve who is eating from this bowl with me. 21 For the Son of Man 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!” 22 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.” 23 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. 24 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. 25 I tell you the truth, I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new in the Kingdom of God.”

1. Jesus is the One in control.

So like I said, we’re smack dab in the middle of the Passover festival. Specifically this is the day they would sacrifice this Passover Lamb, and the disciples ask Jesus where their gonna celebrate the meal.

And instead of telling the disciples to ask around or to prepare to rent a place out, He gives them specific instructions to meet a man carrying a pitcher of water and follow him, and at the house he enters to tell the owner, “The Teacher asks (referring to Jesus): Where is the guest room where I can eat the Passover meal with my disciples?” and the owner will take them up to a large upstairs room that’s already set up.

And this happens exactly as Jesus says it will. They do what Jesus says and they are led to the large upstairs room and they get the Passover meal set up.

Jesus has made it clear before we even start the meal that He is in complete control. He knows what’s gonna happen. He knows where all of this is leading.

And finally in verse 17, evening has arrived and everyone sits down at the table. And Jesus opens with, “I tell you the truth, one of you eating with me here will betray me.” And there’s a pretty funny moment, this throws the disciples for a loop so much to the point where each of them asks Jesus, “Am I the one?” They’re not even turning on each other here. They’re asking, “Am I gonna do it?”

And we heard earlier that this room they’re in is a large room and many people smarter than me speculate that there were a lot more people at this meal than just Jesus and the 12 disciples. And that makes sense when you read the next sentence. Jesus says, “It is one of you twelve who is eating from this bowl with me.” The 12 disciples were Jesus’ closest friends. So they would’ve been sitting beside Him even eating from the same bowl as Him at the table.

Jesus knows that Judas is going to betray Him. In the gospel of Matthew when the disciples are asking, “Am I the one who’s gonna do it?” and Judas asks the question, Jesus responds, “You have said it.” So Jesus knows that He will be betrayed and that Judas is the one who’s going to do it.

And Jesus follows up with, “For the Son of Man must die as the scriptures have declared.” And then we see the actual meal. Jesus picks up the bread and says, “This is my body.” And He picks up the wine and says, “This is my blood. This confirms the covenant between God and His people. My blood is poured out as a sacrifice for many.”

And then after that, Jesus actually predicts His resurrection. He says, “I tell you the truth, I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new in the Kingdom of God.”

Y’all Jesus is in control every step of the way. He predicts the preparations for the meal, He predicts that He will be betrayed, who is gonna betray Him, the fact that this betrayal is gonna lead to His death, His resurrection. Jesus has predicted everything! And there’s a reason He does this. He’s trying to show us that He is in control every step of the way. HE was in control of His death.

And I’m not gonna spend much more time on this because the significance of the Passover is really cool too, but if Jesus was in complete control while He lived on this Earth and was in control of His own death, don’t you think He’s in control now as our resurrected, glorified King over every circumstance in your life?

Romans 8:28 NLT

28 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

Every single thing that happens in your life, do you struggle with the idea that Jesus is in control of all of that? I know I do. I struggle with this all the time. But it’s so important for us to remember that not only is Jesus in control of all things, but He is also working all things for the good of those who love Him.

So we don’t have to worry about what’s gonna happen next. We don’t have to be hopeless when we walk through something difficult. Because Jesus is in control.

Alright, let’s get into our second point tonight…

2. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Passover.

So the Passover was this huge festival the Jews celebrated. It was meant to be a celebration of God rescuing Israel from slavery in Egypt. But notice how this Passover meal… doesn’t seem like much of a celebration.

Jesus opens saying, “One of you will betray me.” Then He foretells His death. If someone walked into this Passover meal versus the many other ones happening in Jersualem, this one would prolly take the cake for the most bleak Passover meal.

And the thing is, God did rescue the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and that is something to be celebrated. But the Jews were still slaves. In fact, everyone on Earth was a slave. They were a slave to their own sin.

Every human is sinful. We don’t have the capacity to not sin because we are inherently sinful. And we couldn’t enjoy freedom in eternity because we couldn’t be in the presence of God as sinful people.

The disciples knew it. When Jesus said one of them will betray Him, they asked, “Am I gonna do it?” They know they all have the capacity to do it because they know they’re all sinful people.

So going back to the Passover. While the Israelites were free from Egypt, they weren’t truly free. And that’s why Jesus came. Jesus came to bring freedom from the slavery of sin.

And the festival of the Passover that celebrated freedom from the slavery of Egypt was simply pointing to the greatest rescue from the slavery of sin that Jesus would bring.

And so Jesus, as was custom for the Passover meal, took up the bread. He broke the bread and gave it to the disciples. And He said, “Take it, for this is my body.”

This bread they used in the Passover meal, it was unleavened bread. A lot of the unleavened bread we see today is called Matza. And it looks like a giant saltine cracker.

And the reason it looks like a saltine cracker instead of the fluffy bread we know and love is because leaven causes bread to rise. So the bread they used for Passover wouldn’t rise. It would just sit and get crunchier as you cooked it. And in the Bible, leaven (or yeast) is actually this picture of sin. Because it starts small, but it grows and rises.

And so Jesus takes this unleavened bread and breaks it, and says that it’s His body. Jesus is showing us here that the man without sin (without leaven) was about to be broken. And who is the only person who has never sinned? Jesus.

And Jesus distributed the bread to the disciples. Showing that Jesus’ broken body would be what satisfies everyone in the world.

Then Jesus took a cup of wine and He gave it to the disciples and they all drank from it. And He says, “This is my blood which confirms the covenant between God and His people. It is poured out as a sacrifice for many.”

Blood in the Bible is a symbol of life.

Leviticus 17:11 NLT

11 for the life of the body is in its blood. I have given you the blood on the altar to purify you, making you right with the Lord. It is the blood, given in exchange for a life, that makes purification possible.

So Jesus is showing us here that the wine they used in the Passover meal signified the blood of their Savior to come; which was Him. And His life would be poured out as a sacrifice for the world.

1 John 1:7 NLT

7 But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

Jesus’ body was broken to satisfy the debt of our sin, and His blood was poured out to cleanse us of our sin. Those who know Jesus, the debt is paid, you are cleansed and able to enjoy the greatest Exodus to the greatest promised land in eternity.

But there’s one problem with this Passover meal. Let’s go back and read the first verse of our passage. Verse 12.

Mark 14:12 NLT

12 On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed…

Where’s the Passover lamb? Jesus didn’t mention a lamb? It was custom on this day at the end of the meal to eat the Passover lamb, but they didn’t have one here. There’s a reason for that.

1 Corinthians 5:7 NLT

7 … Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us.

3. Jesus is the Sovereign King who became the Sacrificial Lamb.

There was no literal sacrificial lamb at this Passover meal because the Sacrificial Lamb was already present. The one all the other sacrificial lambs at all the other Passovers were pointing to. The ultimate Sacrificial Lamb, Jesus Christ.

I want y’all to imagine something for a moment for me. Imagine you have this terrible bully. Every time you walk into school they push you down when no one is looking, as you walk by them they laugh with their friends and point at you, they constantly verbally and physically abuse you.

How would you feel toward that person?

We have disobeyed and wronged God countless times. He created man, and we constantly sin against Him. He rescued Israel countless times (the biggest rescue in the Old Testament being what the entire Passover is about), and Israel bowed down to other “gods” and rejected the one and true God. And even after all of us know that He died for us on the cross, we still sin against Him. And He knew before He went to the cross that we would continue to sin against Him, yet He went to the cross anyway.

We rejected God at every turn. We spat in His face, laughed at Him, mocked Him, yet He still came to this Earth to die for our sins. He had everything! Yet He chose to have His body broken and His blood poured out for the very people that hated Him. That’s who Jesus is.

If you’re realizing what Jesus did for you on the cross for the first time tonight, I encourage you to come talk with me or one of the leaders here tonight about it. We’d love to walk with you through it.

Y’all, our King who died for us deserves our worship. Through His sacrifice on the cross, we’ve been cleansed and we now live to bring glory to Him.

There are many ways you can do this. Reading your Bible to get to know Him more, pray to Him, be in community with other followers of Jesus like we’re doing tonight. Another way we can worship Christ is through doing something we call communion.

Communion is a sacrament we do with the whole gathered church and it’s a remembrance of this moment. We take up the unleavened bread, and we remember that it represents Christ’s body, broken for us. Then we take up the juice and we remember it as Christ’s blood, poured out for us.

I wanna encourage y’all to be at church this Sunday because we’re gonna take communion as a church. And I want y’all to remember what communion means as we take it on Sunday. This passage right here is what it’s pointing to. When Jesus revealed that He is the fulfillment of the Passover and that He has come to rescue us from the slavery of sin.