Preparing for Passover

We now get to a major event in the book of Mark. We are right here at Passover. If you are keeping track of the week leading up to the crucifixion, we are most likely at Thursday. There are two parts of this that we are going to look at today, the preparation for the passover meal and Jesus declaring his betrayal to his disciples.

Mark 14:12–21 ESV

12 And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” 13 And he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him, 14 and wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ 15 And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us.” 16 And the disciples set out and went to the city and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover. 17 And when it was evening, he came with the twelve. 18 And as they were reclining at table and eating, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” 19 They began to be sorrowful and to say to him one after another, “Is it I?” 20 He said to them, “It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me. 21 For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”

How are you preparing yourself for Christ?

Growing up, my mom had a little side business. She would cater weddings, specifically wedding cakes. The best part of this as a child is getting the enjoy the extras. But, when she baked a cake, there is a process she had to go through to prepare. She had particular ingredients she needed. And if you do things out of order, then you have failed at making one of the best pound cakes you have ever had. Preparation was necessary for the outcome to be the correct one.

We must prepare ourselves for Christ just as we prepare for other things that we do. Our passage is split up today into two different events. The event of preparing for Passover and Jesus explaining to his disciples that he is going to be betrayed. We have both God being glorified and God being betrayed. That is what we are going to be focusing in on today in our passage.

Main Point: Our Preparation Will Lead to Either Life or Death

This statement may sound contradictory. Maybe you think that death will only come from a lack of preparation. But, in someones failure to obey, in their failure to love and follow, they are preparing themselves for death. Let us be challenged today by the word of God to be rightly prepared as we devote ourselves to Jesus. As we begin in our text for today the first thing that we see is that…

Preparation Leads You to See God’s Sovereignty

We see a little time jump as we continue in the book of Mark. The event in the house of Mary anointing Jesus for burial has ended. Judas had left the house and went and found the chief priests and sold Jesus out to them. We now have Jesus giving instructions to his disciples as they prepare for Passover.

Mark 14:12 ESV

12 And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?”

In the Jewish tradition, there were 7 feasts that they observed. Here, we have 2 of them mentioned. The feast of Unleavened Bread and Passover. These 2 feasts were representative of 2 very important events of the Israelites history. The Passover remembers the 10th plague of the exodus when the Israelites were instructed to sacrifice a spotless lamb, take the blood of the lamb and spread it across their doorposts. The spirit of the Lord would go through and spare the houses who had the blood, leading to the death of many first born to provoke Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go free. In relation to that, the feast of Unleavened Bread was observed as a reminder of how quickly the people of Israel had to flee Egypt as a result of Pharaoh telling them they had to leave.

In the current context of Jesus and his disciples, these two feasts are still very important. Many people had come to Jerusalem and were about to observe it. The disciples, following Jewish tradition, needed to find somewhere to observe this. According to this same tradition, you needed to be in Jerusalem to observe this. They were staying in Bethany, which was outside of Jerusalem, so they needed to go into the city to find somewhere to observe this.

Mark 14:13–15 ESV

13 And he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him, 14 and wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ 15 And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us.”

When we study the gospel accounts, you cannot overlook the sovereignty of God on display. And within that, Jesus’s sovereign instructions. He tells two of his disciples what they need to do. Go into the city, find this man carrying water, follow him. Very clear instructions. The account of this instance is very similar to the day that they arrived to the city.

In Mark 11, Jesus took 2 of his disciples, gave them instructions to go into the city and find a colt tied up and bring it back to him. Just as Jesus knew the details of this, he knows the details about the preparation of the Passover.

These 2 disciples go, find this man. Maybe you think that there are a ton of people in the city and surely there would have been more than one person carrying a jar of water. So how do they know they have the right person? This is how we know that we can trust the sovereignty of God and that he works out all of the details. Because, culturally, men do not carry water. Only women. So, when they go into the city and start looking for the man carrying a jar of water, he would have been easy to spot.

So they follow him into a house. And they are to ask the owner of the house where the guest room is so that they can observe Passover with Jesus. Jesus tells them that he will take them to an upper room and show them that the room is furnished and ready.

Try and argue this if you want, but God sovereignly orchestrated these events down to the littlest details. A man carrying a jar of water, the disciples didn’t even need to ask him anything. They just needed to follow him. When they got into the house, they ask the master, who they presumably did not know, about a guest room that they could bring their teacher too(no name was given here), so that they could observe Passover. Not only did he say yes, but he already had everything ready for them even though they were not even there.

There have been things in my life that have happen that have brought me to where I am today. If we had not experienced a miscarriage, we may not have ever adopted our daughter. If I had not had back surgery and knew that building mobile homes would have been too much for me anymore, I may not have surrendered to pastoring. There are things in our lives that happen to bring us to where we are today. Things that we may define as both good and bad.

We must trust in the sovereignty of God. This is an absolute must in the life of the Christian. When we refuse to do so, this is when we begin to doubt God and his goodness. The question that a lot of people have heard that nonbelievers throw out there is “how can a good God let bad things happen to good people?”. This comes out of a dismissal of belief of God’s sovereignty. And if you were wondering the answer to that question, there has only been one instance where something bad happened to someone good and that is Jesus dying on the cross because we are all bad and in need of salvation.

Each of us could take a step back and look at our lives and see God’s sovereignty unfold. We can see how bad things have happened that have brought us to where we are today. We can see how good things have happened that have brought us to where we are today. And we must trust in God’s sovereignty. Because God is preparing us. He is preparing us, as believers, for glorification. His glorification here on earth and our eventual glorification in Heaven. Brothers and sisters, preparation leads you to see God’s sovereignty.

Preparation Leads You to Obey

Going back to the cake analogy, when you are preparing to bake a cake and you have all of the stuff that you need, it will lead you to obey. Why is that? Well you are looking for the right outcome. With a cake recipe, obedience leads to joy in my tummy. In our walk with Christ, obedience leads to joy in Christ.

Mark 14:16 ESV

16 And the disciples set out and went to the city and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover.

The disciples trusted Jesus in what he said and they obeyed him. And what was the outcome? they found it just as he had told them. God’s sovereignty is delighted in our obedience. In a little bit, we are going to get into this mesh between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. They work together. But our obedience is delighted in by God. And our obedience works together with God’s sovereignty to employ God’s plan.

We will also see very soon in scripture that someone’s disobedience can also work to employ God’s plan. But as Christians, we should be seeking to follow God’s plan through our obedience.

God has been preparing each and every one of us. He has done it through events in our past, he has done it through biblical preaching and teaching, he has done it through relationship building. And through all of this, God has been preparing us. He has been preparing us to be obedient to his commands and to seek his will, all for his glory.

Preparation leads us to see God’s sovereignty, it leads us to obey and lastly…

Preparation Leads You to Love Christ

The scene shifts now. They are now in what you might call the Upper Room. You have heard me read this already. And you may wonder how I see that preparation leads you to love Christ out of the remaining verses. What we are going to do is look at what Jesus says, look at the outcome of it from the disciples, and apply it in an opposite but positive way.

Mark 14:17–18 ESV

17 And when it was evening, he came with the twelve. 18 And as they were reclining at table and eating, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.”

The room has been prepared and now they had gathered and were eating of the traditional passover meal. And in a somewhat rare instance, Jesus begins speaking to them without them asking a question. He tells them that one of them would betray him. We have already seen that Judas had approached the chief priests and sold Jesus out to them for very little money. But now, he informs his followers of the betrayal.

It is unfolding just as Jesus knew that it would. The betrayal did not take him by surprise. He knew that it would come just as much as he knew that he would go to the cross. What we must understand is that Jesus coming and living a life here on earth and going to the cross to die for our sins was not a plan b. It was always the plan of redemption. Going all the way back to the first few chapters in Genesis, the sin of Adam and Eve was not a surprise to God. He knew before time began that they would sin. He knew that he would send Jesus. And he knew that Jesus would be betrayed by one of his closest followers.

Mark 14:19 ESV

19 They began to be sorrowful and to say to him one after another, “Is it I?”

As they heard this, they all began to say, “is it I?”. Every single one of the twelve, even Judas. The one who had already sold him out was sitting with everyone playing along with this. Acting sorrowful just as the others. His preparation had led him to deceit. The correct preparation will lead us oppositely. It will lead us to love Christ.

Now, will all of the New Testament in context, I believe that the other 11 were truly sorrowful. They did love Jesus, at least partially. But, they would fail too. They may not have been the ones who sought out the chief priests to sell Jesus out, but they would scatter in the next few hours. They would enjoy this meal and the Lord’s Supper together, and then they would leave Jesus. Judas brings the soldiers to him in the garden, Peter gets confronted 3 times about being Jesus’s friend and he denies it all 3 times, and the rest of them scatter. But they were still sorrowful in the moment that they may be the one who betrays him.

This event here is part of their preparation to be the ones who take the gospel forward. They will be witnesses of the resurrection. They will be commanded by Jesus to go and take the gospel to all nations. They will witness his ascension into Heaven. And they will go with the love of Christ. At least 11 of them would. Judas would have a different fate. And the words of Jesus here would indicate how bad it would be for him.

Mark 14:20–21 ESV

20 He said to them, “It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me. 21 For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”

Judas knew the truth, yet lived a different way. Judas had stood beside Jesus, served with Jesus, learned about Jesus, and had been loved by Jesus. And yet, he turned his back on him. Something for us to think about is that just because someone shows up to church when the doors open and do good things and say the right things, does not mean that they are devoted to Jesus. You can be Jesus adjacent and not be a follower of Jesus. Judas made a choice here.

Remember when I mentioned the sovereignty of God in all things. Here is where things begin to look a little different. It is very difficult to take God’s sovereignty and apply that to the decision of Judas. Then you may believe that God caused Judas to do evil. But then we take away Judas’s freewill. Judas still made the decision to do this. See, there is this beautiful tension between God’s sovereignty and mans responsibility. And I could stand up here for hours and I do not believe that I could fully explain it or understand it. But, I trust it. Both freewill of man and sovereignty of God are both visible in scripture and we must affirm both as believers.

Conclusion

How are you preparing yourself for Christ?

When we read about Judas, it is easy for us to play Monday morning quarterback and say that there is no way that we would act like that. We would never betray Jesus.

But, have we forgotten that all of our sins, from the biggest to the very littlest, are the sins that sent Jesus to the cross. We betray him every time that we sin. Judas’s sin seems to be a glaring one because it was a very outward sin that directly affected the physical life of Jesus. But his sin is no greater than our sin. The difference is repentance.

Everyone is offered grace. Through repentance and belief in the gospel, all of us can receive grace. When it comes to Jesus hanging on the cross, grace means that our sins are blotted out by the blood of Jesus. We will one day stand faultless before the throne because of the work of Jesus. Because of our repentance, we receive grace.

When we repent, we will grieve over our sins. We will be convicted and we will understand and deeply feel grief over our sins sending Jesus to the cross. But it will also cause us to run to him and find our refuge and our peace there. Judas’s sins are going to eat him up. It will not be long for him before it consumes him to the point of taking his own life. If only Judas had repented of his sins. You are either preparing yourself for life or for death.

We are all offered grace through repentance and belief. If you have never repented, today is the day to do that. Run to Jesus and ask him for forgiveness of your sin.

But on top of us receiving grace, we must take the grace that we have been offered and lean into it by preparing ourselves for Jesus. How do we do that? We do this through us growing in our faith. The local church is where this is best done. We surround ourselves with a family that will spur us unto godliness. We are in each others lives and we are holding each other accountable. We pray, we study God’s word, we worship, we serve, and when we need to, we confess sin to one another.

The Christian life is not one that can grow when you are only doing it half heartedly. It is a full life commitment. What doesn’t need to happen is us acting like Judas by putting on a front of someone that we really aren’t. We need to open up our real selves to those in our faith family so that we can help each other out. Find someone or a group of someones to do that with. Hold each other accountable in our spiritual disciplines.

This is not some sort of ground breaking application to our text today. Give your whole life to Jesus because he gave his life for us. As we wrap up our sermon today, there is no better way to end it by singing. And there is not a more fitting song to sing than I surrender all. This is what Jesus is calling us to. To fully surrender ourselves to him. This is how we prepare ourselves for Christ.