Mark 14:12-21 | The Betrayal

Preacher: Joel Fair
Scripture: Mark 14:12-21

1. THE PASSOVER MEAL - VS 12
2. JUST LIKE HE PLANNED - VS 13-16
3. JESUS, ALONE, THE PASSOVER LAMB - VS 17-21

Exodus 12:1–14 (ESV)
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt. “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast."

Mark 11:2–3 (ESV)
and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.’"

Daniel L. Akin - Exalting Jesus in Mark
The two disciples did as they were instructed. They also would have prepared the Passover lamb that symbolized their deliverance from slavery and redemption out of Egypt. Little did they know that an even greater Passover was unfolding as Jesus prepared Himself to be sacrificed as our Passover Lamb (1 Cor 5:7). John the Baptist had declared, “Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Jesus is indeed this Passover Lamb, and He is in complete control of the events leading to His death. The cross did not catch Him off guard. No, it was a divine appointment scheduled, as Peter would write, “before the foundation of the world” (1 Pet 1:20). Jesus knew down to the last detail what was happening, and He joyfully embraced it (Heb 12:2). Such confidence in God’s will should inspire us to trust Him even when the road of life may be difficult, painful, even deadly. Our God is in control!

1 Corinthians 5:6–8 (ESV)
Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

John 1:29 (ESV)
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

Psalm 41:9 (ESV)
Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.

Walter W. Wessel - The Expositor’s Bible Commentary
To betray a friend after eating a meal with him was, and still is, regarded as the worst kind of treachery in the Middle East.

Isaiah 53:10–12 (ESV)
Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

Hebrews 9:11–14 (ESV)
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

John 10:17–18 (ESV)
For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”