GOSPEL MEDITATION # 227
Mark 14:12-21
The Passover with the Disciples
(Also see Exodus 12:1-14, 43-51 & Leviticus 23:4-8)
- Find a quiet place without distractions.
- Be comfortably alert, still, and at peace.
- Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer.
- Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself.
- Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.
- From memory, determine the central points.
- Jesus was an observant Jew all His life & ministry.
- On Thursday of the last week, will less than a day away from His crucifixion, Jesus celebrates Passover with His disciples.
- Jesus has obviously arranged the place for the Passover dinner, maybe in Mary’s home in Jerusalem, the mother of John Mark.
- Likely Jesus needed to be careful about the whereabouts of the Passover to prevent an attempt of capture by the authorities.
- It was a large “upper room” or a roof top room partially enclosed that wealthy people’s home might have with outside staircase.
- In John’s Gospel, 13:1-11, Jesus’ washes the disciples feet first.
- When it was dark, after 6pm, Jesus arrives at the large home in Jerusalem, and probably carefully.
- In the midst of the meal, about the time of the third cup, Jesus announces that someone at the table will betray Him.
- Psalm 41:9 might explain why Jesus knew what was about to happen: “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.”
- The wording of the Psalm of David perhaps reflects the wording of Genesis 3:15 where God says to the serpent: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
- Each of the disciples responds, “Not I?” But it is to be one of the Twelve, and all this appointed for the Messiah.
- Indeed “woe” to that one to whom it had been appointed.