Series

Series:Mark#29

February 17, 2008

THE NEW COVENANT

Mark 14:12-26

Mark 14:12-26 NIV

On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus' disciples asked him, "Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?"

[13] So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, "Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. [14] Say to the owner of the house he enters, 'The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?' [15] He will show you a large upper room, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there."

[16] The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.

[17] When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve. [18] While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, "I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me--one who is eating with me."

[19] They were saddened, and one by one they said to him, "Surely not I?"

[20] "It is one of the Twelve," he replied, "one who dips bread into the bowl with me. [21] The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born."

[22] While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take it; this is my body."

[23] Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it.

[24] "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many," he said to them. [25] "I tell you the truth, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God."

[26] When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

Timing is everything.[1] You have probably heard the phrase many times, "timing is everything". There is a great deal of truth in that statement. The difference between a good joke and a bad one is a person's sense of timing. An appropriate pause makes a joke . . . an inappropriate pause can kill the same joke. Timing is essential when dealing with people. You don't ask for a raise when business is not going well or when things are tense around the office. You don't try to correct someone who feels threatened by you. You don't ask for a favor when someone is under a lot of stress or angry. Timing is important in cooking. The juicy hamburger on the grill is raw meat if cooked for too little time and a lump of charcoal if it is cooked too long. Timing is important in medicine. If you catch a problem early you will be able to treat it more effectively. Your timing is important in taking medication. If you take your medicine as directed it will be helpful. If you skip doses it loses its effectiveness. If you take extra doses it can be deadly.

Jesus was very conscious of timing. He lived His life with an acute awareness of God's timing for His life. Frequently, he told people that His time had not yet come, it was not His hour yet, etc. But then it’s as though all the prior preparations and timing came together in the last week of His life. Mark 14:12-26, “On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus' disciples asked him, ‘Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?’”

This would be Thursday. The Passover was Friday, which started for the Jews at sundown on Thursday, so they sacrificed the Passover Lamb on Thursday, and ate it on what we would call Thursday evening, which for them was Friday.

Timing was everything. It was necessary for Jesus to eat that meal with them on that night, the beginning of Passover, because He was about to fulfill the Passover meal. By “fulfill”, I mean that He was going to fill that ceremony full of new meaning for the men there and for all time. He was going to show them that He was the fulfillment of everything the Passover Supper pointed to.

I. The Sovereignty of God Mark 14:13-16

But first, they had to get ready for the meal. Preparations had to be made, and the Law specified just how they were to be done. So the disciples, anticipating this, and knowing that Jesus would certainly celebrate the Passover, asked where He wants them to do it. He said, Mark 14:13, "’Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. [14] Say to the owner of the house he enters, “The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?” [15] He will show you a large upper room, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.’ [16] The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them.”

I know that the Bible teaches we are free moral agents, and that we make choices and decisions that we will be held accountable for. But it is also clear, as in this instance, that God is in complete control of even the smallest details. Jesus knows exactly what will happen. He knows when His men will get to the city, and that when they do, they will meet a certain man carrying a jar of water to a certain house. He knows that the owner of that house has already been moved by the Holy Spirit to prepare a place in an upper room of his house for a group of people to gather in. All of these things are under the complete sovereign control of an omniscient, and all-mighty, God. The disciples leave Jesus, head into the city, and find things exactly as He had told them.

II. Betrayed Mark 14:17-21

Mark 14:17, “When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve. [18] While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, ‘I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me--one who is eating with me.’ [19] They were saddened, and one by one they said to him, ‘Surely not I?’ [20] ‘It is one of the Twelve,’ he replied, ‘one who dips bread into the bowl with me. [21] The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.’"

Have you ever been betrayed by a close friend? I was, once, and it was devastating. I couldn’t believe that this man, whom I had led to Christ, whose marriage I had saved through counseling, who I had mentored and discipled in his walk with Christ, would suddenly turn on me in public and seek to disgrace and destroy me. It was just unbelievable. If you’ve been betrayed, you know the deep feelings of hurt, and shock, and outrage you have felt.

So here is Jesus, with His twelve men, hand-picked after a night of prayer, men with whom He has shared every day for the past two and a half years or more. They have walked hundreds of miles together, eaten together, slept together in crowded rooms or even in the open air. He has invested Himself into them, teaching, correcting, encouraging, leading, mentoring, and now one of them will betray Him—and not just to diminish him in some way, but betray Him to death! It will be, “the one who dips bread into the bowl with me.” In other words, a close friend, a man who shared intimate fellowship with Him.

And here again, we have that mysterious interplay between the sovereignty of God and the free will of man. Here’s the sovereignty of God: Mark 14:21, “The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him.” God had been planning this from all eternity, and had dropped clues about it for centuries. But here’s the free will of Judas: Mark 14:21, “But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.” Judas is going to do what God determined ages before would be done, but Judas would freely choose to do it, and would be held accountable for his actions.

So there the disciples are, gathered around the table, eating the Passover Supper. Jesus is about to fill that sacred ceremony with new meaning, so let’s go back to Exodus 12 to see how God set this up, and how the Passover Supper was a type of Christ. That means something in the past that is a symbol of something in the future.

III. The Lamb of God

There were two characteristics of the Passover Lamb that pointed to Christ. The first was that it had to be perfect.

A. Perfect

Old Testament Type in the Passover Ex 12:5

Exodus 12:5, “The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect”

They were to be no more than a year old, because they were taking the place of the first-born sons of Israel. But the key thing here is the fact that the animal had to be a physically perfect male.

New Testament Fulfillment in the Death of Christ John 1:29 1 Cor. 5:7 John 8:46 1 Peter 1:19 Hebrews 4:15 Hebrews 7:26-27; 2 Cor. 5:21; John 19:33

In the New Testament, we see that Jesus is the ultimate Lamb of God.

$ John 1:29, “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’”

$ 1 Cor. 5:7, “...For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.”

It is often true that physical realities in the Old Testament have spiritual parallels in the New Testament. The Passover called for a male animal without physical defects. That physical perfection was a picture of the moral perfection of Jesus, who was sinless.

A second characteristic of the Passover Lamb that pointed to Christ was that it could have no broken bones.

B. No broken bones

Old Testament Type in the Passover Ex 12:46

The instruction to the Israelites as they prepared the lamb for supper was, Ex 12:46, "... Do not break any of the bones.” Why was that? It seems like kind of an odd instruction, since the lamb was going to be killed and eaten anyway. What difference did it make whether its bones were broken or not? It apparently made a difference, because God was going to do something very unusual in the death of Christ that would set Him apart, and the type of the lamb had to correspond to the real thing that was coming 1,400 years later.

New Testament Fulfillment in the Death of Christ John 19:33,36

After Christ was crucified with two criminals, the Jewish leaders had asked for the three men to be taken down before sundown, so they would not have to deal with the bodies on the Sabbath. So the Romans went out to break the legs of the men so they would die faster. (With their legs broken, they would not be able to push up to get a breath, and they would suffocate in a short time.) John 19:33, “But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 36 These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: ‘Not one of his bones will be broken.’" This raises the question, Why was He already dead? Was Jesus that much weaker than the other men on the crosses that day? It’s true that He had been beaten to within an inch of His life, so maybe that had something to do with it, but I think the real reason was something else. Remember in John 10, where Jesus described Himself as the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep. “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord,” He said. Jesus had the power to will His own death at the time He wanted, and He chose to do that before they could break His legs and thereby take credit for His death.

So the physically perfect lamb points to the moral perfection of Jesus, and the unbroken bones of the lamb were prophetic hints of the unusual treatment Jesus received on the cross because He laid down His life for us.

So the Lamb in the Passover supper was one picture of Christ; the unleavened bread was another.

IV. Unleavened Bread

Old Testament Type in the Passover Ex 12:8,15,17-20

God told the Israelites, Ex 12:8, “That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. ...[15] For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel...” The fact that the Israelites were to clean all the yeast out of their homes, and eat only unleavened bread for seven days of the Feast was intended to teach the importance of a holy life, a life without sin. The yeast was a symbol of sin, because just as yeast works its way through a whole lump of dough and causes it to rise, so sin can work its way through a whole family, or church, or even all the churches in an area.

New Testament Fulfillment in the Death of Christ Luke 12:1; 1 Cor. 5:7,8; Luke 22:19

In the New Testament, yeast is often a symbol for sin.

$ Luke 12:1 ...Jesus began to speak first to his disciples, saying: "Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.

$ 1 Cor. 5:7 Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. ... [8] Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.

Yeast is a symbol for sin. This instruction to get rid of the yeast echoes the Old Testament command, “You shall be holy, because I am holy.” If we want to be in fellowship with a holy God, we have to be holy ourselves, and the removal of the yeast symbolizes the removal of sin from our lives.

But how can we do that? We continually sin in thought, word, and deed. How can we be qualified to live in the presence of a holy God? That’s what the Passover is all about. Jesus came to be a substitute sacrifice for our sin. In the Lord’s Supper, Jesus shifted the focus from the lamb they were serving at the meal (even though He was the ultimate Passover Lamb) to the unleavened bread. Mark 14:22, “While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take it; this is my body.’” Since the bread represents His life, which was without sin, then the bread had to be without yeast, the symbol of sin.

So both the unblemished, physically perfect animal chosen for the sacrifice, and the unleavened bread point to the sinlessness of Christ.

SERVE THE BREAD

Another part of the Passover that pointed to Christ has to do with the blood that was shed.

V. The Blood of the Covenant: Substitute atonement

Old Testament Type in the Passover Ex 12:7,13; Heb 9:22

All through this section in Exodus 12, we read about the blood. The blood of this lamb is central to the Passover experience and observance. Ex 12:7, “Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. ...[13] The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you.” That’s where the term Passover comes from—the angel of death would pass over the houses that were marked with the blood of the lamb.

The entire sacrificial system in Israel was based on the principle of substitution. An animal died in place of the sinful people who deserved to die. The shed blood represents the death of that animal, the prescribed penalty for sin. It died instead of them. Hebrews 9:22, “In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” This concept of substitutionary atonement was expressed formally and ceremonially in lots of different ways in Israel: through the daily sacrifices, the annual Day of Atonement, and through the celebration of the Passover, where the life of the lamb was taken in exchange for the lives of the Israelites’ first-born sons. If they killed the lamb, their sons would live.

New Testament Fulfillment in the Death of Christ Rom 3:25; Eph. 2:13; Heb 10:4,19; 13:12; 1 Jn 1:7; Rev. 1:5; Matt 26:28

The New Testament continues this theme of substitutionary atonement, that one life can be offered in exchange for another. And again, blood is the central symbol of that death for sin. Romans 3:25, “God presented [Jesus] as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” In the old covenant, it was the life-blood of animals that were sacrificed in exchange for the lives of sinners. In the new covenant, it is the life-blood of Christ that is shed in order for us to live forever. So it fits perfectly that when Jesus instituted the Lord’s supper, based on the Passover Supper, He said, Mark 14:24, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.”

SERVE THE CUP

So Jesus timed it perfectly. He served His disciples the Passover Supper on the very day that the Passover Lamb was eaten, to show that He was the true Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. God made perfect provision for the Israelites there in Egypt to escape the angel of death, and He has made perfect provision for us to escape eternal death. But He made it clear to the Israelites that if they did not take advantage of the provision He had made, their children would die. No one was to venture out of their house all that night, and only those houses with the blood on the doorframes would be spared.

It’s the same for us today. Jesus said that He was the bread of life, and that if we ate this bread in faith we would never die. What a wonderful promise! But if we do not take Him up on that, if we do not trust Him in faith to save us, then we will be lost as surely as any Israelite who failed to put the blood on his doorframe because it seemed silly to him.

I sincerely hope and pray that every one of you are trusting Christ and Christ alone to make you right with God. He is the Savior; He is the Passover Lamb whose death is the only perfect substitute for you.