October 15, 2024: Tuesday Bible Study on the Gospel of Mark 14: 43-52
Good morning in the Name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
Today please keep Jenna's dog who is having gall bladder surgery today. It’s a tough surgery. Pray healing for Dobby, and for guidance for the surgery team who will be doing his surgery. For all of us who have pets, we have come to know how difficult it can be when our best friend is ill and requires intense medical care. Please continue to pray for Kandice, Lisa, and Alexis, as they work out all of the necessary life circumstances for battling Kandice's cancer, and for how their lives will be adjusted to take care of the needs of their lives. Pray for Jeff H. too. He is also battling cancer, which is hard to treat, with his doctors working to give him the best quality of life that is possible. Give thanks for Robert's continuing improvement. Pray for God's speed for all who are traveling over the next several months. Pastor Ron and Becky will be back with us in November. Please continue to pray for the victims of the recent hurricanes in the south. No one could have ever thought that there would be so much rain and devastation in the Carolinas and Georgia, in addition to all of the damage in Florida. Continue to pray for peace in the war between Israel and the Moslem nations who are at their borders and others who are near neighbors in the Middle East. Pray too for our nation. In this time of election, we are a divided country. Please pray for the division between us to heal, and for God's peace to reign, just like we pray every Sunday in the Lord's Prayer.
Today we move into the next section of Mark 14. As we grow closer to the end of Mark it is good for us to be reminded that both the Gospel of Matthew, and the Gospel of Luke, appear to have used Mark as their source for this time of the betrayal of Christ by Judas. But at the end of today's reading, we will discover two verses which are unique to Mark. We will take a brief time to address those verses also.
In verses 43-50 this morning we find the scene of Christ's capture by the religious leaders and their military in the garden. Let's take some time to look at the characters who are present.
Standing out in all of the chaos of this encounter is Judas. After all he is the one who has betrayed Jesus, and here he is the person who identifies Jesus for those who have come to arrest him. This is very interesting, because Jesus has been in the temple teaching and preaching many times. It is interesting that His captors do not know who he is. In its original text this section says that Judas kissed Jesus like a lover would kiss their partner. This makes the whole betrayal by Judas even more terrible. It was not offered out of respect for Jesus' office, or as Savior, or even as a friend! The stark reality of this kiss is that it says, "Now you’re getting what you deserve!"
The next characters in this garden scene are the mob who comes to arrest Jesus. Jesus was never known to be guiding a group of revolutionaries who were armed to the teeth again their foes. But they came ready for a major battle. I have to wonder if they came so heavily armed because the priest knew that to take Jesus would be an act against God. It is always amazing what actions a person will use to get what they want, and the religious leaders here were no exception.
There is this unnamed man who drew his sword to strike out at the mob. In other Gospels this man is named as Peter. Mark may not have named him out of fear that writing so close to the time of Christ's death, it may not have been safe to used Peter's name, and certainly Peter would seem to have the emotional drive to act out of his desire to keep Jesus safe. And, then we come to the other disciples.
They had been there through the night staying until sunrise. The guess about them is that they were frozen in fear at the prospect of the armed guards from the Temple coming to get them all, and, as they had heard too often, meet the end of their lives at the hands of Christ's enemies. The disciples were not fighting men. They worked, a tax collector, fishermen, a bookkeeper (Judas), and more. But they were not soldiers or trained like the Temple's guards.
No, I have not forgotten that the most important person is there. And isn't it funny that He seems to be only one who is calm and collected through all of this. Christ's faith is like concrete that has been poured and hardened for the task that lays ahead for him when he comes to the home of Pilate. Jesus stops the violence that might have so easily gotten out of hand. He directs this entire scene so that no one will get hurt. For Him this is the Next Step on His way to the cross. It is at this point that his disciples and the unknown man in the next two verses choose to flee the scene into the city where there is already a million non-Jerusalem Jews who are present for the Passover, a mix of people with whom they could disappear. But there is yet another person present, Mark. Though his name is not mentioned here, and his brief encounter is not even recorded in any of the other Gospels, he is apparently a Jesus groupie. We must know that Mark was very young, and tagging along with Jesus and His disciples, hearing God's truth every day, using it all to author a precise story of the life of the Savior, the bringer of salvation. Even in these moments of Jesus' arrest, Mark has hurriedly wrapped himself in a sheet, with nothing under it. He was naked. So, when they reach for the wrapped-up sheet from around his body, Mark has no choice but to flee.
With Christ's Love, Pastor Kim
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