Mark 14

Subdivision 2. (Mark 14:1-72; Mark 15:1-47.)The Cross. We come now to the CROSS. Every view of Christ that the Gospels give connects with the Cross. Every step He took in this world led Him to the Cross. Men’s voices decreed Him to be worthy of death. The multitude, in the land where He had rained miracles of mercy, shouted “Crucify Him.” Man’s wickedness gave Him the Cross. Man’s need led Him to it. The righteousness and love - the whole glory of God - find in it their fullest and their eternal display.

Mark 14:1-52

Section 1. (Mark 14:1-52.)The cup chosen. The Gospel of Mark shows us the Cross in its sin-offering character, as already stated, Matthew giving the trespass-offering. These two Gospels, as having alike the Lord’s cry of abandonment, most evidently represent the offerings which as emphasizing the judgment of sin are not “sweet savor.” The distinction has been pointed out in the Introduction (pp. 26-28), and we shall have to touch afresh upon its proofs and illustrations as we go through this closing portion. The essence of the sin-offering is that “cup” which in Matthew’s narrative of the agony in the garden has been already before us, and the Lord’s choice of it there surely characterizes this first section. Matthew and Mark, it will be seen, cling closely together herd as elsewhere, while there is also a difference which is characteristic in the case of each. 1.(1) It is the divine will to which Christ bows in taking the cup. It is not to be wondered at that, here at the outset, that divine will should make itself apparent, overruling, controlling, working by, the various and conflicting wills of men. This is what we find in the introductory portion here, of which the last two verses show how and how far the first two were fulfilled, while what comes between shows what brought about the traitor’s action. The hearts of the chief priests were set on mischief; but they were permitted thus to bring about the will of God for an infinite blessing. Yet their plots are not permitted to entangle the Lamb of the sacrifice: these are anticipated; and although He is delivered into their hands, yet it is open-eyed and unresisting. They must dishonor themselves by purchasing treachery with the blood-money, soon to be hurled back at them by their miserable tool, with words which must have haunted them ever after. Not even they dare put into the treasury that “price of blood.” (2) In the midst of all this there comes the beauteous story of the woman’s ointment, always to be told wherever the gospel is preached, for a memorial of her: protest as it is against the utilitarianism which in the gospel itself would make Christ of less account than the “poor” who are to be benefited by Him. Ah, let us remember the claims of the Christ of God, if the poor themselves are not to suffer. This utilitarianism may well hide under it a Judas as chief instigator, while it seduces with its fair seeming even true disciples. The spikenard is for His burial. That which she has that is precious here goes into the grave with Christ; and though He is not there now, the doctrine of Christ goes further for the Christian: for we ourselves are dead and buried with Him, and in Him alone we live, where He is gone. Thus we are identified with Him, to seek His interests only, as He secures ours. Woe will it be to any who sacrifice the claims of Christ for any other. The universe hangs upon Him: “in Him all things subsist:” “all things were created by Him and for Him”; and nothing can be right that is not in its due place of relationship to Him. (3) The traitor understands more truly than many Christians the significance of the burial of Christ. The three hundred pence are gone for him without possible recovery. The bag he has carried will soon be as unprofitable. He must get what he can, if he sell Christ for it: and all they to whom Christ is offered and who turn away from Him to grasp the world instead, are they not after their manner selling Christ too? and valuing Him perhaps no higher than he did? 2. We follow on now to see the Lord at His last passover with His disciples before He suffers, and instituting His own memorial feast to take its place. The Old Testament is about to give place to the New, and He who is Lord of the sabbath and of the sacrificial rites fulfilled in Him, shows Himself Master of the future which He predicts, and of His own part in it, amid enemies that surround Him, and adverse conditions that seem to hold Him in their grasp. But the ram of consecration can be held only by its horns: it is His very power that makes Him submit and serve, while divine love contemplates the blessed end of all. And those around Him now, the few sheep so soon to be scattered, are the objects of His unfailing care, which would prepare them for the trial so near at hand. This, especially in the synoptics; while John shows us at this time the full out-pouring of His heart, in which, far beyond the present trial, He enters into the blessings of the new era coming in. John’s is the Christian Gospel, and, not here alone but throughout, occupies itself with glories which even Christians have feebly apprehended. (1) Mark gives, as Matthew does not, the special signs which would assure the disciples when they would have reached the house in which He would eat the passover. Was it not on their account that they were permitted thus to see how perfectly the apprehension of the minutest details of the future was possessed by Him. Dispensationally also, was not the man with but the pitcher of water passing on to the place whence presently the rivers of living water were to flow forth? Indeed, the Old Testament had prepared the place already, which He alone could fill with His glory. Now He is come, for whom it is prepared. (2) Now they must learn from His own lips that one of the twelve should deliver Him up. It was needful that they should be prepared for this uttermost wickedness, which, however, like so much else, they do not seem to have understood in its real character. It was needful also to the divine love which would not give up even a Judas without warning, to let him know that “even the night” was “light about” him. Scripture too had forewarned and pointed at him. And the Lord adds His awful warning: “good were it for that man if he had not been born.” (3) The institution of the Supper follows, almost in the words of Matthew. Mark omits “for the remission of sins,” and for “My Father’s Kingdom” substitutes “the Kingdom of God.” (4) They sing a hymn and go out to the Mount of Olives. And there follows now the warning of the trial coming from the smiting of the Shepherd. All would be stumbled; but He carries on their thoughts to His resurrection and going before them into Galilee. Peter protests more than once in his vehement way that he never would be stumbled; and when the Lord adds that he would that night thrice deny Him, he still more stoutly protests that, though he should die with Him, he will not deny Him. He does not discern that this very strength of his is his weakness. And the others with as little discernment repeat his protest. 3. The agony in Gethsemane is told alike in Matthew and in the present Gospel; and we have already considered it. Not the view of death nor of any attendant suffering could move Christ after this manner. It would be dishonor to Him to suppose it. There is but one thing mighty enough to do so, and this connects it with the surpassing agony of the Cross, the forsaking of God. This, we shall find that Mark, by the abridgement or omission of other things, brings into emphatic prominence: it is the full reality of substitution, the Sinless in the sinner’s place; and it is this that He is anticipating here. 4. Judas comes up with his band of men from the chief priests and scribes, and into such hands He surrenders Himself for the accomplishment of His Father’s will. The disciples are struggling against it, - fighting, and then fleeing. His reproof of them is not given here, but only of the multitudes. Exceptional in Mark is the story of the young man clad in a linen or muslin garment (a sindon), which when they lay hold upon him, he leaves in their hands, and escapes from them naked. Significant it seems that the sindon, though generally spoken of as a nightdress, was such a wrapper as was used to enwrap the dead, and is actually, in the only other case in the New Testament, applied to that in which the Lord’s body was wrapped (Matthew 27:59; Matt. 15: 46; Luke 23:53). It came to be used for any light garment made of this material, and so might be a nightdress; but does not seem to be the word for this specifically. Its connection with the dead has suggested an allegorical meaning for the story here, at a time when all facts seem to allegorize (if there be even any exception in this way as to Scripture facts). It has been spoken* of as suggestive of the vanity of human effort against the Christ of God. The priests and people, Herod and Pilate, got nothing of the Man against whom they combined but the grave-clothes empty of their temporary occupant. The living Person had escaped: the true life was untouched. And this might be a parable as to all His followers, to whom indeed, as in Christ before God, the vestment of the body is but as it were the light garment of the dead, in whom a hidden life resides not to be touched of death: “the gates of hades cannot prevail against it.” In the midst of a hostile world, the Lord of life has well provided for His own. \

Mark 14:53-15

Section 2. (Mark 14:53-72; Mark 15:1-15.)The false condemnation. The condemnation of the Lord - trial in any real sense there was not - was two-fold. Before the high priest and council it was upon the true charge, and the truth it was that was charged against Him. He was condemned on His own confession of the truth, that He was the Son of God. Before Pilate they change this accusation for another, that He claimed to be King of the Jews: this for the obvious reason that they can plead: “Whosoever maketh himself a, king speaketh against Caesar.” These things naturally appear in all the Gospels, though with different emphasis and omissions as to particular details, according to the different line of truth in each. Matthew and Mark, as usual, come nearest together; John is the most distinct.

1. (1) The confession of the Master is set before us in evident contrast with the denial of the disciple. In every part of this scene man is exposed; consistent only in wickedness, unreliable and inconstant where truest in heart. His self-confidence is his weakness; his weakness, known and owned, his only strength. The Second Man stands alone amid a ruined world; most glorious in this utter desolation; all contradictions uniting to approve Him; all depths to place Him highest. The simple language of the evangelists, putting not an additional word even of emotion - not an irrepressible note of wonder or of praise, to the mere recital of His words, His deeds, His sufferings, is in fact the hush of the sanctuary of His presence, the only fit celebration of that unique glory with which nothing else must or can mingle. Before the high priest the false witnesses are condemned by their contradiction of each other. They sought witnesses for the purpose that was in their hearts before. And are not those who bring such witness, commonly, if not constantly, of such a spirit? Do not they dare even to search Scripture to justify the condemnation they have determined on already? And yet how often are they obliged to put out of court their own witnesses! How little can they quote without misquoting.

It was they who even now were seeking to destroy the temple of God, as His words had implied they would; and it was no other could replace this, but He would raise it up again. Still there was no agreement: and the high priest turns to Jesus, to make Him answer what had need of none, and thus make something of what was nothing. He is therefore silent. But the direct question He will not fail to answer. “Art Thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One must be answered with no ambiguity at all. It will give them what they seek against Him; but it will give rest also to those that are true enquirers, and minister through the ages to the blessing of man. Yes, He is the Son of the Blessed, while He is the Son of man as well; and they shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven. (2) The denial of the disciple follows the confession of the Master. It speaks for itself, and needs here little comment. Each evangelist gives it: for there is need of such a lesson being well learned, as that honesty of heart, and true love to Christ, and zeal for Him, cannot save us from the most terrible falls, without that distrust of ourselves which brings in the power of God for us. Not only the sinner needs to be broken down before God, but the saint does. Human strength avails nothing on the path he is called to tread. Mark alone notices the twofold crowing of the cock, the latter being at the general cock-crowing of which the other Gospels speak. The first fails to arouse Peter; so easily may the conscience become torpid through the power of sin. Only Luke notices the tender reproof of the Lord’s look, which followed the second: in fact those eyes had never been withdrawn from him; though the “look” was more than this: it was the divine recall of the wanderer to himself and to God. 2. (1) In the second part here, we have still a confession and a denial, though the latter of a very different kind to what we have just seen. The chief priests still charge Him with being what He truly is, although as a charge they make it falsely. He is the King of the Jews. To their further accusations He answers nothing, so that Pilate marvels: but He has no thought of saving Himself from what was before Him; had He purpose of this kind, He would have stood in no such fashion before His accusers. Mark almost leaves out Pilate: from his point of view he is but a mere circumstance. (2) It is otherwise as to Barabbas, whose crimes are told out, as they are not in Matthew. He is seen as a chief of sinners, a rebel and a murderer, for whom the feast of redemption offers a possibility of release, but only, according to Pilate’s alternative, if Jesus is given up. Jesus becomes, as it were, the Substitute for the chief of sinners. To “release Barabbas” is “to destroy Jesus.” Why? because He has done evil? the judge asks in vain; Where is it? Looking deeper than at the wicked wills of men, we may discern in the purpose of God that holy Sin-offering, the true passover, by which even a Barabbas may be delivered, not for good in him, for Barabbas shows none. Thus the gospel story is more completely unfolded. Barabbas is released: Jesus is given up.