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1. The Plot Against Jesus (Mark 14:1-2)
MARK 14:1-2
1 It was now two days before the feast of the Passover and the unleavened bread, and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might seize him by deception, and kill him. 2 For they said, “Not during the feast, because there might be a riot of the people.”
The greatest feast for the people of the old covenant was the Passover, which they celebrated during one complete week together with the Feast of the Unleavened Bread, remembering God’s wrath, which passed over them because of the paschal lamb slain by every family of the nation. Each family met around the Passover sacrifice, and each member of the family had to eat until it was finished. They invited their neighbors or friends to share with them, if they were a small family.
They sprinkled the lintel and the two doorposts of their houses with the blood of the lamb, that the angel of the wrath of God might pass over them. Thus, all the people were delivered through the lamb of God, living by its grace. Yet, all those who were not kept by the blood of the lamb were attacked by the wrath of God, who killed the firstborn of their sons that night. Then they sent those who were saved by the blood of the lamb out of the land of Egypt. So the fleeing people took their dough before it was leavened, having their kneading bowls bound up in their clothes on their shoulders, and baked it on stones during their walk in the desert.
The children of Jacob were no better than the people of Egypt, but they put themselves under the protection of the lamb of God. The mystery in this principle is great. No man is good and righteous before God. All deserve death, and destruction. But he who puts himself under the blood of the Lamb of God in the new covenant willingly and forever, will not enter into judgment. There is no salvation but through the unique Lamb of God. Man will not profit from his uprightness, his songs of praise, his contributions, or his deeds. All these do not justify us before God, and all our efforts are not sufficient to glorify the Holy One. The chosen Lamb of God alone is the protection, justification, purification, and sanctification, to all who believes in him.
Christ is the Lamb of God, who was slain for us. Having finished his ministry as preacher, teacher, and prophet, as the embodied Word of God, teaching men about his kingdom, and guiding them to the mystery of the universe that is LOVE, and displaying it clearly before them; and having finished all his teaching, Jesus advanced willingly to the hour of his death, knowing that there was no other way to redeem men, except through his death. From the cross we obtain righteousness, power, and salvation.
Jesus did not flee from Jerusalem, though he was sure that the rulers of the people intended to kill him, but he knew the time of his death, for it was determined in the counsel of his Father. He did not die accidentally, or under compulsion, but at the fixed hour, at the same moment when the Passover sacrifice was offered at the temple court, that it might be seen clearly that Christ is the chosen Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
It was in principle, a few months earlier that the rulers of the people had plotted to kill Jesus, because the Nazarene forgave sins as God does, healed the sick on the Sabbath by his word, and drew multitudes outside the authority of the synagogue. So they feared they should have a division in the nation, a revolution of the zealots, or interference by the Roman occupying power.
The elders disliked the Nazarene carpenter, for he was wiser and more spiritual than all their delegations; yet they could not entrap him. Therefore, they supposed they would render a service to God if they destroyed him, so that their power might not be shaken, the rules of the temple might be established, and the rule of Law kept.
Yet the experts in the Law intended to kill Jesus, and then give the false impression that he was killed accidentally, without premediation. They looked for some sly way to arrest him, that they might explore his mysteries through pressing questions, then entrap him by a confession against their law, and find a lawful reason to make this young man out to be a deceiver of the nation, and kill him officially that the wrath of God might pass over the nation.
In the past, they could not find an occasion to catch Jesus in the midst of his followers, and to arrest him during his miracles of healing, his sermons, and discussions, that they might not cause disturbance among the people, and that he might not then appear as a celebrity, or chosen prophet in the mind of the nation. Thus, the evil one guided them to kill Jesus at the time of the feast, they sent spies all over the region to arrest him before or after the feast. However, Jesus fixed the day of the annual religious celebration as the date of his imminent death.
PRAYER: O holy Lamb of God, we thank you because you took away the sins of the world. Have mercy on us. You are the faithful witness. You did not flee from Jerusalem, though you were aware of your enemies’ plot. You are the faithful Mediator. Sanctify us, that the wrath of God may pass over us, for we are no better than others. Your blood is our righteousness, purification, and sanctification. Amen.
QUESTION:
- What is the significance of the paschal lamb?