Jesus and Sinners

Please turn to Mark chapter 14 this morning. As you are turning there, one of the things I have noticed—and I have personally experienced this myself—is that there’s a lot in Scripture that can lead me to sometimes wonder or speculate, “What if things had been different?” One of those situations came up just two weeks ago when I was at summer camp in our cabin. Some of the boys in my cabin started to have a discussion among themselves, and I think this is maybe a classic one: What if Adam and Eve hadn’t eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? What if they hadn’t eaten the forbidden fruit? What would have happened? What would be going on right now? They had all sorts of crazy ideas about what would happen. We won’t go into that, but one of the things is, if we’re being honest, if we go down that rabbit hole—what would have happened if Adam and Eve hadn’t eaten the fruit?—the best we could hope for is that they, or the next in line, would have been able to hold out for just a little bit longer before giving in. What our own sinfulness demonstrates is that even if we could go back and trade places with Adam and Eve, we would have fallen into the exact same scheme. We too would have eaten the fruit. Because what you see in Scripture, time and time again—literally a tale as old as time—is that even the people who are the closest to God still need His grace and mercy, still need His forgiveness. Because the closer you get to God, the more it becomes painfully obvious that you too are a sinner, just like everyone else. The reality of what Jeremiah describes in Jeremiah 17, that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked—who can understand it?—is true. It plays out again and again and again. One of the things that is so obvious about this is that we can’t even live up to our own moral standards. Every one of us has a moral compass, a system of right and wrong. And yet, if you’re being honest with yourself, you’re not even living according to your own standard of what is right and wrong, let alone God’s standard. You can look through the pages of Scripture at the heroes of the faith, right? Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord when everyone else around him deserved judgment. God was gracious to him because he was a righteous man, a blameless man, and yet he too fell into sin and wickedness. Abraham, time and time again, seemingly in the same situation, couldn’t resist lying about who Sarah was and other situations. David, a man after God’s own heart—sinner, sinner, sinner, sinner, sinner. Even Jesus’ own disciples, as we’re going to look at this morning. That’s why I love what Paul tells Timothy in his first letter to him in 1 Timothy 1:15. Paul says, “This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.” You just believe this whole thing, accept this whole thing: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. And then Paul adds this parenthetical statement: of whom I am the foremost. I’m the chief of sinners. I’m confessing to you as one who acknowledges my own sinfulness, my own inability to live according to God’s righteous standard. He expresses his frustrations in the book of Romans. Jesus did not live, suffer, die, and rise from the dead to save really good people. He came, Paul says, to save sinners. Amen. Why do I lay this all out before you? Both the speculation about what would happen if Adam and Eve never ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and our own sinful condition? The beautiful picture that we’re going to see this morning in Mark chapter 14 is that even after spending 33 years living, walking, and experiencing life among sinners, Jesus is still intent on dying to save them. He doesn’t say, “You guys are crummy. You’re losers. I hate you. I can’t believe you live this way. I’m out of here.” He does not say that. And this is good news. This should be good news to every one of you here. This should be good news if you are convinced that you have sinned so greatly that God in no way could forgive you. This is good news to hear that Jesus Christ lived and walked among us and yet was still intent on dying to save us from our sins. It should be a relief; a burden should be lifted off you if you are convinced you are so bad that even God would not be willing to forgive you of your sins, because the life of Jesus Christ tells us otherwise. This should be good news to you also if you are certain that you don’t need saving because you are good enough to stand before God, and He would say, “You know what? You haven’t done anything wrong. You’re perfect. You’re beautiful. Come on in.” Turn to Mark chapter 14, verse 12. We’re going to look at verses 12–25 this morning. And I love that we got to celebrate communion this morning because that’s one of the things we’re looking at here: the Last Supper.

“And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, ‘Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?’ And he sent two of his disciples and said to them, ‘Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, “The Teacher says, ‘Where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’” And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there, prepare for us.’ And the disciples set out and went to the city and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover. And when it was evening, he came with the twelve. And as they were reclining at the table and eating, Jesus said, ‘Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.’ And they began to be sorrowful and to say to him one after another, ‘Is it I?’ He said to them, ‘It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me. For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.’ And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it, broke it and gave it to them and said, ‘Take; this is my body.’ And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.’”

So, we see in this whole episode the intentionality of Jesus, that He is going to suffer and die to atone for the sins of people like you and me. He has not lived His life and been harassed and ridiculed by the religious leaders and those who were opposed to Him. He has not experienced all the sinfulness and the decay of the world around Him and said, “You know what? I’m heading back to my Father in heaven. I’m done with this place.” He is intent on going to the cross to suffer and die for the sins of the people. And that intentionality we see in this episode before us. In the first couple of verses here, 12 through 16, we see Jesus as the event coordinator. He’s pulling it all together, making it all happen as it needs to. The Passover is in view. The Passover meal had to be eaten in Jerusalem. It was the start of what was known as the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And as Mike pointed out in communion, both the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread are connected to God’s deliverance of the people of Israel from captivity in Egypt under the leadership of Moses. The Passover celebrates that tenth plague when the angel of death was going to pass through Egypt. And in order to be spared the death of the firstborn of each household, they had to kill an unblemished lamb and take its blood and paint that blood around the doorpost of the house. And if they did that, the promise of God was that if that house was covered by this blood, the angel of death would pass over them. The instructions concerning this, both the act itself and then the perpetual celebration of this, we find in Exodus 12. And this Feast of Unleavened Bread is connected to Israel’s preparation for deliverance. As Mike pointed out, because they were to be ready to go, they weren’t even to allow their bread to rise, couldn’t even have yeast in the house. Eating this unleavened bread would indicate that they were ready for their deliverance. They had to eat the meals with their bags packed, their shoes on, and their cloaks on, ready to travel at a moment’s notice.

So, in this situation where they’re going to celebrate the Passover, because it had to be celebrated in Jerusalem, the city of Jerusalem was literally swollen with people. People from all over would come to Jerusalem to celebrate this Passover meal. And so, if you were going to have a place to do this, preparations had to be made. There was no Kayak or Orbitz, these last-minute discount travel websites where you could go and look for rooms that hadn’t been sold or last-minute tickets that people hadn’t bought so you could get them at a discount. There wasn’t anything like that. You had to make the preparations in advance if you were going to have accommodations for this. And what we see is that this is what Jesus has done. Whether He has supernaturally caused this intervention to take place so that His disciples would meet just the right person who had just the right accommodations and would navigate them to this upper room, or Jesus had made the preparations ahead of time, is really irrelevant. The point is that He is ensuring that He and His disciples are going to be able to take this Passover meal. And in fact, the key to all of this we find in verse 16. If you have a Bible, I would encourage you to even underline this. In the very back half of the verse, there’s this statement: “they found it just as he had told them.” This is the key for this Passover meal. It represents really the totality of what’s going on in this Passion Week—both the events leading up to, during, and after the crucifixion. I would encourage you to just write this down: it shows us that Jesus is in control. He is in control. This is unfolding before them not as coincidence, not just, “Boy, isn’t this great luck that this is just turning out this way,” but this is happening exactly as Jesus intended it to happen. This is the intentionality that we see. He is intending to be crucified for sinners.

When we question or doubt whether God is in control, we are usually stating that things aren’t working out the way we think they should, are we not? Isn’t that what we’re questioning when we question whether God’s in control? “This isn’t going the way I think it should. Therefore, God must not be doing what He should be doing. He must not be in control because if He was, life would be going exactly as I planned it.” In fact, I really think I should be in control. Certainly, everything would work out the way I want if God knew what He was doing. A lot of people have Romans 8:28 as their life verse: “And we know that for those who love God, all things work out exactly as we want them to.” Right? That’s what that verse says, doesn’t it? No, it doesn’t say that. That’s what we want it to mean. We wish it meant that. “And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good.” Not necessarily our definition of good—God’s definition of good, what God intends for our good and His glory. That’s how things work out because God is the one in control.

When we were at the youth summer camp, the focus of camp in our chapels was the life of Joseph. And if you know anything about Joseph in the book of Genesis, the summary of all that occurred in his life is Genesis 50:20, when he tells his brothers, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” Joseph would certainly not have said, during all those episodes in his life, “This is working out exactly how I want it to, exactly how I planned it for my life.” And yet he is confident to declare to his brothers that it happened exactly as God wanted it to, to accomplish His plan—not even Joseph’s plan, but God’s plan. And that is that He would be able to bring about the deliverance of people, the deliverance of Jacob and his sons into the land of Egypt to preserve and protect them, but also to provide food for millions of people throughout a huge famine.

So when we’re here in Mark chapter 14, and we have our eyes in anticipation, focused on the horizon—if you know anything about the Bible, you know the cross is getting nearer and nearer and nearer. The cross, the apex of human history, is getting closer and closer. So we’re anticipating that event. But we need not lose sight of the fact that in all of this, Jesus is in complete control. He’s not just simply the victim of circumstances. The cross isn’t just something that happened to Him if He had had a little bit more control, if He was able to be a little bit more the determiner of His circumstances. No, the cross is exactly what He intended to happen. This is an intentional week in the life of Jesus, not just something that is forced on Him. Jesus is very much, as we see here, the event coordinator, causing this Passover meal to take place in exactly the place and exactly the way that Jesus wants it to happen.

We also see Jesus as the betrayed. We looked a little bit last week at Judas and the tragic reality that it does seem like the only thing that motivated him to betray Jesus to these religious leaders was the fact that it seemed like an easy way for him to make a few bucks. Verse 17 fast-forwards to the Passover meal itself. As they are there in the upper room, they are eating this meal, reclining at the table, and Jesus makes this revelation to these twelve disciples. We don’t know who else was in there, if there was anyone else in the upper room, but we know at least there were the twelve disciples with Him, His closest earthly companions, the twelve individuals He spent the most time with, who He took with Him on His journeys throughout Galilee and to and from Jerusalem, the men that He called to follow Him. These are the ones who heard Him teach things that aren’t even recorded in Scripture, experienced Him praying to the Father in ways that no one else had the privilege to hear that kind of spiritual conversation taking place. He’s in this intimate setting. This is not the setting that would have been shared with just casual acquaintances. And the revelation that He makes to them had to be absolutely devastating: “One of you is going to betray me.” We already know who it is because Mark has already let us in on the secret. But they didn’t know. I don’t think their response is what I would expect. If you look at how they respond, verse 19, Mark says they began to be sorrowful. And let me assure you that even if you knew Greek, it means the same thing. It means to be sad. It means to be distressed. It means to be grieved. They’re not irate. They’re not indignant. They don’t demand to know, “Who is it, who’s going to do it, Jesus? We’re going to take him outside and show him what he’s done, teach him a lesson.” No, they’re sorrowful. And the question is, maybe almost fearfully, “Is it I? Am I going to be the one to do this?” The response is not disbelief. It’s sadness. It’s not indignation. It’s brokenheartedness. Maybe they understand their own hearts. Maybe they knew that as much as Jesus means to them, it was possible. There were circumstances under which they could be forced to capitulate. Maybe they all doubted it would be them, but they were sad that it would be someone else so close to the Lord. And Jesus makes this even more tragic by emphasizing, “It’s going to be one of you twelve, one of you who’s dipping bread with me, one of you who’s sharing this meal with me. We’re sharing the same food together.” Think of a Thanksgiving meal. Who do you have over for Thanksgiving? Probably not just random strangers off the street. It’s probably typically friends and close family. Maybe you invite somebody who doesn’t have family in the area, but even then, it’s typically not a stranger—somebody you know, somebody you care about, somebody you are friends with. It’s that type of setting. Jesus is not going to be betrayed by a casual acquaintance, some random person off the street who happens to know a little bit about Him. He’s going to be betrayed by a close personal friend, somebody He is intimately invested in their life. And even after being revealed in this intimate setting, Judas is still able to maintain the facade. He’s got his poker face on. He doesn’t give up what’s in his hands.

This is why imagining what it would be like if Adam and Eve didn’t eat the fruit is a waste of time. Because in our natural state, it is not possible to get so close to God that we would not betray or disobey Him. Jesus Christ is God—God in the flesh, the dual nature. That’s one of the things that enables Him to be our substitute. Let’s not forget that Judas is not even the only one at the table who is going to betray Him. He betrays Him in the most heinous and callous way. The others may not make a deal to have Him killed, but Peter is going to deny even knowing Him in just a few hours. And all the rest of them are going to run and hide, except possibly John. It’s hard to say if he did or not. He definitely is back at the cross when He’s crucified. But this isn’t just historical facts piled up for us in these Gospels to help us have a better understanding of what happened when Jesus was crucified. This information is here to help us understand and have some clear implications for our lives today. If you remember in Mark chapter 13, as we waded through the promises that things are going to get worse and worse, harder and harder before Christ’s second coming, what that means is that you and I and our fellow believers around the world are going to increasingly have opportunities to stand up for Jesus and be bold for Him as there is greater and greater pressure to do the exact opposite. It means that the temptation to run and hide, just like these twelve men did in just a few hours after this meal, is going to get stronger and stronger against us. The pressure is going to be greater and greater, which means the opportunity for witness, testimony, and glorifying God is going to increase as well. As we look at these individuals who had this intimate connection with Jesus Christ, and we know that one of them betrays Him in the most heinous way, and all of them in some way are going to abandon Him and desert Him when the pressure is the greatest, it makes the last portion of this section all the more beautiful as Jesus presents Himself as the meal.

Much has been made about the statements “This is my body” and “This is my blood.” Transubstantiation is the big word for the central doctrine or dogma of Roman Catholic theology: that in the Mass, when the priest blesses the host—that is, the bread and the wine—it is transformed into the literal body and blood of Christ. That’s one of the great divides between Roman Catholic theology and Protestant theology, though not exclusively. What happens in communion? Let me give you what I believe is, from just this passage, the simplest and maybe even the most compelling argument against that. If, in the upper room, as Mark is relaying to us that Passover night, that bread was literally the body of Jesus Christ and the wine was literally the blood of Jesus Christ, the blood of the new covenant poured out for many, then the cross was unnecessary. If that’s what Jesus is saying—“This is my body. This is the blood of the new covenant poured out for many”—then atonement was done in the upper room. And even Roman Catholic theology acknowledges the need for the death of Christ on the cross. It is on the cross that His body is broken and His blood shed for the atonement for sinners. We agree on that. It is at the cross, not the upper room, where Christ’s blood is poured out for many, and the new covenant is ratified. So, if it was not the literal body and blood of Christ that night in the upper room, then it certainly isn’t the body and blood of Christ whenever Christians partake of communion. One of the commentators I’ve quoted regularly as we’ve gone through the Gospel of Mark is James Edwards. He says this to sum up what I’ve been saying: “The phrase ‘poured out for many,’ although it is symbolized in the pouring of the wine, becomes reality not in the wine of the upper room, but in Jesus’ death on the cross.”

So, don’t forget what the Passover meal was commemorating. Going back to what Mike said as we partook of communion, as we mentioned at the beginning of this passage: deliverance from death and captivity through a blood covering. In it, we have illustrated and anticipated what sinners needed to be delivered from: their captivity to sin and death. When we talk about the old covenant, we are most explicitly talking about the covenant that God made with Moses on Mount Sinai through a cycle of sacrifice for sin that continued to illustrate and anticipate what we need. And so now, Jesus takes these symbols, takes the original meaning of these Passover meals, and applies it to Himself in anticipation of His imminent death. The cup is going to remind them and point them to this blood covering. It’s an illustrative tool to show the significance of the shed blood of Christ that would be poured out to cover sins. And the new covenant would now be ratified through the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ: one sinless man’s death to atone for the sins of many.

Turn over to Romans chapter 5. Paul really gets into this succinctly in Romans chapter 5. If you look at verse 18 and following: “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners”—and he’s talking about Adam, he is this one man—“so by the one man’s obedience”—that is Jesus Christ—“the many will be made righteous.” So, if Adam hadn’t eaten the fruit, the next person in line would have, and we would be in the same situation we’re in right now. It wouldn’t have changed a single thing. But history shows he would have eaten the fruit because he did. If Jesus hadn’t gone to the cross, if He had not been intent to suffer and die, to take on Himself the sins of the world, to shed His blood to make atonement for our sins, if He hadn’t done that, no one else could take His place. No one else would have done it. No one else could have done it. He was the only one who could die to save sinners. And this is exactly what He does. And in this Last Supper, in this Passover meal, He makes it explicitly clear that He is fully intent on doing this. This is going to happen. He’s going to make it happen. He is going to shed His blood to atone for the sins of the world. And He does this. He dies and offers it to people He knows are going to abandon Him. That’s one of the other things I love about this: He says, “Take this, all of you. All of you eat this bread. All of you drink this cup. All of you know this. Know this when you run and hide after the Garden of Gethsemane. Know this after you realize, Peter, that you’re brokenhearted because you’ve denied me. Know that my blood is poured out for your sins.” Remember what Paul says in 1 Timothy? “This is a saying that is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: Jesus Christ came into this world not to save really good people, but to save sinners,” even the ones that are dipping their bread with Him at this meal. He loves them and is going to die for them. Amen.

Sin is not the end of our salvation because our salvation is not dependent on our performance or our perfection. Those things are not the reason Jesus came to die. Those are not the reasons that, if we stand before God, He’s going to say, “You know what, come on in.” That doesn’t mean that our sins are to be ignored, brushed aside, or diminished. He still talks about literal betrayal. There is literal abandonment that takes place. Peter literally denies even knowing Him. And there’s good reason why he is guilt-ridden about that. And that has to be confessed to Christ later on after Jesus’ resurrection. There should be a godly sorrow that leads us to repentance when we think about that. But we should never for a moment think that we are one day going to be declared righteous by God because we worked really hard to be good people. We should always look to the cross. We should cherish opportunities to remember what Christ has done for us because without Him we would be lost. There is no other substitute. There is no other option. He is the only one. All the eggs are in that basket. If He didn’t do it, no one else could, and no one else would. So, we should praise God that He was willing to do that for us.

So, I would just leave you with these questions for reflection. If you ever doubt God’s in control because things aren’t working out the way you think they should, just consider Passion Week. It would never have happened without Jesus’ control over the events of His life and the circumstances surrounding His death that week. He was intent to suffer and die for sinners. Have you ever been convinced that being good is the secret to salvation? Well, just consider the fact that Jesus Christ offered His life to save sinners, even His closest friends who deserted Him at the first sign of danger. He wouldn’t have done that if we could have earned it on our own. It would have been completely pointless.

Let’s pray. Dear Lord, we thank You so much for Your Son, Jesus Christ. We thank You for His sacrifice for our sins. We thank You for how You have so carefully offered to us in this Gospel recorded by Mark a clear demonstration of just how intent Jesus was to accomplish atonement for sinners. We thank You for how we see His intention in simple details like preparing for the Passover meal. We thank You for how we see His intention in the willingness to sit and dine with a betrayer who had sold Him into the hands of those who would kill Him, and even to sit around with the other men He cared so deeply for, but He knew, too, would turn their backs on Him and run and hide in order to save their own skins when things were going to get very difficult. And then to demonstrate to them in a most tangible way, through the breaking of bread and the pouring of wine, the reality of what He was going to do for them to atone for their sins. We thank You for His unwavering resolve, not just to be obedient to You, not just to glorify You, the Father, but to accomplish a very real atonement for sins through His death and resurrection. Thank You that we don’t have to earn it for ourselves. Thank You for reminding us that even though we can’t earn it for ourselves, salvation is available to all who believe, that all that is expected is to trust in what Christ has done. We thank You for that. We ask that it would be like a beacon of hope that leads us through our lives in all the circumstances that we experience. We ask all this in Your name. Amen.