Okie dokie. Well we are, it's funny I'm a dad so I say things like okie dokie.
It's the 13th Sunday of the year but we are in the 12th week of our series going
through the book of Mark and after today guys there's only two Sundays left
before Easter and Easter is kind of like a moving holiday it's all based on the
lunar calendar and things like that and so it changes exactly where it's at each
year but you know when when you are a pastor in a church you're always kind of
like going oh when is Easter you know like man it's coming up quick so the same
way that some people feel about the end of summer or when is Christmas coming
you know like for Christmas break or something like it's like okay Easter
where's it gonna land so it's only two more Sundays and we're gonna finish up
this series on Easter Sunday so we hope that you plan to be here on that that
day April 9th it's the same time as always as we celebrate the resurrection
of Jesus and so today as we just have a few weeks left in the book of Mark let's
go ahead and jump right into Mark chapter 14 and if you don't have a
physical Bible of your own you're welcome to take one from the bookshelf
out in the lobby or just download one from any of the digital app stores and
we have a tradition of just giving the scriptures our full attention when we
read them and so you can do that any number of ways one way you can remain
seated if you'd like or if you'd like you can stand with me as we read the
scriptures mark 14 starting in verse 12 it says this on the first day of the
festival of unleavened bread when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb
Jesus's disciples asked him where do you want us to go and make preparations for
you to eat Passover 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 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 he will show you a large room upstairs
furnished and ready make preparations for us there the disciples left went
into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them so they prepared the
Passover when evening came Jesus arrived with the 12 while they were
reclining at the table eating he said truly I tell you one of you will betray
me one who is eating with me they were saddened and one by one they said to him
surely you don't mean me it is one of the 12 he replied one who dips bread
into the bowl with me the son of man will go just as it is written about him
well to the man who betrays the son of man it would be better for him if he had
not been born while they were eating Jesus took bread and then he and when
he'd given thanks he broke it gave it to his disciples saying take it this is my
body then he took a cup and when he'd given thanks he gave it to them they all
drink from him this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many he
said to them let's pray God of every tribe every tongue every color every
nation we thank you for the Bible for the scriptures thank you that they have
persisted throughout the millennium we still have them to read and consider
today whatever you have for each of us individually and us as a congregation
to learn and pray that stick it would become a part of the framework of our
faith we would become more like your son amen amen you know have a seat okey-dokey
I so the first thing I want to point out is mark is doing what he always does
right I I continually try to draw us back to this idea that that he's he's an
author and he's giving us details you always have to ask like why is he giving
these specific details and he's giving us a detail that connects us back to the
bigger story what bigger story the story of the Israelite people right mark says
on the first day of the festival of unleavened bread when it was customary
to sacrifice the Passover lamb the disciples asked about the Passover meal
now the Passover meal and this festival they both point all the way back to the
Exodus all the way back to when God had Moses lead his people out of bondage we
find that in the book of Exodus and God had it brought nine plagues against
Israel's captors up to that point and the night of the tenth plague was the
night of the first Passover meal the lamb was sacrificed as a symbol that his
people would be saved from the angel of death that tenth plague and that they
would be freed from their slavery anyone that marked the doorway of their house
with the blood of the lamb would be saved and safe and then the bread that
they would eat at that meal even still when when people that are Jewish
practice a Seder meal practice the Passover they eat unleavened bread and
the bread was unleavened to make a point it was meant to symbolize that they had
to be ready to go they didn't have time to sit around and wait for dough to rise
it's like all right we get it put in there cook it let's eat it because at
any moment God would deliver them and they would be potentially on the run for
me just every year since then Israelite people would eat a meal that would
remind them of that first night still today this still happens and what we
read today Jesus has been lining things up seeing how things were leading to
this meal for a while so as mark is getting toward the end of the story here
right he's only got a couple chapters left remember he's been thinking about
this how am I gonna put this together as he's winding this story down he's
actually ramping the imagery up and the connection to their history so when mark
says on the first day of the festival 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 the reader the hearer
should already be expecting that something significant is going to happen
something that will give them a new layer understanding to the old story but
now before we circle back around to that last meal let's look at what leads up to
the meal because the second thing I want to point out is the way that the
disciples had learned to trust in Jesus the kind of faith that they had developed
what do I mean so Jesus says go into the city and a man carrying a jar of water
will meet you follow him say the owner of the house he enters the teacher ask
where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples it takes
a lot of trust to follow these kinds of instructions if I told you go over to
cool beans the owners and then ask if I can have coffee if I said go over to
Brewster's the owner is Jeff ask if I can have a burger see if I just see if he
has any wings he can bring over if I said go over to the bank at cows the
owners are Jose and Sarah I was just talking to Sarah this morning when I was
in there ask if I could have an omelet they know me I know them they know I'm
good for it but if I told you go downtown Rock Island and you're gonna
bump into a lady with a cane follow that lady where to where she lives and and if
you do what you do that happens you go downtown happens to be a lady with a
cane and she gets on the bus so you're like okay I'm gonna get on the bus and
then she gets off the bus and so you get off the bus the same stop and then you
follow her up to her house and just as she's putting the key in the door she
turns around and she maces you right in your face these disciples were willing
to follow Jesus in a way that felt foolish or even risky that might make
them feel like oh is this really going to happen but they were willing to do
this because of everything that Jesus had shown them why was this risky
because we're talking about Rock Island and I'm talking about places that I go
to all the time but Jerusalem at Passover would have been packed it's
hard for us to comprehend think about like when the World Series happens to
be in your favorite city or when the Olympics goes to a certain city or I'm
trying to think of just the biggest possible thing just think about Mercado
on fifth during the week and then think about Mercado on fifth on a Friday night
like this is Passover at the Passover Josephus a Jewish historian said that at
Passover that Jerusalem would swell to over 2 million inhabitants now Josephus
is known and known exaggerator so we don't know if he's actually telling the
truth but our best estimates are that during the Passover there was an extra
100 to as many as 900 extra thousand people over a million people all
together in Jerusalem so let's consider when Jesus says go in the city and a guy
carrying a water jug will meet you just how many guys could there have been in
the whole city of Jerusalem carrying a water jug only one I mean I I doubt it
and this isn't even the first time that Jesus has done something like this in
Mark 11 Jesus says this go into the village in front of you and immediately
as you enter you will find a cult on which no one has ever sat how he knew
that I don't know he's Jesus untie it and bring it to me if anyone says to you
why are you taking this just say the Lord has need of it and I'll bring it
back here immediately when he's done with it
Jesus says go follow a guy with a water jug go take someone's donkey today these
kinds of things would be called stealing and stalking I was thinking about today
like going like fight club style and just handing everyone an envelope of
something they had to do on the way out but Jesus had given his disciples a
thousand reasons to believe that it would be okay that it would work so they
were willing to look foolish or risk being foolish because they did they
found things just as Jesus had told them how often do we find things just as
Jesus had told us maybe not often enough and maybe it's because it's not that
often that we just do exactly what Jesus said this last week and community table
the focus was listening to the spirit and what we did was we asked everybody
in the group if they had a challenge that they were dealing with so that they
that we could all collectively listen to the Holy Spirit on their behalf and see
what God might be saying to that person and so someone shared the challenge we
all prayed we sat silently we prayed the Lord's Prayer and I gave the
instruction listen we're not looking for paragraphs we're not looking for advice
looking for Bible verses we're looking for a phrase that the Lord might be
saying and after we prayed one person have it had a Bible verse and one
person had a phrase that was an encouraging phrase and that person that
shared their challenge before they left said they felt encouraged and like they
had more peace they took the risk of sharing and we took the risk of
listening and saying out loud what we felt the spirit might be saying to us
and it was worth it because we found things just as the spirit had told us
Jesus knew there'd be a cult for him to ride if Jesus knew there would be a guy
with a water jug to follow if he knew there'd be a house with a guest room
where they'd eat their meal all of this should lead them and lead us to believe
Jesus knows things that we don't and it should lead us to believe whatever Jesus
says next so when he says truly I tell you that one of you will betray me one
who is eating with me there should be no surprise that he's right
now if you're Judas and you're sitting at the table maybe you're surprised but
here's the thing that isn't the most surprising thing that happens at that
table that I don't think it's the thing that we're supposed to focus on I think
it's what comes next because after he says that he knows who will betray him
then he passes the bread in the cup he gives the symbol of his bread in his
body to his betrayer when I was 18 I started working at this camp up in
Michigan and I probably told this story at some point we've been doing this for
nine and a half years so who knows it's a camp called Beach Point in Allegan
Michigan a little tiny town up there in the mitten and I only found out about it
because a friend of mine at Bible study named Patty Taylor had worked there
previous years and I was at a Bible study on Monday night at the very
beginning of summer and she said hey we're looking for more counselors for
camp and then I said oh tell me about it she told me about it and I was like oh
yeah and she said oh I could get you an interview on the phone right now and I
had an interview with with Mark David Heiser David Heiser is one word so we
just called him mr. D and mr. D had an interview with me on the phone that
night at Olin's house here in well the over here in Moline with someone in
Michigan and he said yeah yeah you sound great we'll hire you and so literally a
few days later I just I went to my mom's house my mom and dad the next day said
hey I got a job at a camp up in Michigan where what's that oh I have no idea but
we're gonna go and so I ended up working there that summer with Patty and a bunch
of others and then the next summer Patty wasn't there anymore and it's kind of a
new mix of counselors every year there's a good mix of people that have been
there but then there's new counselors and there's a new guy and a gal there
and the impression was very much that the girl was had long-time Christian that
the guy had just become a Christian and in a lot of ways it was kind of it felt
like one of those he was dating a Christian girl and so he became a
Christian because he was dating the Christian girl and they saw working at
the same camp as a way for them to spend the summer together and he and I it's not
like we didn't fight with each other we just butted heads a little bit and I
think that the camp counselor knew that kept putting us together to do things
and at one point he finally said you know what you know camp isn't for me like
this is like three weeks in so camp isn't really for me I'm gonna I'm gonna
go home and it was Saturday night and Patty had come to visit all the camp
counselors for the weekend just to see how things were going and we were gonna
go have like a movie night at someone's house I think it was summer's house on
Saturday night and I drove with Patty because Patty was the reason I even knew
about this camp in the first place and as we're driving she's like how's the
summer going and I'm telling her all about this guy that I can't stand and and
how I like I'm just like I literally the words came out of my mouth I can't wait
till he's gone and she said you know Craig
Jesus gave the bread and the wine to Judas too I was like Patty why you got
to say things like that because those kinds of realizations they force you to
ask how do I practice this how would I even participate in this how do I open
my heart to people that don't feel like they are for me that I can already feel
like I can tell that even though we're at the same table now that later tonight
they're gonna be handing me over to my enemies well we we participate with this
first by remembering that Jesus loves our enemies he says love your enemies
pray for those who persecute you if someone slaps you on the cheek turn your
other cheek to them also someone takes your outer garment offer them also your
undergarment if someone makes you walk a mile offer to walk another mile with
them if someone steals do not try to take it back Jesus loves our enemies real
or imagined question is will be will we love our enemies the way that Jesus does
Jesus gave Judas the bread and wine after he announced that he knew that he
would be betrayed Judas still betrayed him Judas still handed him over so Jesus
isn't saying that doing the right thing will make anyone else do the right thing
listen I I know like I've I am your pastor one of them and I know the truth
is that right now I've had conversations with people in this room about this
subject and as much as some of you feel like this is directed at you it is
directed at me right now because there's people in my life and I really don't
want to forgive and that I really do not want to give them space because I just
think they're gonna hurt because I have given them the bread and the wine plenty
of times and while Judas still betrayed Jesus and while Judas still fell away we
need to hear this that Judas isn't our example Jesus is Jesus is our example in
the blueprint discipleship that we have here there's a reason that forgiveness
is the last thing before we get to work because it's the most difficult thing
and it's not until we do all of the other things we start pulling away the
layers we start to abide in prayer we meditate on the scriptures we listen to
the spirit we begin to practice our faith then we get to a place where we go
well there's nothing left except to forgive we have been forgiven
pardon me as I blow my nose
so last thing I want to share is this the message of the Passover is still
true for us today but it does take on a new meaning because of Jesus any house
any heart that is marked by the blood of Jesus is saved just like the bread is
unleavened because you got to be ready to go there is no time like today to
receive the bread to receive the cup to maybe believe in Jesus in a way that you
haven't yet you may feel like you have been the enemy of God Jesus gives
himself to everyone at the table everyone at the table gets Jesus and it
may seem foolish it really may seem foolish to follow a guy downtown and
look for someone that has a cane and get on a bus and see if it leads you to
getting to serve Jesus but you just might find that things are just the way
he said they would be and I hope that today as I let the Holy Spirit work on
me to believe in him in new ways and to learn to forgive in new ways that I will
find things just the way he says they will be amen let's pray
Oh Jesus you gave all of yourself very literally every bit of your body every
drop of your blood you gave for us for the world to believe to believe that you
are the Son of God and to believe that you show us how to the life that you
reconcile us to God not pray that today that we would find you in the place that
you say you want to live inside the door of our heart in our lives as our one and
only forever I pray that even now that you would move our hearts about who to
forgive and how to forgive appropriately and in a healthy way that she would help
us to be foolish in the moments that we need so that as we come to your table we
understand what it is that we're doing amen