This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to day two of our look together through Mark chapter 14
and daily drive time devotions. We're going to look at verses 12 to 31 today.
And much of those verses happens in the upper room where Jesus and His disciples
meet.

Listen to what happens in verses 12 to 16. On the first day of the feast 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? " 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 upper room 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.

So here they are, Jesus and His disciples celebrating the Passover. In history
you remember the celebration of the Passover was a celebration of the fact that
the death angel passed over the houses of the Israelites as they were facing the
exodus from Egypt and the slavery that they had suffered there for so many
years. They would put blood on the doorpost of their house.

They did do this and because of that the death angel passed over their houses
and saved the children in those houses. What was this Passover celebration like
in Jesus' day in Jerusalem? Well this city, Jerusalem, which usually had about
25,000 people in it in that day, would swell sometimes to 3 million people in it
because it was compulsory for every adult Jew within 15 miles to come to
Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.

And it was every Jewish man's, every Jewish woman's dream to at least once in
their life come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. The lodging was free
during the celebration of the Passover so everybody could come. And they would
come and they would all eat together this Passover meal.

At the center of this meal was a lamb, a lamb for the meal sacrificed. This lamb
would have been sacrificed at the Jewish temple. One by one they were
sacrificed.

History tells us that the number of lambs sacrificed for the Passover in
Jerusalem reached as high as 256,500 lambs sacrificed. Some say that the blood
from those lambs ran in a stream out of Jerusalem and that Jesus would have had
to step over this stream of sacrificed blood as he walked into Jerusalem as the
lamb of God, the one who was going to sacrifice himself for us. This is an
amazing place.

This is an amazing moment in this upper room the night before Jesus died. There
is so much truth. There is so much personal drama.

There's so much life. There's so much death. There's so much hope in that room.

But even before looking at what happened in that room, I think of the man who
supplied this room. The Bible tells us that the disciples came and they were
taken to a room that was furnished and ready for the disciples for that night to
celebrate the Passover with Jesus. I'm thankful for this ministry that this man
had to the Church, the broader Church of Jesus Christ.

Now obviously this Passover celebration of Jesus and the disciples could have
happened somewhere else, but it did happen in this room because this man was
faithful. He was faithful to give and he was faithful to serve. His name isn't
mentioned, although there is a clue as to whose house this might have been.

We'll talk about that later this week. The name is not mentioned here. He didn't
do it to get his name mentioned.

He did it to serve Jesus Christ. And because he served Jesus Christ, listen to
what happened in that room, verses 17 to 31. "When evening came, Jesus arrived
with the twelve.

While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, 'I tell you the truth,
one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me. ' They were saddened, and
one by one they said to him, 'Surely not I. It is one of the twelve,' he
replied, 'one who dips bread into the bowl with me.

The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him, but woe to that 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, gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it
to his disciples, saying, 'Take it.

This is my body. ' Then he took the cup, gave thanks, and offered it to them,
and they all drank from it. 'This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured
out for many,' he said to them.

'I tell you the truth, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the
day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God. ' When they had sung a hymn,
they went out to the Mount of Olives. 'You will all fall away,' Jesus told them,
'for it is written, 'I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered,
but after I have risen I will go ahead of you into Galilee.

' Peter declared, 'Even if all fall away, I will not. ' 'I tell you the truth,'
Jesus answered, 'today, yes, tonight, before the rooster crows twice, you
yourself will disown me three times. ' But Peter insisted emphatically, 'Even if
I have to die with you, I will never disown you.

' And all the others said the same. Here we have Jesus once again as the
shepherd of men and the Lamb of God. He is the shepherd of men.

He is the shepherd pointing out the wolf and he is the shepherd warning the
sheep. He points out the wolf. He says, 'One of you is going to betray me.

' Now he is telling this to Judas who was there in that moment, not to accuse
Judas, but to give Judas a final chance. He knew what Judas would choose, but he
still gave Judas a final choice. Aren't you glad Jesus never gives up on us?

Even knowing Judas would choose to do the wrong thing, he keeps giving him a
chance to choose to do the right thing. He points out the wolf, 'One of you will
betray me. ' And he also warns his sheep.

He says, 'The sheep are going to be scattered. ' This is a word of warning, but
it's also a word of hope. In the warning he says, 'The sheep are going to be
scattered.

' But in the hope he says, 'But by the way, after I've risen, I'm going to meet
you in Galilee. ' Now Peter never heard the second part. He never heard the hope
part.

He was so intent on proving Jesus wrong in the first part, 'We're not going to
scatter. It would never happen to me. ' It's difficult sometimes to have Jesus
know us so well.

But because he does, we'd better listen. He gives us the warnings we need and he
gives us the hope that we need. And I don't think there's one of us who can't
see ourselves in Peter.

I certainly can. I want so desperately to make great and strong statements of
commitment and to live those out entirely and faithfully. And yet, just all too
often, my selfishness finds me doing what I want to do instead of what God
wants.

I can make the statements more strongly, like Peter was doing here, hoping that
somehow those are going to overcome my selfishness, but that doesn't work. I
need God's Spirit for that. I need God to do a miracle in my life.

And Peter's going to discover that in later times with meetings with Jesus
Christ. Jesus is the shepherd of men in these verses, and he's also the Lamb of
God. They're eating this Passover meal, and they're eating this Passover lamb,
which recognizes a lamb that was slain during the Exodus, thousands of years
before this, and blood that was put on the doorposts so that the death angel
would see that blood and pass over that house and save the lives of all that are
in it.

And here is Jesus, as later in the New Testament we're told, he is now our
Passover lamb. He is the one who has given his life for us as a lamb. And the
depth of meaning of what Jesus was experiencing with these disciples in that
moment, he understood it, but no one else did.

He wanted them to understand it. He wanted you and I to understand it, and so he
began something in this moment with the disciples that he tells us to still
celebrate today, the Lord's Supper. But remember, this Lord's Supper came during
the celebration of the Passover meal.

That's very important to know, because during this Passover meal, it was various
well-ordered steps that you did every time the same way. You would eat
unleavened bread in every Passover meal as a reminder of the bread that they'd
taken out of Egypt. You would tell the story of deliverance in every Passover
meal after the youngest child asked, "Why is this night different from all other
nights?

" You would pray the great prayers of blessing in every Passover meal, Baruch
HaTai Adonai. You would pray these prayers of blessing, blessed be their God
Almighty. You would eat the Passover meal together.

You'd have to eat all of the lamb. These disciples that are celebrating with
Jesus this night, they had done this since they were children. It's like your
Christmas meal that you celebrate with your family.

They've done it year after year after year, but in the midst of this meal, Jesus
takes the elements of this meal and he gives new meaning to them. He says, "You
see this bread, this bread that recognizes that we were delivered out of Egypt?
I want to show you the new meaning that's in this bread.

This bread, it's my body given for you. It's a symbol of the fact that I'm going
to die on the cross for you, and that is where your deliverance is going to come
from. " And then he says, "Do you see this cup?

In the Passover meal, four cups of wine would be drunk during the meal, and each
of them recognized a promise from God in the book of Exodus of God's deliverance
for his people. You would drink the cup of sanctification, the cup of plagues,
the cup of redemption would be the third cup. " Most people believe, and I
believe also, that it was this cup of redemption that Jesus stood before his
disciples and said, "I want to give new meaning to this.

" It was at this point in the meal where he said, "I want you to understand that
this represents not just something that happened thousands of years ago in
Egypt. This represents something I'm going to do for you. It represents my body
given for you, and this cup represents my blood that's going to be poured out
for you.

" The Lord's Supper. Jesus institutes a new meaning to the Passover meal. He
says, "This declaration of deliverance is expanded to everybody.

The bread, which is a symbol of the sanctification in the meal of the Jewish
deliverance from Egypt, the bread is a symbol of my body given for you. And the
blood, which from Exodus 6, 6, and 7 is a symbol of God's promise, is a symbol
of my blood poured out for you so that you can enjoy this promise in your life.
" That is what Jesus wants us to understand from what happened in this meal, who
he is, and what he does for us.

That is what he wants us to not forget when we see him hanging on the cross in
just a few verses. Let's pray that right now. Jesus Christ, thank you for
showing us.

Thank you for showing us in advance that your death was not in vain. You gave
yourself on the cross so that we could be redeemed, set free, forgiven. You gave
yourself on the cross so that we could have new life.

As we're praying right now, as we've studied through this book of Mark, if you
have not yet accepted the forgiveness of Jesus Christ, do it right now. Say
Jesus Christ, thank you for what you've done for me. I accept your forgiveness.

I want to live the new life that you've given to me. Thank you for the miracle
of your love for me. In your name, amen.

Join us tomorrow. We're going to talk about what happened in the garden.