Read Mark 14 here: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+14&version=NIV
Blessed Good Friday! Bethlehem has a powerful service to share with you today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnkq7Rf8I9k&t=49s Watch it at night though and grab some coins, cloth to rip, and something to add to the strepitus. But then in Mark we’re in Maundy Thursday! Jesus is hanging out with a leper- I wonder if he healed him? And a woman anoints his head with perfume. It’s interesting that those places where Jesus is wounded are also the places that he is blessed. Later on Easter morning the spice girls come and embrace his nail scarred feet. I don’t have examples for his hands or sides, but it’s still an analogy I’m working with. I think God often blesses and uses those things we think of as weaknesses for His good.
Then we have the institution of the last supper for you! Much could be said here, but it’s interesting that it leads to a discussion about Judas betraying Jesus and that when they leave they sing a hymn. So it’s super appropriate that after communion and even during we sing. I often see people praying after communion but I feel like it’s as important if not more so to do it before and have a prayer of confession and after sing in thanksgiving of the redemption you’ve received from the very body and blood of Christ.
Jesus then points out that the disciples will all fall away- Peter denies this-something he does a lot that night. You can tell Jesus is starting to prepare for the inevitable. Then they go to pray at a place Jesus liked to pray. And the disciples literally fall away. They fall asleep. Jesus here asks them not to pray but keep watch as he knows Judas and the soldiers are coming and the disciples can’t even do that.
Then the arrest happens with the betrayal and Mark moves quickly through the mock trial. There are some unique details here I’ve never seen in a Good Friday depiction of Jesus. He’s punched, spat on and blindfolded. The man who has made the blind see with his own spit is now being spat on and blinded. He’s not only whipped but punched. Hours before Jesus hands washed his disciples feet and healed a man’s ear. Now hands hurt him. Earlier in the week he used a whip in the temple and now one is being used against him by the hands of those running the temple. The connections here are crazy!
And then we get to the denial by Peter. What a downer of an ending to this book- we’ve only got 2 chapters left. Fortunately it’s always darkest before the dawn. Though what Peter does is awful- imagine if Jesus hadn’t predicted it and told Peter about it. Would Peter have felt worse? Would he have kept doing it? I don’t know. But we know that Peter and Jesus have many conversations after this.
On Good Friday the Christ candle is never extinguished. It leaves the sanctuary, yet after a time it comes back. There’s hope on Good Friday, there’s hope for Peter, there’s hope for us!
Marking It Up 