Mark 14:26-31
Mark 14:26–31 (ESV):
26 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Last week we noted that it was customary to close a Passover meal by singing Psalms 116-118, and so the final hymn on Jesus’ lips would have been Psalm 118.
Which, when you consider the Messianic implications of that Psalm, is pretty amazing.
22 The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
Bind the festal sacrifice with cords, up to the horns of the altar!
14 The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.
17 I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the LORD.
And even the simple refrain: “His steadfast love endures forever”.
Romans 5:8 reminds us that it is through the cross that God demonstrates His great love for His people.
This is the most significant redemptive act of all time, and the greatest display of God’s love, happening exactly according to God’s predetermined plan.
And yet, that doesn’t take away the agony of it all.
We tend to focus on the agony of the crucifixion itself. And make no mistake, it was the most horrific, torturous physical pain any human has ever endured. In fact, our modern English word “excruciating” is derived from Roman 'crucifixion’. This is the very definition of agony.
Add to that the fact that Jesus endured not only the physical pain but also the spiritual and emotional agony of absorbing the wrath of God the Father poured out against our sins…
But there is another kind of agony we sometimes overlook, and that is the agony of betrayal and abandonment by those closest to Him.
If you’ve ever had friends betray you… or those who are close turn against you… you may be able to relate on some level to what Jesus endured. And… Jesus can relate to YOU.
What do we do when friends fail us?
What do we do when we fail our friends?
What do we do when we fail Jesus?
The answer to all of these questions is simply this: we trust in the faithfulness of Christ.
In the following verses, we see that when friends fail, Jesus is still faithful. And how that simple truth has the power to set us free when it comes to our own failures and those of our friends.
27 And Jesus said to them,
The disciples. His friends.
In John 15:15 Jesus calls His disciples friends.
If YOU are a follower of Jesus, you are more than His servant, you are His friend.
This is what Jesus said to His friends…
“You will all fall away, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’
So Jesus is looking His friends in the eyes and telling them… promising them… that they would fail Him.
That word that is translated by the phrase “fall away” is skandalizein. It’s not an active rebellion (like Judas), but rather a passive failure to stay true to the task at hand.
And He enforces this statement with a scripture reference from Zechariah… The original passage He’s quoting from goes like this:
Zechariah 13:7 (ESV): 7 “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me,” declares the LORD of hosts. “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; I will turn my hand against the little ones.
In other words, this is a matter of prophecy.
This is simply what’s going to happen.
God has ordained that the Shepherd (Jesus) would be struck (crushed for our iniquities, as Isaiah the prophet puts it), and He knows that when that happens, the sheep (that is, His disciples) would scatter.
Your friends will fail you too. It’s not a matter of if, but when. And, you will one day be that failing friend to someone else.
This is the human condition. This is a symptom of total depravity; the fact that sinful tendencies have corrupted our God-given design.
But in verse 28, there is bright shining hope… By taking to heart what we are about to see, we can actually leverage our failed friendships as a way of remembering Jesus’ faithfulness.
28 But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”
It may not sound like it at first, but there is so much HOPE in that statement.
Let’s take this phrase in two parts.
First, look at the phrase “But after I am raised up”.
When Jesus says this, He is making it clear that His resurrection is an absolute certainty.
He doesn’t say, “If I’m raised up…” He says, “after I AM raised up…”
There was no question whether Jesus would be raised from the dead.
This too was written in scripture: “you will not let your holy one see decay”, Psalm 16:10.
We know that Psalm is Messianic because Paul quotes this in Acts 13:35 and applies it to the resurrection.
What this means is that God’s sovereign plans that govern the universe are not contingent on human faithfulness.
Romans 3:3-4a says, “What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar…”
In other words, even if every human ever were completely unfaithful, God would still be faithful. His perfect plans would still prevail.
Hebrews 1 tells us Jesus upholds the universe by the word of His power… not by the faithfulness of His people.
Last week we talked about how this new covenant that we are under, which Jesus inaugurated by His blood, is a unilateral covenant, meaning God Himself fulfills all the terms for maintaining it.
Think of the impact this has on our friendships…
When friends fail us, we can look to our Savior who, though His friends all failed Him, was and still is completely faithful.
When people burn us… let us down… we can remind ourselves that we have a Savior who understands our feelings.
The Bible says Jesus is sympathetic to all of our weaknesses.
We can look to Jesus as our example, and find inspiration to forgive those who betray us, because that’s what Jesus has done for US.
Ephesians 4:32 (ESV): 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
When friends fail us, how do we move past it and forgive? By remembering what Christ has done for us. By remembering that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8).
What about when WE fail our friends?
The knowledge that Jesus is faithful should humble us and comfort us. We repent because we know that “if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 Jn. 1:9)
What about when WE fail CHRIST?
He died and rose for exactly that purpose.
He became sin who knew no sin so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Jesus’ faithfulness in the midst of our unfaithfulness is the only hope we have of standing before God blameless and entering into eternal glory.
So… Jesus’ reassurance that He would finish His mission and be raised from the dead even after His friends deserted Him empowers us to trust Him in the midst of our own failures, and to forgive others when they fail us.
But that’s not all….
Then He says, ‘I will go before YOU to Galilee’.
Again, that doesn’t sound like a groundbreaking statement… but think about the implications…
This implies that they would eventually be reunited with Him in Galilee after His resurrection.
Which implies total restoration of friendship. He’s saying, “you’re going to blow it… I’m going to finish my mission… and at the end of it all, we’re going to be back together.”
Galilee was the place it all started for them. That’s where He called His first disciples.
Remember that moment all the way back in Mark chapter 1? Jesus found Simon and Andrew by the Sea of Galilee and said, “follow me, and I’ll make you become fishers of men”.
Isn’t it crazy to think, through all of it, Jesus knew they’d abandon Him. And yet, He was able to see to the other side of it all and knew that one day they’d be perfectly united with Him.
What a beautiful pattern of reconciliation for us to follow.
Do Christians give up on friendships just because people fail us? No. Why? Because that’s not what Jesus does.
Jesus sees past our failures into the beauty of restored friendship.
For the joy set before Him He endured the cross. (Heb. 12:2)
What was the joy He was fixated on? Our restoration. Jesus endured the greatest possible pain and betrayal in order to bring us to a fully restored relationship with Himself.
29 Peter said to him, “Even though they all fall away, I will not.”
Notice how he elevates himself above the rest. “They may fall away… not me”.
30 And Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.”
There is a warning for Christians in 1 Corinthians 10:12…
1 Corinthians 10:12 (ESV): 12 Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.
We have to be humble enough to recognize our own propensity toward failure. That under the right circumstances, with the right pressures and temptations, we can fail big.
Jesus said, ‘not only will you deny me, Peter. You’ll deny me today, and you’ll deny me emphatically. Three times over.’
Peter wouldn’t believe it.
31 But he said emphatically, “If I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And they all said the same.
It’s bold and frankly foolish to openly defy Jesus’ words.
This has become a pattern for the disciples.
Mark 8:31–32 (ESV): 31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
Mark 9:31–34 (ESV): 31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” 32 But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him. 33 And they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?” 34 But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest.
Again, in Mark 10:33-37, Jesus predicts His death again, and again they argue about who would be the greatest.
How many times have we opened our Bibles and sat in quiet judgment towards the Israelites as they stray from God over and over… or scoffed at the disciples as they say dumb stuff… we think to ourselves, “there’s no way I’d do that”.
To which I’d gently remind us… yes we would. And yes we have.
Romans 3:23 All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Romans 3:10 “No one is righteous, no not one.”
Isaiah 53:6 (ESV): 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way;
But here’s the good news…
and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
The good news is that Jesus came to save those who fail Him.
That’s precisely why He came.
We needed a substitute. We needed a representative. Someone to stand in our place and achieve our righteousness for us.
In our Sunday night Roots course we talked about the glorious doctrine of imputation.
Our first representative, Adam, fell short. His sin was imputed or counted to us.
But then, when Jesus hung on that cross, our sin was imputed to Jesus. He took our sin upon Himself and shouldered our debt.
And finally, when we trust in Christ, His righteousness is imputed to us. This is what theologians call “the great exchange”.
Our sin for His righteousness.
2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV): 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
This gospel truth has a direct effect on our friendships.
What do we do when friends fail? Or when we fail our friends? Or when we fail Jesus? We look to Jesus who endured the worst possible abandonment by His friends… who died to atone for the sins of His friends… and who is in the business of reconciling and restoring broken friendships.
He is our example. He is our Savior when we fail to follow His example. He is the fuel we need to forgive and move on.