The Trial

41 Then He came a third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The time has come. Look, the Son of Man  is being betrayed into the hands of sinners.  42 Get up;  let’s go! See—My betrayer is near.”  Mark 14:41 (HCSB)

“Get up; let’s go!” After Christ said those words He and the disciples continued on the journey that we identify as the “Final Days of Christ.” This recorded statement follows Jesus’ time alone in the Garden of Gethsemane. Christ was modeling something that we all seek to do but seldom fine time to do so; have time alone. When you were a child, did you have a hideout or a special place you liked to go to imagine and play? Did anyone else know about the place or go there with you? What kind of things did you most often pray for? Did you feel that your prayers were answered? As an adult today, where do you go when you want to get away from the pressures around you? How successful are you at doing so? Jesus coped with the stress of His impending suffering and death by getting away by Himself and praying. Being in the Garden of Gethsemane, it would have been easy for Him to slip out of town without anyone noticing. Instead, He committed to carry out God’s will and purpose and stayed to face His accusers. He was committed to stand in my place, He was determined to fulfill scripture and in return He expects us to surrender all things to Him.

When we seek to surrender all things to Him and His will there are times that we are meet with resistance. Resistance was something that Christ experienced in these final days; both betrayal and denial was on full display. In Mark 14, Jesus was filled with deep sorrow as the impact of submitting to God’s will hit Him. While his personal desire was to avoid the cross, his deeper commitment was to do the Father’s will even though it included the cross. Right up to the moment of crisis, the disciples failed to recognize what was happening. They had not prepared themselves at all. In contrast, Judas, Jesus’ betrayer, had been making his own preparations. Ironically, by his greeting, his kiss, and by sharing the same bowl (14:20—to eat together was a sign of friendship), Judas conveyed the sense of a warm relationship with Jesus.

Standing before His accusers, Jesus openly and unequivocally declared his Messiahship. The time for secrecy was past. The verses Jesus quoted (a combination of Ps. 110:1; Dan. 7:13–14) simply reiterated, in biblical images, His claim of Messiahship. Jesus stated that He is God (Ex.3:14). seated at the right hand.

By claiming to be the Messiah, the Sanhedrin understood Jesus to be dishonoring God. In fact, it was they who were guilty of blasphemy by refusing to recognize who Jesus was. God himself had declared Jesus to be his Son (1:11; 9:7).  What would be next would be death. The death of innocent Jesus in the place of guilty Barabbas was a visual statement of the meaning of substitutionary atonement. It explained what Jesus meant in 10:45 when He said that He came to “give His life—a ransom for many.” Jesus took our punishment upon Himself. 

Friends, the events that chronicle the “final days of Christ” paved the way for eternal life for those that embrace the actions of those very “final days of Christ”