Tuesday & Thursday - Jesus Prepares For His Death

Well, I trust that one of the byproducts of our study through the life of Christ and God's Word and what He teaches us reveals to us about the life of Christ. I hope that one of the byproducts of that will be that we do come to love Him better, come to understand who He is and what He has done for us even better. And certainly if there is no portion of Scripture that would do that for us, there is no Scripture that would do that more for us than the Scripture. We are entering into now that we are headed toward the last hours of our Lord's life and then His sacrifice for us on the cross. We a couple of weeks ago in our last study, we were in Mark's Gospel, Mark chapter 14. So let's go back to that Mark 14, the story that all four of the Gospels record and we're looking at Mark's account in Mark 14. This is the last event of the day Tuesday of our Lord's Passion Week and the last event recorded is the one in a home of a leper that Jesus had healed and as He is there for the meal, something unusual happens, shocking happens, something that everyone who is there will remember the rest of their lives and we saw what that was last time that Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha, sister of Lazarus, decides to show an extravagant, extreme form of love. And so she takes her, basically her life savings, her retirement plan, everything wrapped into this one expensive bottle of Indian perfume and snaps the long lid of that off and pours it on the head of the Lord Jesus to anoint Him and then uses up the rest of it on His feet and washes His feet with her hair, the smell of that perfume permeates the entire house. And you remember that expression of extreme love was followed by criticism of extreme love. We saw this last time as well just to remind you that the Bible says in Mark's Gospel that some of those present began to criticize, John specifically says Judas was the one evidently voicing that the most and very harshly criticized Mary for in their minds wasting this money. This could have been given to the poor, they said. And obviously John lets us know that that was not really the concern of Judas. He was the treasurer among the apostles, carried the bag as the text says, and would often help himself to what was in it. And so he was a thief, he was more interested in that kind of money being at his disposal so that he could embezzle whatever he wanted. That criticism is followed by more shocking words from our Lord. I'm sure the disciples did not expect this, but Jesus defends her. Jesus defends what she has done, even though it was done to him at great cost, great sacrifice. He defends what she's done. And we saw a couple of reasons why he defended her last time in verse six. He said she has done a beautiful thing to me. And we saw that it was beautiful because it was motivated by love. It is an extreme demonstration of love. It was beautiful because it was a spontaneous response to the spirits prompting. And it was beautiful because it was so impractical. It was not the normal thing that you would do. It was not something that you would do every day. It was not something you would do every year. It was not something you would do maybe more than once in a lifetime. Obviously. So it was not dominated by practicality. This was not routine, humdrum demonstration of love. This was an extreme expression of her love. So he says it was beautiful. Secondly, he said it was timely. We saw that in verse seven. The poor you will always have with you. And you can help them anytime you want, but you will not always have me. The timeliness of this gift is part of what is so commendable on the part of Mary and what our Lord commends her for. Yes, the money could be sold given to the poor. That would be a great thing. It would be a wonderful act of ministry and service. But Jesus is pointing out that there's a balance to everything. That's a wonderful thing to do. But you will have many opportunities to do that. He's saying, I'm not going to be here very long. And you will not have the kind of opportunity that she demonstrates much longer. Actually within a couple of days, there will be no further opportunity to show this kind of love for the Lord before he dies. So it is timely. Now is the right time for this kind of extravagant worship. There is time, yes, for ministering to the poor. That's a wonderful thing. But there is also time for extravagant worship. There is time for pouring out our hearts to God in sacrificial love and a demonstration of our love to Him. There's a time for that. So it was timely. Now here's where we left off last time, verse 8. Jesus commends her also, defense her, because he says it was sacrificial. What she did was sacrificial. The sign of extreme love was sacrificial. Notice what he says in verse 8. She did what she could. She did what she could. Now she didn't do everything that could be done. There were obviously some who might be able to even do more than what she did. But she did what she could. She did within the limits of her capability, she gave sacrificial. Now sacrifice doesn't look the same for everybody, doesn't. What would be a sacrifice for you? Might not be a sacrifice for me. What might be a sacrifice for me? Might not be a sacrifice for you. Sacrifice doesn't look the same for everybody. But there are some common things about sacrifice that I think are very important to understand. She gave all that she could. She did what she could, and she did all that she could. And that's what makes it so sacrificial. She gave everything that she possibly could. Just lavishly with a sense of abandonment, demonstrating this love for the Savior. She did not take this expensive perfume and put a drop on his head and a drop on his foot, kind of symbolically giving. Now this was wholesale giving. This was all out giving. She does it sacrificial. What does it mean for us to be sacrificial? Does it mean, is the only way we can be sacrificial in our expression of love to the Lord, give everything we have? Is that the only way? What does it look like to be sacrificial? Sometimes it's inconvenient, right? Yes. It's easy to do whatever we do for the Lord when it's convenient for us, right? Time-wise or amount-wise or whatever it may be. When it's convenient, when it's easy, sacrifice sometimes means it's inconvenient. What else does sacrifice mean? It costs us something. Remember when, in the Old Testament, David was bringing the ark back to Jerusalem, and remember they had to stop because some men were touching it, not carrying it as the Old Testament. The Lord had demanded that they do that. So they left the ark at the threshing floor of Orana, the guy's name. There was a point in time when David went back to get it, and he wanted to purchase that threshing floor, and he wanted to purchase enough wood and so forth, and animals to do a sacrifice right there. And Orana said, I want to give it to you, and David said, I will not sacrifice something that doesn't cost me. And that's exactly what you're saying, Marty. A sacrifice is not free. A sacrifice is something that costs you. Okay? What kinds of sacrifices should we give to the Lord? What does it look like for us to sacrifice? Time. Okay? Money? What else? Things that we hold dear, okay? Certainly. Any in all of those? Pardon me? Okay? Things that he's given us responsibility over. To give those up if he calls for that. Yes. Service? Yes. Praise. Yeah, the Bible talks about the sacrifice of praise. And Hebrews 13, verse 15, sacrifice of praise. All right? What else? Old habits? Yeah. Yes. Things that are deeply ingrained and entrenched in our lives and are part of our comfort zone, and to give those up can be a real sacrifice. The Nile of Self is a sacrifice. And there is one sacrifice that all of you know about, nobody's really said it yet. In fact, it's a sacrifice that is required of us in the scriptures. What does Romans 121 say? Okay. I'll teach you there for a brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. Okay? So really the sacrifice, the ultimate sacrifice that we should give the Lord, according to Paul and Romans, is all of us. Now that is a sacrifice. Mary did what she could. She gave everything she had. She could not have done anymore. She did what she could. And what God asks of every one of us is yes. In many cases, the very things that were mentioned, but certainly God asks of us that we do what we can, and what we can do is give everything we are to him, to give our whole self to him, everything. Which includes all the things that you mentioned. Okay? So she gave what she could. She gave everything and we're called upon to give everything. Not necessarily to give all of our possessions away or whatever, but we're called to give everything. Aren't we in the sense that we give ourselves? We lay our life down on the altar as a living sacrifice. It's going to be totally his. And in reality, even though God may never call upon us to give up everything we have, there is a sense in which all of us should make that sacrifice, right, in our minds and hearts, that really it's not ours to start with, is it? It's God's. Everything belongs to God's and we are simply stewards of it. We're simply managers of his possessions. And so that mindset that it is all his. And so I'm not going to clutch it. I'm not going to hold on to it for dear life so that it becomes my life. That also is an act of sacrifice. That is a lifestyle and a mentality of sacrifice. So I think that's what Jesus commends her for. She did what she could. She gave everything. And if we do what we can, we can lay our entire lives, our bodies on the altar as a living sacrifice for God. And then we can remember that everything we have, he's given us and it belongs to him. And we're just managing it for him. So it doesn't belong to us. So release our grip on it, basically. That's a sacrificial mindset. I remember hearing about a couple that in their church that were doing a building-thun drive, and they wanted to make a big deal of the fact that they were going to give something so they called pastor and decided they wanted to go in and present the, their offerings directly to him. So he would know exactly what it was and everything. So they did. They made an appointment with him and they brought a big jar in, set it down on his desk, and they said, pastor, this is what we're going to give to the building fund. We've saved and saved and saved for a long time, and this is a very sacrificial gift for us. And so they opened it up and poured it out on the table and they wanted him to count it. And he counted it. And it was $12,000. And he was counting it. The husband realized what they'd done. He looked at his wife and said, I don't know, we brought the wrong jar. They had another one and had $1,000 in it. And that's the one they intended to bring. So, you know, a lot of us, that's what we think of as sacrifice. I'm going to really, but it ends up not really being sacrificial. She did what she could. She did what she could. The fourth thing Jesus says in defense of her, this extreme love is the second part of verse 8. It was worshipful. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Now, those are shocking words. But they reflect Mary's understanding of what she was doing. Now, think about this for a minute. She was worshipping him in a way that none of the other disciples had even begun to grasp yet. Had Jesus talked about his death several times and they hadn't gotten it yet. They still don't understand what's going to happen. But Mary evidently got it. She evidently understood from listening to Jesus' teach. You only find her three times in the gospels and all three times she's sitting at Jesus' feet. She's at His feet. She's very attentive to what He has to say. And so, she got it when none of the twelve apostles did. They don't understand yet about Jesus' death. She does. And what she is doing with this extreme act of love is she is pouring out her love passionately, her devotion to Him before He dies. Now, it was common to anoint a body for burial. And she is doing that ahead of time, understanding that He is going to die. She does that ahead of time. It is an amazing act of worship. What the other disciples had not grasped. She heard. She understood. She sensed that it was close. And she decided that she was going to go ahead and anoint his body before he died. And that was a tremendous act of worship and anticipation of his death. So, it was a worshipful act. And Jesus commends her for that. She has done this to prepare my body beforehand for burial. Okay, any question to this point about what's happened here? The effect that only comes from the thought of the death. Yes. Yes. This is within two days of that event. Yes. The God of those things. Right. No showers. So, in all likelihood, there was still the fragrance of that. Of course, it would be mixed with the sweat of the Garden of Gethsemane and the blood of the flogging and all the rest. It was a wonderful reminder of what she had done. Yes. Worshipful. Okay, let's take a look at the results of this extreme love in verses 9 through 11. Two results come from this act of extreme love. The first one is loving hearts are remembered. Mary will be remembered for her act of extreme love. So, loving hearts are remembered. Verse 9, Truly, I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her. That amazing statement. That evening, Tuesday evening of the last week of our Lord's life, Jesus gives a prophecy and we're fulfilling that tonight in part. We're doing exactly what Jesus said would be done. That wherever the gospel is preached, this story will be told about Mary. And throughout the centuries, no doubt in Bethany, the next few weeks, this story will be told and then it will be told as the gospel spread. And it has spread all over the world. And there are preachers and missionaries and Bible teachers and Sunday school teachers and Bible study leaders that talk about this. Probably somebody is talking about it every day, somewhere in the world. And so wherever the gospel is preached, she's remembered. So, loving hearts are remembered. But notice, secondly, wicked hearts are revealed. Wicked hearts are revealed. Notice what happens in verse 10. Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them. They were delighted to hear this. Why were they delighted? They wanted to. They wanted to kill him. What was holding them up? Opportunity. Remember, we've seen twice in the last few times we've studied the life of our Lord here. Twice, it's been mentioned that they were wanting to get at him and kill him, but they were afraid. They didn't want to do it during the feast because of all the crowds. Another time, it's just said they were afraid because of the crowds. And so they were looking for some way to do it secretly. This provides them the opportunity. Judas will betray him. That means, basically, Judas will let them know where he is and when they can get at him secretly. That's what the betrayal really is. They know who he is. They could arrest him publicly. They wanted to. The only sense of betrayal is Judas is going to let them know when he's alone or when he is in secret with his disciples and where that would be. That's the betrayal. So he's given them. He has placed in their lap the opportunity they've been looking for. That's exactly what they've wanted. So they're delighted to hear this and promise to give him money so he watched for an opportunity to hand him over. Now, think about this for a minute. The kind of extreme love that has been shown goes against everything in Judas' heart. It's obvious from what he said about it. So he can't tolerate that. And then add to that Jesus stinging rebuke of his criticism. Remember, he's the one that was most vocal, John says, in the criticism. Jesus gives a stinging rebuke of that. The poor you'll always have with you. You don't have me with you for long. In four ways, he commends Mary for what she's done. And every time he's commending her, it's a stinging rebuke of Judas. Well, that pushes Judas over the edge. This extreme form of love which goes against everything he lived for anyway. Stinging rebuke of Jesus is too much for him. It pushes him over the edge to where he does what is in his wicked heart to do. And the wickedness of his heart is revealed. And there's a sense in which Christ's radical call to discipleship to follow him will always reveal where our hearts are. Mary has shown extreme love to the Savior. Jesus has commended her. So that is a commendable thing to do. When Jesus talks about what it means to really follow him and love him, it will always separate those who really love him from those who don't. The high call to follow him brings out the true love of those who really love him. But it also turns away those who are imposterous, those who really don't love him. And see, that's the real test. Are you willing to sacrifice everything? Okay, so that's the result of this extreme act of love. Comments, questions before we move on to the next part of the story. Okay, we're going to stick with Mark. Again, you can see the next event is the Passover meal. All four gospels treat this quite extensively. We will dip into John's son because John gives some details that I think are important to understand the other three gospels pretty much tell the same story. We have a lot of different details added in some, but we're going to stick with Mark's gospel. One of the things that is demonstrated here in the preparation for Christ's death and the preparation for the Passover meal is that it shows that Jesus is in complete control of what's happening. There's nothing outside his control. He has, he's planning things. Okay, we're going to see this vividly with this meal. He is planning ahead as to what's going to be done. He is not frantic, he's not out of control, he's not like the liberals say he went too far and he's desired to reach and change Judas, lost control of the events that were happening around him and died as an unfortunate martyr for a cause that he believed in. That's how the liberals treat the death of Christ. That is not at all the way the gospels present it. The way the gospels presented is Jesus is very calmly, almost methodically moving toward his appointment, divinely arranged by his father to bear our sins on the cross. And so even this event, the careful planning for this meal will show that Jesus is totally in control of the events of that week. Now we have just seen the last event of Tuesday evening, interestingly enough, there is nothing recorded about Wednesday. Nothing recorded about anything that happened on Wednesday. What do you think may have taken place on that day? Met with his disciples? Good likelihood of that. Yes. Maybe it was a day of rest. Jesus knew what was going to happen. He knew what he was facing. And he knew what crucifixion was like. Maybe there was a time of rest and physically renewing himself. Remember Tuesday had been a pretty grueling day with all that had gone on in the temple and the battles with the Pharisees and the other religious teachers and so forth. And so maybe this is a kind of a brief interlude for Jesus to gain strength energy. I think probably what you're going to say. He may have had them help prepare the elements that would be involved in the meal. That would have to be arranged. And we'll see in just a moment that there's not really a lot said about that. There's more said about the place and the gathering of those things. But it's possible that Mary and Martha, particularly Martha, would have been involved in some of pulling some of that together. Do you think maybe Jesus spent some time with his father on that day? You know, in the gospels, it's amazingly silent here, but there are times in the gospels when just before a major event in our Lord's life, you find him going to be alone with his father. For instance, before he chooses the 12 apostles, he spends all night in prayer, Luke 6. And so I think it's quite possible Jesus spent some of that day, maybe a good part of that day, with his father in prayer and drawing the spiritual strength that he needed for what was coming in the next couple of days. But the next event that we have is on Thursday. And there's not a lot said about what happens on Thursday, although what until Thursday evening, but what is said indicates that there was a good bit of activity on that day, Thursday, to prepare for this meal. So let's talk about what happened on Thursday in Jesus having the Passover meal. First of all, there's the preparation for the Passover. In verses 12 through 16, let's just read it and then we'll look a little bit at how things are prepared for this meal. Verse 12, on the first day of the festival of unleavened bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, and just pause for a moment to say the feast of unleavened bread was a seven-day feast that followed the Passover meal. And it was customary in that time to call the day when the Passover meal was eaten the first day of that feast, although the feast didn't actually start till the next day. So that's what we have going on here. The first day of the feast of unleavened bread, when it was customary to sacrifice 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 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. Now, let's pause for a moment. I want us to really grasp this and notice if you will the care of this preparation. It's obvious that careful arrangements have been made by Jesus. Maybe that's part of what he did on Wednesday. It goes back into the city and makes arrangements with this household owner for that room where they will eat the Passover together. But it's all carefully planned. There are detailed instructions that Jesus gives them as to what to do and how they will find the place. Evidently, Jesus had made arrangements ahead of time with the home owner, someone in Jerusalem, to use this guest chamber, this upper room, this chamber on the second level. Maybe they even agreed on how kind of a code as to how the disciples would recognize where to go. The clue is they will go into the city and find a man carrying a water jar that would be unusual. We might think a man carrying a water jar. There are hundreds of people around Jerusalem, a man carrying a water jar. It was not typical for men to carry the water jars. This would be something that would be unusual. Jesus says, you're going to see a man carrying a water jar. That's your clue. This is a little different here. You're going to follow him and they follow him to the house and they ask the question where the teacher eats Passover with the disciples. The man shows them the room upstairs, it's already furnished, it's ready. So arrangements have been made and the disciples then leave, found the things and prepared the Passover. It was great care taken to plan for this meal. Now I'm interested in the reasons for that. Why did Jesus take such careful detailed precautions about this meal? Why do you think he would have planned this? So, couldn't they have eaten at the lepros house again? The Simon, the former lepros, couldn't they have eaten at Mary and Martha and Lazarus house? Why do you think Jesus takes such care and does this so secretly, secretly makes the arrangements and then tells two of his disciples to go and there's this kind of code, secret deal of man carrying a water jar, follow him, real kind of sleuth like. Why? Okay, such a special and important occasion. I want to come back to that because I think that is part of the reason somebody else was saying something. Yes. Good point. He will certainly give them a demonstration once again of his sovereignty and of his deity that he can tell them exactly what they will find and where it will be and even to the detail of a man carrying a water jar. That's how they'll know and the house that that guy goes to is the place where they need to ask. I mean, that's just an amazing evidence of his deity. Any other reasons you could think of? Okay. I think that may be, I think that would be the top of my list of reasons. Jesus knows what Judas is going to do. So he's not going to let Judas know where they're going to do the Passover. Judas might guess Simon Lefors home again. They just ate there for a minute. He might guess Mary and Martha's where we're going to have the Passover. Jesus knows that Judas has already made arrangements to betray him and is looking for the place where they will be alone. So Jesus quietly chooses a place that Judas will not know because that's not where Jesus is going to be apprehended, not in the upper room. There's too much that's got to happen there that's important. So it's got to happen after that. I think that may be the biggest reason why Jesus did it the way he did it. Why this is also secretive and kind of cloak and dagger type stuff. Is to keep Judas from finding out where it would be. So that whatever whenever the betrayal happens, it will not happen here. And the reason I'll mentioned plays into that. This, this is the most important meal Jesus will ever eat with his disciples. Because he's going to teach them some great lessons, but he's also going to institute something that we still observe today at this meal. And so you know Jesus can't walk into this room and there be some Roman soldiers hiding to take him. They can't happen here. There's too much that's got to happen that's important in this room. And so Jesus keeps all of it secret so that Judas doesn't know Judas will not find out until they actually get to the place. Okay, so he doesn't have any advanced knowledge only the two that go in to make the arrangements. Know where this is. So preparation for the Passover has I think some very important reasons why Jesus is doing it this way. Okay, now I'm going to kind of give you a little bit of idea of what it would be like in the room and the Passover meal. And then we're going to start looking at some of the events of that that evening. The room would be arranged with tables and couches or pillows for them to recline on. I know. Bless his heart Leonardo da Vinci was a fabulous painter, but he got it all wrong the last suffer. I mean they weren't that's European. They weren't sitting at a table. They were reclining and we'll see that even mentioned in the gospels. They were reclining as they typically did for meals in that day on their left elbow, propping their head up reaching the table right beside them there. Table would be in front of them and and they would eat that way and and we'll see that that that plays a very important part in the story as to what happens with some of the conversation that evening. But the room would be prepared with the with the low tables that the food would be put on which would be just a little off the floor and then the pillows or the couches where they would recline to be able to eat the meal. Food would be bought and prepared and a lamb would be sacrificed and then cooked and prepared for the meal. And then sometime after six in the evening that about that time Jesus and the disciples would arrive and would be seated and be ready to begin the meal. Now there are a number of things that happen in the meal. One of them we're going to complete the skip over tonight and we'll come back to next time or maybe even the time after that. I'm not sure yet. It depends on how far we get. And that is the washing of the disciples feet will get to that a little later but we're going to kind of move through some of the other things in the meal first. And let me just give you kind of a bird's eye view of what would typically happen at a Passover meal. The host would would begin the meal by pronouncing a blessing on the meal and that obviously would be done by Jesus. And then there would be three cups. There would be a number of food items and I'm not going to try to go through the whole Passover. Just give you a few of the high spots. There would be three cups that would be there that would be shared by the folks that are at the meal. In this case, Jesus and the 12. The first cup would be drunk and they would then sing. Psalm 113 to 115. Psalm 113 to 118 are called the hallelujah Psalms. They are Psalms that would be sung as you prepare for the Passover and for the Feasts in Israel. And so they would typically at this point in the meal sing those three Psalms. Then there would be the drinking of the second cup and the host would explain the deliverance from Egypt and what all the foods would represent. And using the different foods, there would be kind of a reenactment of the Exodus, of the deliverance from Egypt that night, which is what the Passover meal was all about, according to Exodus 12 and 13. So there would be bitter herbs which stood for the slavery that they endured under the Egyptians. Then there would be stewed fruit which would be soft up with bread which would symbolize the brick making that they were the kind of slavery, the making of bricks that they endured before they were released. Both of those would be eaten with bread and then of course there would be other parts of the meal. The main part of the meal would be the lamb, the indicating as they ate that lamb remembering the night that faithful Hebrews took the blood of that lamb and spread it over and on each side of their door so that the angel would recognize their faithful adherence to God's command and would pass over them and their firstborn would not die. And then the eating of filam in haste as they prepared to leave the land. All of that is symbolized in the Passover meal and then following that meal, the end of the meal would be the third cup that would be shared and it is that last cup because loot tells us it was after supper after they'd eaten that Jesus takes the cup and talks about his blood. We'll get to that a little bit later but that third cup typically what would be done is everyone would take some of that cup and then they would sing the rest of the halal Psalms. Psalm 116 to 118 would be sung. But there are some unusual things that happen in the course of this meal. This will not be your typical Passover meal for these disciples. There are going to be some unusual things that happen. One of the first things that happens is that Jesus gets up, goes over and takes the servants, garments and the water and washes their feet because none of them thought to do that. Luke's Gospel tells us they were still arguing about what they'd been talking about on the way into Jerusalem and that was who was going to be first in the kingdom. Who was going to be at the top? See they still don't get it. They still don't get that Jesus is dying. They think the kingdom is still going to be introduced maybe this week and they're still jockeying for positions. We're going to save that whole event of the washing of their feet for next time or a little ways down the road. But there are some other things that happen somewhere in the course of this meal. John's Gospel in John 13 verse 21 tells us that Jesus was very troubled and he quickly drops a bombshell on them. It's something that shook them so much that they were speechless at first and that is the awareness of a traitor. This is the bombshell that Jesus drops on them. A shocking revelation. And it is. It is a shocking revelation to them. We don't think because we know the whole story, we know the end of it, we know how the disciples would eventually come to understand what happened. We kind of compress all that together. It's difficult for us to understand the tension in the room that night and the shock at what Jesus said to them. So look at it in verse 17. When evening came Jesus arrived with the 12 while they were reclining at the table eating, he said. And John's Gospel says he was very troubled when he said this. Truly I tell you one of you will betray me one who is eating with me. That amazing statement comes out of the blue as far as they're concerned. They would never expect Jesus to say something like this. Now notice Jesus says one who is eating with me in using that phrase. Jesus is actually quoting from the Old Testament. Psalm 41 verse 9, this verse on the screen. Even my close friend someone I trusted, one who shared my bread, has turned against me. Now that was a Psalm written by David about his chief counselor, a hithafel. You may recall that when Absalom led rebellion against David, a hithafel started counseling Absalom and left David and betrayed David. Alright, this is about a hithafel but Jesus picks up on this and applies it to himself and Judas. And in a sense indicates that this this Old Testament statement had a more far reaching fulfillment than David and a hithafel. Now hang on to that because we're not going to get to it tonight or times up but this very mention is going to be a very critical gesture toward Judas. Actually a gesture of the Lord offering him repentance. And we'll get to that a little bit later but Jesus drops this bombshell on the disciples and we're going to have to stop. But next time we'll get into John 13 where we find this was horrifying to them. This is absolutely incomprehensible to them. There's speechless which indicates none of them knew Judas was an imposter. None of them knew it at this time. It's an amazing scene. It really is an amazing story. We find that they are absolutely shocked. They begin looking at each other like what did he say? And then they start asking each other asking, oh it's not me, is it me? All of them did that including Judas. I mean this is an incredible scene. But I want us to take a little time next time to get into it in John 13 because John really describes it more fully than Mark or Luke or Matthew does. But the awareness of a traitor is just a bombshell that's dropped on them that they have trouble recovering from amazing, amazing scene. Alright, let's pray. Father we are amazed at the calmness of our Lord in preparing for this evening with His disciples knowing what He will institute that night which will serve as a teaching reminder to us even today. Knowing the importance of this meal, He carefully plans for it in the very shadow of the cross within hours of His death. And yet He is carefully fulfilling Scripture. Lord we do love Him more because of what we see of Him. May we be more than fascinated, may we be deepened in our love for our Lord and Savior, your Son, our Savior. So His name we pray, amen.