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Welcome back to our Bible study on the Gospel of Mark. Here we see Jesus enthroned on the cross. What we've been waiting for since the beginning of the story as Jesus has come to make the way of the Lord. And there was the summons at the beginning of Mark's Gospel to prepare the way of the Lord. And John the Baptist started that. And then he was arrested. And later we heard he was beheaded. And. And in a sense, John the Baptist was the forerunner. He prepared the way. Even by his death, he was foreshadowing the road and the way and the destiny of Jesus. And so in this last episode, we're walking through the Passion and we remember that Mark gave us the four watches of the night. And those four watches were important to mark when that hour would come, when the Lord would come, when the day of the Lord would appear. And we saw those watches would be either at evening or at midnight, or at cock crow, or at morning. And we saw that Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples in the evening. We saw how he took the bread and blessed it, broke it and gave it to them. We saw also the idea that he is taking, but not like the kings before him. He is taking and giving Himself, and he's inviting us to take from him. His kingship is going to be altogether different. And therefore his enthronement will be altogether different. His enthronement will be on the cross. As we'll see, that's where the Passion's leading. So now at the end of the Supper, we're told in verse 26 of chapter 14 of Mark that they leave that upper room and they go out after they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives and they're going to go to Gethsemane. There's a beautiful church there that the Franciscans run called the Church of All nations, which is right there in Gethsemane. And there is a cave just a little bit down from there that's still in that part of Gethsemane which is the garden of Gethsemane. And that cave is called the Cave of Betrayal. And it's been known from the earliest pilgrims in the 4th century that that is where the disciples stayed that night. And that's where Jesus would oftentimes stay with his disciples. And there was a first century olive press found in that cave. So we know that that cave goes back to the time of Jesus. Jesus will go to Gethsemane and we're going to see him praying there. And this is going to be during the midnight watch, right? So Evening goes from 6pm to 9pm and then the next three hours is the watch for midnight. And so keep that in mind. And then Jesus warns them, you will all fall away. For it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered, but after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee. And then, of course, Peter says, no, you know, even if they all fall away, I will not fall away. And then Jesus gives the prophecy, before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times. But he said vehemently, if I must die with you, I will not deny you. And they all said the same. And they went to a place which was called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, sit here while I pray. And he took with him Peter, James, and John. So the tradition is that he leaves the nine in the cave, and then he goes with the three a little bit further. And that's the place where the Church of all nations is built over. And a beautiful, wonderful Italian architect, Barluzzi, built it so that it would be dark inside and the pillars and the ceiling would look like it was olive trees that you were in the forest at night. And so it kind of has that darkness that envelops Jesus here as he's praying right before the intensity of the Passion begins. And then Jesus goes on and says to them, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch. Now, we've heard that term watch before. That's become literally the watchword. Since Mark 13, that idea of watch, watch has been repeated. And now Jesus warns them to watch. And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that if it was possible, he the hour might pass from him. And of course, this is the Passover, and he's asking that the hour pass over him, that would pass beyond him. And of course, we remember we left that question at the end of Mark 13, where Jesus said of that day or that hour in Mark 13:32, no one knows, not even the angels, nor the Son, but only the Father. Now Jesus is praying that the hour may pass over him. He knows the hour, but how does he know the hour if he said he didn't know the hour? Right, so that is a question we want to come back to here and reflect on. And then as he said this, he prayed, abba, Father, all things are possible to you. Remove this cup. And now we're remembering back in chapter 10 when James and John asked to sit on his left and his right. And Jesus said, Can you drink the cup with which I am to drink? It's the cup of suffering. It's the cup of his martyrdom. Remove this cup. So he prays that the hour may pass and that this cup may pass from me, yet not what I will, but what you will. So Jesus prays that the hour and the cup pass from him, but then he also submits to the will of the Father. Not what I will, but what you will. And he came and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into the temptation. But the Greek word for temptation there, peirazo, means ordeal, the tribulation, the test. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy, very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. And he came a third time. So notice, the first time he came, it was how long? One hour. And the second time he prays the same prayer, and he comes back. And so it would be one hour, and he comes back a third time. So what hour is it? This would be the midnight watch, right? Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough. The hour has come. The hour has come, the hour that we are to look for since the end of chapter 13. And what does he say to the disciples in chapter 13 at the end when he says of that day or that hour? He says, watch and pray. And what does Jesus keep exhorting them three times to do? To watch and pray. And then he says at the end of chapter 13, watch and pray, lest the Master, when he comes, finds you asleep. And what are the disciples doing? They're asleep. Now, this was supposed to be a night of watching, Part of the Passover liturgy, which is little understood even today by Jews who will practice the Seder meal? Is that at the end of Exodus 12, when Moses gives the instructions? And. And it describes that first night of the first Passover? We're told in Exodus 12:42 that it is to be a night of watching. God tells Moses for all generations to keep vigil. And why would they make it a night of watching? Because they know that that night the angel of death is going to pass over Egypt. And they've eaten the meal, they've eaten the lamb. But they don't say, ah, I'm going to call it a night's reading. I'm going to go to. I'm going to go to Bed. Sack it in here. I know the angel of death is coming. There's cataclysms and plagues and all kinds of. But I'm going to head in, get a good night's sleep, because. No, I mean. So you can see, the first night of the Passover, they ate the meal. They sacrificed the lamb. They ate the lamb. And then they were in vigil that night, praying for the angel of death to pass over them, to spare their firstborn. And so Jesus asked them to watch and pray as you would at the first passover. And they fall asleep. And then Jesus says, the hour has come. Now, in Exodus, what hour does the angel of death strike Egypt? Midnight. The angel of death strikes Egypt at midnight. And what happens here when Jesus says, after three hours of watching and praying, and he returns to them after each hour during the midnight watch, and he tells them to watch him pray. And then Jesus says, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is handed over into the hands of sinners. Rise. Let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand. What hour is it when Judas comes to betray Jesus? It's midnight. Judas is the angel of death. And there will be no Passover for this firstborn son, Jesus. There is no lamb to be his substitute. He will be the lamb. He will be the lamb. There is no passing over. Now, when Jesus prays that this hour may pass, he knows the hour is imminent, and. And he knows the hour when it strikes. He wakes the disciples at the third watch of the midnight. And he says, arise, let us be going, my betrayers at hand. The hour has come. The Son knows the hour. But the reason, he says in chapter 13, that even the Son doesn't know the hour. He also knows that he will pray to the Father that the hour may pass, that the hour may be put off, maybe to next year's Passover. And he prays, but he submits to the will of the Father. And then he knows in prayer that the Father has answered him, that this will be the hour, and that this will be the Passover. And he accepts it, and he knows it. So there isn't a sense of Jesus being ignorant of the hour. It's that he knows that he's going to pray and all things are in the hands of the Father. And so he's willing to wait to see what the Father will do. And he knows when the hour comes. So. But the problem is we read chapter 13 in that hour, and then we forget about it. When we read chapter 14, we don't read it as A connective narrative. We have to read the whole narrative together, and not just the narrative of Mark, chapter 13 and 14, but we have to read chapter 14 in light of Exodus 12, to know what watch and pray means. And immediately, as he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a crowd with swords and clubs from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. And now the betrayer had given a sign. The one he was going to kiss was the one. And they seize him and they take him. And then we have one little incident that's unique to Mark's gospel. In verse 51, as the disciples flee and forsake him, fulfilling the Scriptures which Jesus had already foretold from Zechariah will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will scatter. And a young man followed him with nothing but a linen cloth about his body, and they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked. You know, like that's puzzled a lot of commentators. Why is that odd detail in there? Right. The reason it's in there, as Mark, the author of this Gospel, would know, because he was a Levite, according to the Mishnah, the Jewish tradition of the Levites, the Levites would get called to serve in the temple one month out of the year. And it depended if you got the night shift or the day shift, because there had to be perpetual adoration and vigilance in the temple for God. And if you got the night shift and you were a Levite or a priest, and you fell asleep during the night shift, when you were on watch for the temple, the penalty would be you would be stripped of all your clothes, and they would be burned into the watch fire, and you would have to run home naked and ashamed. And so the fact that this man runs away naked and ashamed means that he did not keep vigil watching the true temple, who is Jesus. And now he flees home naked and ashamed because he hasn't kept watch. He didn't listen to his Lord, who said, watch and pray in the vigil of the Passover with Jesus. And again, it shows you Jesus has the true temple. And then Jesus is taken in verse 53 to the high priest Peter, followed in verse 54. At a distance. Discipleship at a distance always leads in denial and in failure, one can't follow from a distance. And then he's in the courtyard of the high priest. There's a beautiful church in the holy land called St. Peter in Gallicantu. In Gallicantu is the Latin term for rooster, because this is where the rooster is going to crow, where Peter will deny Jesus three times. And it's an extraordinary chapel and a very powerful place for prayer in the Holy Land. One of my favorite places in all the world to pray. And I just. It's always powerful to be there. And you can go to the place of Caiaphas House. We know archeologically it's Caiaphas House. And you can see where it is from looking over across at the temple, not far from the temple, looking down the Kidron Valley down to where the Garden of Gethsemane is and the Mount of Olives. And so then that's where they bring Jesus up. He's put on trial. The false accusations of the false witnesses say. We heard him say in verse 57 and verse 58, we heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands. And in three days I will build another not made with hands. And of course, he's speaking there of that the temple will be destroyed. Not that he would destroy it, that the temple would be destroyed. And that the temple that will rise up in three days is the temple of Jesus resurrected body. So again, the issue of Jesus as the real temple comes, keeps emerging in the narrative. And then during the trial, the high priest rends his garments when Jesus says that you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power. That's Jesus alluding to Daniel chapter seven, where the Son of Man is taken up into the heavens and is seated at the right hand of God the Father. And then the high priest and all those with him condemn him to death. They cover his head as they beat him, spit upon him. And this is God, this is our Lord, who they treat like this. And they say, prophesy, prophesy. If you're such a prophet, who hits you. And while they mock him as a prophet, the next thing that happens is his prophecy that Peter would deny him is being fulfilled. And that's the irony, because in the next verse 66, as Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the maids of the high priest came. And seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said, you also were with the Nazarene Jesus. Notice he was with. That's a bad mark for a disciple to have been with Jesus in the past tense. But he denied it, saying, I neither know nor understand what you mean. And of course, when he says in Mark, he not only denies it, but he says, I don't understand. That is what we constantly get in Isaiah 42 through to Isaiah 52 of the Servant of the Lord, not understanding, not hearing, nothing, not seen. And Peter still fails to understand. He's still blind and deaf. And he went out into the gateway. And again he denied. One of the bystanders said this man was with them. But again he denied it. And a little later, again the bystander said to Peter, certainly you are one of them, for you are a Galilean. So he's got that country hick accent. So they know he's a Galilean. He's not from the city of Jerusalem. But he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, I do not know this man of whom you speak. And immediately the cock crowed a second time. And Peter remembered how Jesus had said to him, before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times. And he broke down and wept. And as soon as it was morning, the chief priests and the elders and the scribes and the whole council had held a consultation. And they bound Jesus and led him away and handed him over to Pilate. So what we see is the four watches. Evening is mentioned with Jesus having the last supper cockcrow with the denial of Peter three times. And notice there's sets of three. So you can mark the three hours of the watch, and then we have morning. And then the one time that's not mentioned out of the four is midnight. But we know the midnight watch is exactly when Judas comes. And that is the hour. That's the hour of judgment, it's the hour of evil, it's the hour of darkness that begins the Passion. And of course, just like in the scriptures, in the Old Testament, the hour signifies not just 60 minutes, but a time. But the time is now. The time is going to be the rest of the time that Jesus is alive, from his arrest to his crucifixion. So then he's handed over to Pilate, who puts him on trial. He offers up Barabbas, and the crowd chooses Barabbas instead of Jesus. And of course, the irony is Barabbas in Aramaic means Bar, which means son, and Abba, which means father. So Barabbas, who's guilty of insurrection, is put forward versus Jesus. But Jesus is the true Bar Abba, and they choose Barabbas, who is an insurrectionist. And Barabbas is going to lead Israel by killing Romans and fighting. That's his way of liberating Israel. Jesus will liberate Israel by being a lamb led to the slaughter. Now, what's fascinating here is that Mark doesn't explicitly quote Isaiah and the fourth servant song, which is that Servant song of like a lamb led to the slaughter and and the suffering of the suffering servant. He doesn't quote it explicitly, but he doesn't need to. He's showing you the embodiment of the fourth servant song in Jesus, but he's prepared you for it. Because from the first servant song in Isaiah 42, my chosen one whom I have chosen and whom I send my spirit that we saw at the baptism of Jesus all the way to now, there's been this constant theme of. Of not seeing, hearing, and understanding, which runs from Isaiah 42, the first servant song, to the fourth servant song. And then after this point, we don't get the blindness, the deafness, and the misunderstanding any longer. Why? Because that's exactly what happens in the fourth servant song. Let me just take you to the fourth servant song, which begins at the end of Isaiah 52. Isaiah 52 begins with a summons to awake. Because there's going to be a new exodus, a new sojourn, this time out of Assyria instead of Egypt and out of the east that's going to and then what's the point of this new exodus that God's giving? He says at the end of Isaiah 52:6 at the end of this new exodus, they shall know my name. And therefore in that day, remember that day and that hour have been combined by Jesus in Mark 13, in that day the they shall know that it is I who speak ego ami. They will know that I am. And you remember, that was the theme that's punctuated throughout Isaiah 42:52 Is this idea of knowing that Yahweh is God, that Yahweh is I am. And then there's the announcement of how beautiful are the feet of him who brings this good news, who publishes good tidings, which is the gospel. And that's why Mark names his whole story of Jesus the gospel, because of this passage of Isaiah. And what is the gospel? You are to publish salvation and say to Zion your God, what? Your God reigns. Isaiah 52:7. The good news is that your God reigns. What we're going to see is the enthronement of that God on the cross. Jesus. Crucifixion will have one key theme repeated over and over again. That he is the king of the Jews, that he is the king of Israel. He will be crowned with thorns. He will wear a purple garment. It's all about Jesus as king. And the gospel news according to Isaiah is that the good news for Israel is that your God reigns, not one of your pitiful kings. Who always messes things up, but God himself will be king. And then it goes on in. In this very chapter of Isaiah 52, after it speaks of the good news that God reigns. How is he going to do it? Well, verse 13 says, behold, my servant shall prosper, and he shall be exalted and lifted up. And he shall be lifted up very high. As many as were astonished at him by his appearance, which was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the sons of men. And he shall startle many nations, and kings shall shut their mouths because of him. The first king, the first ruler that will shut his mouth will be Pilate before Jesus during the trial. For that which has not been told them, they shall see, and that which they have not heard, they shall understand. The change in Isaiah from not seeing, not hearing, not understanding. The servant which is Israel. And the servants of God are constantly blind and deaf until God. God sends his servant, who will suffer and die. And then when they see him, then they will get it. Then they will understand. Which fits exactly what we started with at the beginning of Isaiah 6, with how long, O Lord, Isaiah asked, will people not hear, see and understand? Until there's the burning purgation, until there's the great time of suffering. And the one who suffers will be the suffering servant. And it continues in Isaiah 53, verse 1. Who has believed what, what we have heard, the whole point of the gospel is to believe. Who's going to believe this? For he grew up before him like a young plant, like a root from the dry ground. He had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, no beauty that we should desire in him. Yet he was despised and rejected. In all of Jesus passion predictions, he says how the chief priests will reject him. He talks about the cornerstone that was rejected, but becomes the head. That word rejected is the key word here for the suffering servant. He's rejected and despised. A man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, as one from whom men hide their faces despised. We esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God. You'll hear that mocked at the cross, that God has abandoned Jesus. But he was wounded for our transgressions. This is the meaning of the cross. Now upon him was the chastisement that made us whole. With his stripes we were healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each one turning to his own way. His own way, not the Lord's way. Remember, Opisomu. Get behind Me follow my way. And the Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. We'll see that during the trial, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before his shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment was he taken away. And as for his generation who considered that he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people, they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death. Joseph at Arimathea will be a rich man who will give his tomb to Jesus. Fulfilled here in all detail. Yet it was the will of the Lord to bruise him. He has put him to grief when he makes himself a sin offering, an offering for sin. He shall though see his offspring, he shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hands. He shall see the fruit of his travail of his soul and be satisfied by his knowledge. Shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous. In other words, finally the servant will get it because the suffering servant will make the rest of God's servants knowledgeable and the suffering servant's righteousness by the means by which he makes everybody else righteous. And then that is the key backdrop then, for reading the Passion of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. And I want to take us to two key points here in the Passion narrative. The first is in chapter 15, verse 17. As they clothed him, as the soldiers gather and they mock Jesus and the whole battalion gathers before him because he's. They mock him as the King of the Jews repeatedly. And Pilate puts him forward as the King of the Jews, and the people shall crucify him. So the soldiers then clothed him in a purple cloak and plated a crown of thorns, and they put it on him. And they began to salute him, saying, hail, King of the Jews. And they struck his head with a reed and. And spat upon him. And they knelt down in homage to him, and they mocked and stripped him. And then they stripped him of the purple garment. Now, the purple robe, purple was a dye. And it was the only dye that didn't fade in clothing in the ancient world. There was a special shellfish that they got the purple dye. And people in the ancient world saw that as supernatural, as a sign of the divinity. It was the most expensive clothing was that purple dye. And it was reserved primarily for kings or the very very with wealthy. The chief priests had beautiful purple robes, even with golden threads. And it was the most expensive robe and it was so precious and it looked so royal that the Romans would not let the chief priests keep these royal purple robes because it was too kingly. They kept the high priest's robes in the fortress Antonio and would only let the high priest borrow it for major feast days like the day of Yom Kippur or the Passover. So what purple robe did the soldiers put on Jesus? I'm sure it wasn't Pilate's. It wasn't from Pilate's closet the purple robe. Josephus, a first century Jew says they kept that purple robe in the fortress Antonio in the tower of the fortress Antonio. I believe it was the high priest robe that they put on Jesus as they mock him. He is the true high priest and this is the day of atonement par excellence. He came and was born to be king and he's going to die as the king of Israel. And we'll see in the next episode how as he's mocked at the cross by the chief priests. So we'll move from now it's the Romans and the soldiers who mock him as king. Now we're going to go next to the chief priests and the scribes and and they are going to mock him as king. And then we'll see Jesus response to that denial of his divinity and to his kingship at the foot of the cross next time. So we'll conclude here.