Day 80 - Mark 14, Verses 1-31

From: Chapter-A-Day: Volume 3 By: Norman W. Berry

• 1 min. read • grade level: 7

V.1-2 In two days the great annual celebration of the Passover would take place. The Passover had been kept periodically since Moses first received instructions from God, about 1,300 years before this. Every Passover reminded God of His beloved Son who would die. God makes them carry out their wicked plans on the very day the Passover was killed.

V.3-9 Some calculated the cost of this perfume; what a working man might earn in a year. Though the disciples may have felt the increasing hatred of the leaders against Jesus, this woman, probably Mary (John 12:1-8¹Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. ²There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. ³Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment. ⁴Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him, ⁵Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? ⁶This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein. ⁷Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. ⁸For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always. (John 12:1‑8)) knew that it was going to mean — death. And her love to Jesus was so strong that she understood the true situation better than the disciples. Another thing we don’t find this Mary at the grave of Jesus, looking amongst the dead people. She knew and remembered Him as living.

V.10-11 The opposite — a heart not pure. Though none of the disciples could see any difference in the life of Judas, now the secrets of his heart come out.

V.12-25 Now we see what was in the Lord’s heart — love and concern for His followers. He must show them the way He will give Himself for them. So He starts a new thing here — the remembrance of Him by His followers during the long time between His cross and His coming again. We rest in the finished work of the first, and with joy we wait for the second. Taking the bread and the wine each Lord’s Day, is a link with both. Actually, to verse 21 is the Passover. From 22 to 25 the remembrance of the Lord in a new way. In the Passover they remembered the lamb, but in the bread and wine, they remembered Him!

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