Mark 14:12-26 The Passover Lamb

Mark 14:12-26 The Passover Lamb

Mark 14:12 On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb was being sacrificed, 

On the eve of the Exodus, the families of Israel were instructed to kill the passover lamb. They were to make a meal of its meat, and to spread its blood on the doorposts. Then, when the avenging angel came by to kill every firstborn son, the angel would “pass over” that house marked with the blood. 

Mark alone makes the point that this was the time of the killing of the Passover lamb. Jesus goes on to give instructions about finding and preparing the room where they would meet for this meal - a room that was providentially provided. 

It is during this meal that Jesus quietly identifies Judas as the one who would betray him. Mark includes the very solemn line, “but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.” In the context of a feast about rescue from captivity, Jesus identifies one who has just stepped all the more fully into his captivity, and will not be “passed over.”

The Passover lamb was clearly a substitute for the people. It was sacrificed in place of judgment that was falling on Egypt. They would escape. The lamb would not. They would identify with the lamb by eating it, but that union was limited. Jesus, as He alters the traditional course of the passover meal, identifies the bread and cup with Jesus’ own body and blood. There is here a deeper involvement of the people with the Passover Lamb - a binding of covenantal relationship; a marriage of sorts; a change of identity, in that we are so thoroughly identified with Him.

Again, we are quite sure that the disciples are not absorbing the significance of these events. They love and respect Jesus, but they miss so much. And so they leave, singing a hymn and saying something like, “that was a nice time of worship.” “I’m really glad I showed up today.” “It would have been a shame to miss this.” Little did they know that, as they walked toward the Garden, they were following the shadow of the Passover Lamb.