The Road to Calvary - Day 13: An Intimate Meal with Friends

Imagine this, you've just learned you have 48 hours to live, so you reach out to your dearest friends and family, inviting them over for a final meal.

Who would be sitting around your table, and what would you want to say to them? Well, coming up on Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, we'll get to know Jesus' inner circle, the people he wanted to break bread with just two days before his crucifixion. This is Dave Druey, and under the light of you've joined us today as we continue our series, The Road to Calvary. And before we get to Chip's teaching, Easter weekend is coming, but there's still time to sign up for our free digital devotional. It perfectly complements our journey here through the book of Mark, offering some additional insights each day.

So go to livingontheedge.org or the Chip Ingram app to learn more. If you're ready, go now to Mark chapter 14 as Chip begins his talk, An Intimate Meal with Friends. Welcome to day 13 of our study of the Gospel of Mark, and this is one of my favorite moments in Holy Week. It's Wednesday. It's a very special day, unlike last time where we covered lots, I mean, information, right? Part of 11, chapter 12, 13.

Things are really different. Sunday, the triumphal entry. Monday, he cleanses the temple. Tuesday, it was from early morning all the way through.

It was teaching, teaching, discussion, training, and now they've made the walk back to Bethany. And you understand that Jews account days a little bit differently than most of us do. In fact, if you read Genesis carefully, a day begins after dark. When the sun goes down, the next day starts, and this is going to be a very, very special and unusual day. And I like to do something.

I don't know about you, but maybe this will be helpful for you. I've heard some people talk about we need to use our imagination, never read anything into the text, but to try and get ourselves of what it would actually be like to be hanging out with Jesus. I found myself kind of jotting down a narrative, if you will, from my perspective, and then we'll read the text. But I entitled this A Diamond Moment in Jesus' Darkest Day. The final rays of light disappeared on the horizon. Dusk had given way to darkness.

It had been a long and emotionally draining day. The walk to Jerusalem, the battle in the temple with the religious leaders and all their sly tricks, the teaching of the people, the questions of the disciples, and the looming reality that in less than 48 hours, he'd be crucified. It's Wednesday by Jewish accounting of days.

Tuesday ended when the sun set. It's a festive time for the people as thousands pour into Jerusalem for the celebration of the Passover. Food, dancing, remembering the exodus, catching up with relatives, a firsthand visit for many to the temple. What an exciting event.

The city's bustling with energy. But for Jesus, it's a dark day. It's a day, actually the only day left to personally prepare for the awful event of Friday. After three years of miracles, teaching, feeding the poor, raising an occasional person from the dead, and preparing his disciples, the nation that he came to save rejected him. At this very hour, the leaders are huddled in Jerusalem, in Caiaphas' house, strategically planning how to get Jesus executed as soon as possible, and if possible, without causing a riot. After three years of eating and sleeping and talking and sharing his deepest thoughts, his greatest dreams, his private world, Jesus, one of the closest friends, he's one of the 12, decides that for 30 pieces of silver, he's going to betray him. The outward fight is over.

The public teaching ended. Thursday, he'll prepare his disciples for the final hour when they take the Passover together. But this is Wednesday. It's a time of personal preparation, emotionally, physically, spiritually. Jesus has tonight and a portion of tomorrow to prepare to die for the sins of the world. The die is cast. The clock has begun its irreversible countdown to Friday at 9 a.m. Now, here's the question. How does Jesus prepare to die?

What does he do and why? Well, first, I notice it's a day of rest. A little or nothing is recorded in the scriptures on this day. He stays out of Jerusalem, away from the crowds.

All that we really know about this day is that two major decisions were made and that Jesus chose four close friends to share an informal supper with prior to a day of silence, likely of rest and of prayer. And remembering he's fully human with every human emotion and he's fully God and he knows what's going to come and he gets away. We have no record by himself and I'm sure with the Father to prepare his heart, his mind, his will. Isaiah gives us a hint in Isaiah 54.

Speaking of Messiah, it says, he set his face like a flint toward the cross. This would not be easy. This would require all of his willpower and all the Father's grace and even in the moment of testing, he'll ask the Father, is there any other way nevertheless? Not my will, but yours.

It raises a question I'd like you to maybe ask yourself. If you knew you had less than 48 hours to live, what four people would you invite over for dinner to have a meal, to have conversation, to share the time, you know, along with your family, of course. But what four people outside of your family would you invite?

And maybe they don't even know it's your last 48 hours. Who would you invite in and why? Jesus had four close friends.

They're kind of an unusual group. Before we read the passage, let me introduce you. First, there's Simon the leper, which got his name for obvious reasons, right? Second, there's Lazarus who he raised from the dead. Third, there's Martha who at one point was a little too busy and then later she hears directly from Jesus. I mean, everything was shrouded in mystery, but Martha, Jesus told her straight up, I am the Messiah.

I am the one. I am the resurrection and the life. And then we have Mary who has a tender heart, is filled with devotion, loves to sit at Jesus' feet. And did you ever consider, why would he invite them? And then also think about why he would have these four people and what they meant to him. And maybe it gives you a glimpse of the kind of sacrifice and the struggle and sort of a window, not just of him hanging on the cross and yes, being beaten and flogged and all that physical pain, but that part of relationships that you want people to share things with that can understand, right?

That can get you, that can provide support. And so Simon the leper, to me, he brings a level of identification and gratitude. I mean, here's someone that for most of his life before Jesus healed him was a reject, was someone that people didn't want to be around, that he was rejected by family, rejected by the culture, rejected by everyone. His identity was mocked, you know, leper, leper, ring that bell, get away from us, you're terrible.

And I have to believe that on this Wednesday, Jesus has to, in his mind, be going through all the miracles and all the teaching and all the fulfilled prophecy and I am the king. I came for my people and he was rejected by them. And at this point, as far as we know, he's still rejected by his family. John gives us a hint in John chapter one, it says, he came unto his own and those who were his own did not receive him. And then there's a great line for all the rest of us, but to as many as receive him, to them he gave the right, literally the word is the authority or the power to become children of God to anyone or literally to everyone who believes. Keeps getting back to faith, doesn't it? So I got to think that Jesus thought, you know, I could eat dinner with a lot of people, but I think Simon knows what I'm going through.

He knows what it's like to be pushed away, to be rejected. I don't know anyone who said, I'd like to sign up for leprosy. You know, how do you get leprosy? Who knows? He didn't do anything wrong. He didn't do anything wrong and he's ostracized his whole life until he's healed. I think Simon would be someone that could understand as he and Jesus and the others talked that night along with the disciples.

And then Lazarus to me is kind of like camaraderie. Like Jesus came from heaven. He's going to go back to heaven. How many people do you know that like had a short visit to heaven and came back and you could sort of talk about, you know that joy set before you? I mean, I bet this is really private conversation. Who knows?

No one knows. Like, Hey, Lazarus, I know it was four days. I know it was great. I know you saw the father. You got a glimpse of some really good stuff. Sorry you had to come back to serve a bigger purpose.

You can't share a lot of that stuff. But I just wonder if that night Lazarus was a great comrade. Someone who like no one else knew, you know, this is going to be tough.

This is going to be a challenge, but it's worth it. The writer of Hebrews kind of tells us that who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame. But he saw us. He saw the glory. He saw what it would accomplish.

He was going to obey the father. And in my mind, I think it'd be good to have Lazarus there at dinner. The third one is Martha.

I think she gets a bit of a bad rap. Someone needs to do logistics, right? Someone needs to set up the chairs, put the chairs away, you know, operate the sound, turn on the lights, you know, clean things up when everybody leaves, prepare the meal. And by the way, preparing a meal, let's see, you've got 12 disciples and you've got four friends and Jesus, let me do my math here, 17 people.

She didn't go to Whole Foods, you know, she didn't go down to Costco and say, you know, can I get this, this, this and this and this? And, you know, I'll stick it in the oven for a few hours. And I mean, that's a big job today in a modern world.

This is a huge undertaking. And she expresses her love by service. She's going to put on a meal and I'm sure there's servants and help, but she's going to put on a meal for 17 people. And I'm going to tell you, she made that to say, I love you, Jesus. I love you, Jesus. And you know, that's how God wants some of us to say, I love you by serving, by serving Him. And notice when we serve Him, you serve all those other people.

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And thanks so much for your help. Well, here again is Chip. And then we've got Mary. Mary is just Mary. You know, she just loves God's word. She's just devoted.

She's part of who we all want to be, that wholehearted, I'm in, I love you, I don't care what people think. And she will take an alabaster and I've done a little background research and according to some scholars, the jar described here is about 12 ounces and it probably came from the mountains in India in the Himalayas and was worth about 300 days of work, 300 in RI. Man, that's a bunch of money. In a world where if you have enough food for today and for the next day or so, you're considered rich and a lot of people are going out every day. All those parables are people don't have work, they need to work today and why it was commanded that you have to pay them at the end of the day is because if you didn't pay workers at the end of the day, they didn't eat and they didn't have food. And so what she's doing, I mean, some of those disciples, you know, when we read the story and most of you are familiar with the story, right, she's going to break it. I mean, she's not going to pour some and say, you know, I think Jesus is worth about 33% of this.

She breaks it and she pours it over his head and down his beard and then it even goes down on his feet and she undoes her hair completely inappropriate, breaks every possible cultural rule. I mean, there's the disciples and as the perfume gets on his feet, she takes her hair and she bows down, she wipes his feet. And of course, the disciples are indignant, you know, we could have fed the poor and most of you know the story how Jesus responds. I think Jesus wanted Mary there because at the end of the day, it's really what he's looking for.

It's why he came. People that would worship him for him, not Jesus, what can you give me? Not Jesus plus a good house, not Jesus with the right person, not Jesus if my kids turn out, not Jesus plus money, not Jesus plus success, not Jesus plus fulfillment, not Jesus, just Jesus, just Jesus. I love you, Jesus, and I'm going to break every rule.

I'm going to take extravagant, costly, reckless amount of money and I'm going to do something that I'll never ever get to do again. And I don't know how much she understood. Certainly the disciples, you know, at least they've heard, I'm coming to Jerusalem to die. And we don't need to know how much, but Jesus' response was, you leave her alone. You leave her alone. There's going to be poor people forever.

This is a one-time deal. I won't be around. She's preparing me for my burial. And I couldn't help but think, I mean, this is a very, very strong perfume, the way they describe it. Thick and coming down and it's on his clothes and it's in his hair and it's in his beard. And when you're interrogating him later and when you're putting thorns on his head, you can smell it. And when they strip off his clothes to beat him and the guards are going, you could smell it. There was an aroma about Jesus. I wonder what that smell reminded him of as he was carrying his cross and then fell down and the devotion of a Mary. And so he's got those four people at dinner and the disciples. And after this dinner, it's their Wednesday, it's our Tuesday night after dark. And he is going through the process of setting his face like a flint.

I don't know, there's something about picturing that and writing that out that is super helpful for me. Follow along as I read the text. Now the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were only two days away and the chief priest and the teachers of the law were looking for some sly way to arrest Jesus and kill him. But not during the feast, they said, or the people may riot. While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume made of nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head. Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another why this waste of perfume could have been sold for more than a year's wages and the money be given to the poor. And they rebuked her harshly. Leave her alone, said Jesus. And you know what?

I think that was his tone of voice. Maybe not. Why are you bothering her?

I love this. She has done a beautiful thing for me. I think to myself, when's the last time I did a beautiful thing for Jesus? Not a good thing. Not a righteous thing. Not a, I know I'm supposed to be a good person. I know I'm supposed to have the right attitude. I know I'm supposed to be generous. I get all that. Is all that important?

Yes. But this is described as a beautiful thing. This comes from a woman with this heart so full of love. The poor you will always have with you and you can help them at any time you want.

But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial.

I tell you the truth. Wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her. Then Judas Iscariot, one of the 12, went out to the chief priest to betray Jesus to them. They were delighted to hear this. And they promised to give him money.

So he watched for an opportunity to hand him over. One of the things that the writers of Scripture do to bring about points is contrast. They show these things in just such contrast to jar our attention. Mary's devotion, Judas' betrayal.

Contrast. Mary's perception, the disciples' blindness. Mary gets it. He's going to die.

She's been talking about this. Mary believes, what can I do? I'll worship him with all I've got. The disciples still on the external agenda. Reckless use of money for love and interesting behavior to get money out of greed betraying the Savior. She did a beautiful thing. Judas did a despicable thing.

And finally, Jesus is preparing in solitary time with friends to go to the cross while at the same time a group of Jewish religious leaders, knowing so much of the Bible, are slyly planning to figure out, how do we kill him? Pretty drastic. Final thought I have kind of from a devotional point with Mary in worship is because the question I ask myself and I'll ask you is, when is the last time you did something reckless for Jesus? I mean, reckless in terms of good.

Reckless that was like, man, this is illogical. This cost a lot. And I thought about it. And I did a little analyzing of Mary. And I realized some characteristics of her worship that's a little different than mine.

And I want mine to be a lot more like hers. One, she violated culture. That means she didn't care what everybody thought.

And to my shame, I care way too much about what people think. I mean, she let her hair down. She's got her nose on his feet. She's wiping his feet with her hair.

This perfume is in the air everywhere. The disciples are gawking. She's been told, what are you doing?

She's harshly rebuked. I don't care. I don't care what you think of me. This is Jesus. This is my shot.

I don't care what you think. One thing that struck me, that it was planned. This wasn't like just a spontaneous, oh, I have a liver quiver. I'll see how much money I have in my wallet. And I'll put it in the plate or in the box or whatever. The dinners at Simon's house, she had to plan to bring the perfume from her house to Simon's house. She planned to be extravagant.

The next thing I see is it's from her heart. She gave something that was precious to her. I mean, a woman in that day might be like, what, a diamond necklace today? I mean, it's not like a bunch of disciples are going, boy, what's really precious to me is a bunch of perfume.

This would be a rare, super expensive, extravagant thing that would be a personal possession of normally just the wealthiest of women. She gave what was most precious. And what I like, it was impractical and extravagant. When's the last time you did something like really impractical and extravagant in your service or your love for Jesus? And I love the last part.

It was pure, undefiled, no pretense, just love. And I know that that is the kind of heart and the kind of life that Jesus is calling us to. I mean, some of this is really hard, right? I mean, if we were going to look back through the whole book, you know, we would see that this is the beginning of the gospel and Jesus calls us and he says, who am I? And we learn he's God and he's a savior. And then he goes through all this opposition because he wants us to know that's part of the deal.

And then he withdraws privately and he teaches us and we see miracles. And then he, three different times tells him, I'm going to die. I'm going to die.

I'm going to die. And they never quite get it, but it's because I love you and this is God's plan. And the whole point is, will you follow me? Will you deny yourself, take up your cross, follow me, live out this life and the power of the Holy Spirit, like I'm living it out in the power of the Holy Spirit to please my father so that yes, the cross is painful and difficult, but the reward, the crown is both now and forever and ever and ever. And when you live the way I live and when you do what I do, the same things that happen out of my life that change people's life and healed people and brought love and brought unity and brought transformation. That's what he wants to do in and through your life and my life. And we'll always do it very imperfectly, but I would just ask you on this Wednesday to think about what an extravagant, impractical, reckless moment of service or love or generosity you might express to Jesus.

Because it seems that what Mary did meant a lot to him, and he's looking for Mary's. And I, for one, want to be one. This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and today's message, An Intimate Meal with Friends, is from our series, The Road to Calvary. I'm Dave Druey, and if you've missed any part of this teaching, go back and catch up through the Chip Ingram app or at livingonthedge.org. Well, Chip's here in studio with me now to share something with all of you as we wrap up.

Thanks so much, Dave. I just want to pause and thank those of you who are our monthly partners. You know, there's a significant group of people that each and every month, all various sizes, give monthly to Living on the Edge. And it is such a joy to know that there's stability and income that we know that's coming in that allows us to plan in really significant ways.

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