So Mark chapter 14, and we're
going to read together verses one and two. After two days was the feast
of the Passover and of unleavened bread. And the chief priests
and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft and put
him to death. But they said, not on the feast
day, lest there be an uproar of the people. Amen. May the Lord bless to us this
reading. Short and sweet today, but I
trust that no less meaningful for that. Throughout The book
of Mark as we have been reading it and studying it together. We have been following the Lord
Jesus Christ as he made his way towards Jerusalem. and particularly
with this fact in mind, that he was making his way towards
Jerusalem and he was making his way towards the cross. And we've been observing over
the weeks, and indeed it's become months now, many of them indeed,
and we have noted the urgency and the commitment with which
the Lord approached this great work of redemption. I'll take your minds back for
a moment or two if I may. In Mark chapter 8 and verse 31
we read there that the Lord Jesus began to teach his disciples
that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected of
the elders and of the chief priests and the scribes and be killed
and after three days rise again. Now, the Lord had, in these very
recent days, been debating with the elders and the chief priests
and the scribes, and the disciples have observed how he defeated
them with their arguments and their questions and their contentions,
but they also saw how much hatred there was in the hearts and in
the spirits of these men towards Christ. And again, in Mark chapter
9, we discover that the Lord, a second time, explains to his
disciples that he is going to Jerusalem, but when he gets there,
he will be killed by these very people. He says in verse 31 of
Mark 9, For he taught his disciples and said unto them, The Son of
Man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him. And after that he is killed,
he shall rise the third day. And in Mark chapter 10 in verse
33 and 34 we read, Behold we go up to Jerusalem. and the Son
of Man shall be delivered unto the chief priests and unto the
scribes, and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver
him to the Gentiles, and they shall mock him and scourge him,
and shall spit upon him, and shall kill him, and the third
day he shall rise again. There was no lack of understanding in any
way concerning what the Lord was going to in Jerusalem. Our Saviour was under no illusion
concerning what this journey to Jerusalem meant. He knew he
was going to suffer. He knew he was going to die.
He knew the very violence that would be enacted upon him. and yet he pressed on eagerly. Indeed, as we read the scriptures
together, we discover that he pressed on longingly for the
accomplishment of the salvation that would come for his people
by his death. It's almost as if the Lord was
looking forward to his death because he knew that that would
be the great work that would end his labours and secure the
bride of his passion, the people that he loved. And thus we find
the Lord in Luke chapter 19 and verse 28, zealously going before
his disciples, ascending up to Jerusalem and telling his disciples
in Luke chapter 12 verse 50, I have a baptism to be baptised
with. He was speaking about his death.
I have a baptism to be baptised with and how am I straightened? until it be accomplished. You know what that word straightened
means? Pained. Pained. The Lord was
saying that in himself, it was almost as if he was in pain. I say almost as if. He says,
I am straightened until it be accomplished. Even saying to
Judas in John chapter 13 verse 27, what thou doest, do quickly. And so we see this zeal, we see
this energy, we see this enthusiasm on the part of the Lord, this
urgency to be about this business of the redemption of His people. And yet, there was also a steady
pace to all of this. Because the day of the Lord's
death, the day of Christ's death was appointed, as indeed is the
day of all our deaths. It is appointed unto men once
to die. There is a day on which we will
die. We will not die a day before
that. We will not die a day after the
day that is appointed. Just a little bit of an aside,
but if you think about that, there is a peace that comes from
meditating upon that fact for those who love the Lord. But
as far as the Lord himself was concerned, the day of his death
was also appointed. So here we have this urgency
on the part of the Lord. The Lord declaring that he is
straightened until these things can be accomplished and yet,
There is a pace and there is a timeliness to all of this. Why? Well, because there were
promises to be kept. There were prophecies to be fulfilled. There were types to be satisfied. There was nothing random or unplanned
about this event of the Lord's death. Indeed, if we were to
step back for a moment, everything in time, everything
in eternity had been moving towards this great event from before
the foundation of the world. God's covenant of grace was built
upon the achievements of the God-man in this moment of time. The eternal purpose of justification
and everlasting life for God's elect people hinged, turned on
this moment. So while the Lord Jesus Christ
was eager, God was also thoroughly precise and detailed in every
aspect of this great work of mercy. Now just look, for example, at
what Mark says to us in these verses before us today, regarding
concerning the chief priests and the scribes seeking to put
the Lord Jesus Christ to death. This, we're told, was their desire,
their fervent desire. We're told that the chief priests
and scribes sought how they might take him by craft and put him
to death. That was their desire. But their
plan, their design, their intention was to delay the arrest of the
Lord Jesus and to delay his execution until the end of the Passover
and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. So while they had been shamed
by the Lord on that day, that Tuesday particularly, when the
Lord had met them, group by group by group by group, coming in,
the scribes, the Pharisees, the Herodians, the Sanhedrin, they
had all come bringing their questions, bringing their allegations, bringing
their questions of His authority. and they had all been sent away
ashamed. And the hatred of the Lord built
and they knew he must be dealt with and he must be dealt with
quickly. And yet they wanted to put it
off for about nine days until the end of the Feast of Unleavened
Bread. Why? because they were afraid
of the people. By that time, Jerusalem would
be starting to empty again. The people would be returning
to their homes. There was an obligation on all
male Jewish people to be in Jerusalem for this feast. This feast especially,
there were three feasts, but this feast of Passover and unleavened
bread was the highest feast of all. So Jerusalem was packed
with people and the priests knew that Jesus was admired by any,
especially the people from Galilee, where many of Jesus' followers
came from. and they would be returning home
after the feast. Then would be the moment for
the Jewish leadership to strike. That would be their opportunity
to take the Lord by craft and be rid of him once and for all. but that wouldn't satisfy God's
timing. That wouldn't satisfy the prophecy
or the types that God had put in place in the Old Testament.
God had determined otherwise and God's counsel shall stand. You see, it was God's pleasure
that Christ should be put to death during the feast. That The pleasure of God was
that the divine sacrifice would answer the type of the Passover
lamb. And that all Israel, whose males
were all now gathered together, would witness the death of Jesus
on the cross. And so it was that though these
men resolved one thing in their council, Yet, when Judas supplied
the opportunity to get Christ into their hands immediately,
they grasped at it and they arrested him in Gethsemane, according
to Judas' trap. But we're running ahead of ourselves.
My point is simply to show that God's timing is perfect. Christ's
appointed time is certain, and everything in this final week
before the death of the Saviour was purposeful and ordained. Now, these two things, the precise
timing and purpose of God, and the intense busyness and urgency
of the Lord up until now, has led me in my own thinking and
in my own preparation to settle on the subject of today's service. And that is the intrigue that
I have over this Wednesday, this day that none of the gospel writers
speak about. This is a silent day. in the
Lord's week running up to his crucifixion. Now we've read about
the Lord entering into Jerusalem on the first day of the week,
on the Sunday, and how the crowds were cheering him and cutting
down the palm leaves and throwing their coats into the street.
And we've read about the Lord traveling from Bethany to Jerusalem
and being engaged in the temple. And we specified some of those
things yesterday on that little introduction. I hope you've had
an opportunity to think about that. But there is silence with respect
to Wednesday and none of the gospel writers write anything
about it. What happened on Wednesday prior
to the Passover and the Lord's crucifixion? We don't know. And as I said to you in yesterday's
introduction, I think that that silence is both interesting and
remarkable. So with your leave, and with
that as a way of explanation, I'm going to remark upon it.
Now I accept that I'm talking about a matter that scripture
does not discuss, but that's the whole point. And because
I find it interesting, I thought, and I hope that you might too.
I simply want to point out the absence of information and comments
seems to distinguish this day from all the other days in the
week. And perhaps it's not wrong for
us to wonder if the Lord in his human nature took this moment,
these few hours, this day, to prepare himself for his travail
in Gethsemane, for the trials that he would
face before Caiaphas and Herod and Pilate, for the suffering
that he was about to endure on the cross and if perhaps he took
time as it were to pause in the busyness of this week the full
days of Monday and Tuesday, the day of preparation on Thursday,
the day of his crucifixion on Friday. If you took this Wednesday,
this silent Wednesday, to pause and anticipate and prepare for
the physical and spiritual ordeal that lay before him, Let us not forget the Lord's
humanity. Let us not forget that he was
a man like us. He was in all points tempted
and tested like as we are. He was without sin. Yet who amongst
us would not value a time of quiet repose and contemplation
to settle our hearts and our minds before such a torment and
such a torture, knowing as he did from those repeated verses,
not only that he was about to suffer, but the very acts of
torture that he was about to endure. And I hope that just
taking this service, this sermon, to draw us a little bit closer
to this thought, a little deeper into his love for us and what
he endured for us might help us to see the Lord more clearly. As the Lord quietened his own
heart in anticipation of his sufferings and sacrifice, We
too might learn to value the pauses that God in his providence
gives us in our lives by whatever means that that might happen. How the Saviour spent this day,
we don't know. That's the point that I'm making.
These are the things not seen. Perhaps the day was spent at
Bethany or quietly on the Mount of Olives. We don't know. Whether
he was alone, whether he was with his disciples, whether he
was with his friends, Mary and Martha and Lazarus. We are told
in the book of Isaiah, the prophecy of Isaiah, that the Lord would
see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. I wonder if
he only saw of the travail of his soul when he was actually
on the cross, or whether here some satisfaction in anticipating
that these friends of his human ministry here on earth were those
for whom he was laying down his life. I feel sure that the Lord
would have been much in prayer on this day, but we do not know
what prayers he prayed. We're not told what scriptures
he meditated upon or what comfort he received from his Father.
John tells us that the Holy Spirit takes of the things of Christ
and shows them to us but not today. Today, the Lord's communing
with his Father is private and personal and intentionally remains
so. The Holy Spirit, the Gospel writers
have told us nothing of this day, the eve of the beginning
of Christ's sufferings and his passion. And yet I cannot but suppose
that the thoughts of the Lord's heart turned to the Psalms and
to the Prophets as they so often did at times like these. We've
noted many times in our reading of the Psalms and the Prophets
how they indicate to us God's dealings with his son and the
God-man's private pleadings in periods of trial. And how lovely and illuminating
it is for us to place David's verses upon the lips of the Lord
Jesus Christ. and to see how Christ united
himself to his people, both by taking our flesh and experiencing
so much of the experiences of our own life. When the Lord tells us that the
Old Testament Scriptures speak of Him, might we put the verses,
the words of Psalm 23, 4 and 5 into the lips of the Lord?
I think so. Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou
art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. thou
preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies,
thou anointest my head with oil. I think it's very likely that
the Lord's head was anointed with oil on that previous night,
on that Tuesday evening, if that is indeed when the feast at the
house of Simon the leper took place. We discover there that
the lady came behind him, perhaps it was Mary, and anointed his
head with oil. There would still have been that
oil upon his head as the Lord went through this Wednesday.
Or perhaps the glorious and beautiful conversation between the father
and the son that is recorded in Psalm 91 might have merit
on an occasion like this. where the origin of that, Sam,
finds its meaning, its power in the words of the father's
comfort to his son. Because he hath set his love
upon me, therefore will I deliver him. I will set him on high because
he hath known my name. He shall call upon me and I will
answer him. I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honour him. With long life will I satisfy
him and show him my salvation. The Saviour perhaps reflected
upon the reason, the purpose of the covenant blessings that
were bestowed upon him in his human spirit, the purpose for
his coming, the reason why he was here on this eve of his sufferings. his mediatorial roles in his
offices of prophet and priest and the sacrificial lamb. And
Isaiah chapter 50 in verses four to six says, the Lord God hath
given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak
a word in season to him that is weary. There is the great
prophetic role of the Lord Jesus Christ. He wakeneth morning by
morning. He waketh mine ear to hear as
the learned. The Lord God hath opened mine
ear. And I was not rebellious. Oh,
the voluntary substitutionary work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He was not rebellious, neither turned away his back. I gave
my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off
the hair. I had not my face from shame
and spitting. Our blessed Jesus knew exactly
what he faced. in these coming days, in these
coming hours. So in the gospel, several of
the Lord's prayers are recorded for our comfort and blessing.
However, on this occasion, particulars are not given, nor indeed are
they necessary. Because when we look at what
the Lord Jesus Christ achieved in these following days, they
are sufficient witness of the usefulness of these silent hours
of respite for the Lord's soul. It's enough for us to know the
success of the sacrifice, the accomplishment of the atonement,
the complete payment of every debt on behalf of His people,
to explain the quietness, the silence of this day of preparation. But I just want to make two little
points in closing with respect to this day, and then we will
be done. We might consider, from these
opening verses of chapter 14, we might consider the contrast
on this day between the Lord and his enemies. The contrast
between the Lord and his enemies on this Wednesday. We're on the
eve of the Lord's suffering in Gethsemane, followed shortly
after by his crucifixion, the crucifixion of his body and the
outpouring of the cup of God's wrath into Christ's soul. Christ is about to be made sin
for us. And the coming on or the commencement
of these trials on Thursday and Friday, recounted for us as they
are by the Gospel writers, implies that Wednesday was not a day
of trouble, but rather a day of repose and a time of rest
and calmness for the Lord. And if that is so, It is in stark
contrast to the restlessness of those who spent the day planning
his destruction. Judas lightly on the Tuesday
night had gone to meet with the Sanhedrin and the Sanhedrin all
day Wednesday were scheming how they might take him by stealth
and put him to death. Take him by craft and put him
to death. On the eve of their most important
religious day, these men had no peace. They had no calm. They had no repose. They were
fearful for their lives. They were hectically engaged
in plotting for a murder. They were fretting for their
own ambition. At Judas's approach, can I say
this? At Judas's approach, all hell
broke loose in the high priest's palace. What a blessed contrast
that is between Christ and his enemies, the children of light
and the children of darkness. There was peace in the soul of
Christ as he anticipated all that he had to endure. and there
was distress in the souls of these men as they plotted and
schemed against the Saviour. Proverbs chapter 28 verse 1 says,
The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are bold as
a lion. And let's just apply another
psalm to the Lord while we're at it. Psalm 127 verse 2, So
he giveth his beloved sleep. Everyone who denies God, everyone
who denies judgment and hell, spend their whole lives fearful
of death and dying. Yet those who are convinced of
judgment to come, find their peace by looking to Christ. The terror of a guilty conscience
gives no peace. but comfort and joy is the portion
of the people of faith. They that seek the Lord understand
all things. That was the first point and
here's the second one and then we're done. Even Christ's silence
points believers to the cross. The Lord pointed to the cross
many times in the words that He spoke, in the things that
He did, but even His silence, even the silence of the Gospel
writers, even the silence of this Wednesday points us to the
cross. The Holy Spirit, by hiding the
events of this day, reminds us that while we take great delight
in seeing the unfolding elements of the Lord's saving work on
our behalf, the great resting place for our
souls is not the process but the product of Christ's labours,
the salvation that he accomplished and the redemption that he wrought. The Lord's prayers are beautiful. The Lord's parables are illuminating. The Lord's miracles are wonderful
and thrilling. And the example of the Lord's
life together with these other aspects all combine together. But they combine to point us
to the cross. It's by the blood of Christ that
our sins are forgiven, and it is in the death of Christ that
our redemption is secured. If we take the parts of Christ's
ministry, His teaching, or His example, or His love, or His
kindness, or His generosity, and tease those elements of the
Lord's ministry apart, oh I don't know, in order to lay Christ-likeness
upon individuals or in order to speak about certain examples
by way of showing us how we should live or for whatever reason it
might be done. If we isolate the elements of
the Lord's life and character and personality and ministry,
if we isolate them piece from piece, then beautiful as those
parts may be and suitable as they may be to be imitated by
the followers of the Lord, we'll have missed the point. Because
the point is, that Christianity and the work of Christ is about
salvation by faith in the death of a suitable saviour. The sacrifice of Christ on our
behalf and in our place is what all these things lead us to. It's not about emulating the
example of Christ. It's about trusting in what Christ
has accomplished. And there's much to learn about
the Lord Jesus Christ. There's much to know about Him
as the Saviour. And all that is necessary. And
I'm not saying that we are to be in any way limited in our
thinking and our studies of the Lord. But I don't know what Jesus
did on the Wednesday before the cross, but I do know what he
did on the cross. And though this day is not mentioned
by any of the Gospel writers, I shall think of it in Christ's
life as a day of quiet preparation and anticipation, a day of personal
rest and respite in which the Master's own soul was prepared
for the cross, strengthened and equipped for the trials that
lay ahead. We often find it satisfying to
examine the parts of the Lord's ministry, but hear the complete
silence. By that silence which the Holy
Spirit has given us, he reminds us that the greater glory is
in the purpose of salvation and in our redemption. The details
of this day are hidden from our view. but the victory that they
shaped and the glory that followed is the hope of faith to every
believer. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to our hearts today. Thank you for your attention.