'And the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the pastorer,
His disciples said unto Him, Where wilt Thou that we go and prepare
that Thou mayest eat the passover? 13. And He sendeth forth two of His
disciples, and saith unto them, Go ye into the city, and there shall
meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water: follow him. 14. And
wheresoever he shall go in, say ye to the goodman of the house, The
Master saith, Where is the guestchamber, where I shall eat the
passover with My disciples? 15. And he will show you a large upper
room furnished and prepared: there make ready for us. 16. And His
disciples went forth, and came into the city, and found as He had said
unto them: and they made ready the passover.'--Mark xiv. 12-16.
This is one of the obscurer and less noticed incidents, but perhaps it
contains more valuable teaching than appears at first sight.
The first question is--Miracle or Plan? Does the incident mean
supernatural knowledge or a preconcerted token, like the provision of
the ass at the entry into Jerusalem? I think that there is nothing
decisive either way in the narrative. Perhaps the balance of
probability lies in favour of the latter theory. A difficulty in its
way is that no communication seems to pass between the two disciples
and the man by which he could know them to be the persons whom he was
to precede to the house. There are advantages in either theory which
the other loses; but, on the whole, I incline to believe in a
preconcerted signal. If we lose the supernatural, we gain a suggestion
of prudence and human adaptation of means to ends which makes the
story even more startlingly real to us.
But whichever theory we adopt, the main points and lessons of the
narrative remain the same.
I. The remarkable thing in the story is the picture it gives us of
Christ as elaborately adopting precautions to conceal the place.
They are at Bethany. The disciples ask where the passover is to be
eaten. The easy answer would have been to tell the name of the man and
his house. That is not given. The deliberate round-aboutness of the
answer remains the same whether miracle or plan. The two go away, and
the others know nothing of the place. Probably the messengers did not
come back, but in the evening Jesus and the ten go straight to the
house which only He knew.
All this secrecy is in strong contrast with His usual frank and open
appearances.
What is the reason? To baffle the traitor by preventing him from
acquiring previous knowledge of the place. He was watching for some
quiet hour in Jerusalem to take Jesus. So Christ does not eat the
passover at the house of any well-known disciple who had a house in
Jerusalem, but goes to some man unknown to the Apostolic circle, and
takes steps to prevent the place being known beforehand.
All this looks like the ordinary precautions which a man who knew of
the plots against him would take, and might mean simply a wish to save
his life. But is that the whole explanation? _Why_ did He wish to
baffle the traitor?
(a) Because of His desire to eat the passover with the disciples. His
loving sympathy.
(b) Because of His desire to found the new rite of His kingdom.
(c) Because of His desire to bring His death into immediate connection
with the Paschal sacrifice. There was no reason of a selfish kind, no
shrinking from death itself.
The fact that such precautions only meet us here, and that they stand
in strongest contrast with the rest of His conduct, emphasises the
purely voluntary nature of His death: how He _chose_ to be betrayed,
taken, and to die. They suggest the same thought as do the staggering
back of His would-be captors in Gethsemane, at His majestic word, 'I
am He.... Let these go their way.' The narrative sets Him forth as the
Lord of all circumstances, as free, and arranging all events.
Judas, the priests, Pilate, the soldiers, were swept by a power which
they did not know to deeds which they did not understand. The Lord of
all gives Himself up in royal freedom to the death to which nothing
dragged Him but His own love.
Such seem to be the lessons of this narrative in so far as it bears on
our Lord's own thoughts and feelings.