Mark 14:1-11

Radiant Church, November 18, 2018 Mike Rydman Mark 14:1-11 Mark 14:1-2 It was now two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth and kill him, for they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people.” “Stealth” is usually evident when we do something we know deep down is wrong…or right (like smuggling Bibles into China) People are “stealthy” because they believe they are in the right, and therefore “the end justifies the means” People’s greatest fear is other people So…we try to earn other people’s approval. It’s a default setting in all of us And this is why we try to earn God’s approval, earn our salvation Mark 14:3-8 And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured in over his head. There were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they scolded her. But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. For you will always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” Jesus would be dead in two days Jesus would return to the Father in heaven 40 days after he was resurrected from death The ointment was only useful when it was poured out. Jesus was poured out, like a drink offering Appease the wrath of God (propitiation) Substitute atonement Ed Stetzer, Christians in the Age of Outrage Here is the gospel truth: We were once under God’s wrath. In fact, the only response from a perfect and holy God was outrage to our sin and sinfulness. But God did not leave us. He drew near to us. He engaged us and saved us by sending Jesus to become the very outrage we could not overcome. Jesus took the full and unmeasured wrath of God so that, through faith, we can now have peace with God the Father that passes all understanding. While we were still enemies of God, Jesus reconciled us to himself, offering peace and forgiveness. We are now not simply forgiven but welcomed back into God’s family. He adopts us as his children and gives us an inheritance with his obedient Son. And if that were not enough, we are now invited to join Jesus in his mission to bring others back to himself and to set everything right again. He gives us divine jobs as ambassadors of his reconciliation, and he sends his Spirit to empower us to live as missionaries of grace and neighbors. Mark 14:10-11 Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them. And when they heard it, they were glad and promised to give him money. And he sought an opportunity to betray him. “To have any kind of livable society some choices have to be restricted, some authorities have to be respected, and some individual responsibility has to be assumed.” Charles Taylor Ephesians 4:20-24 But that is not he way you learned Christ! – assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth in in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.