Lesson # 41 | MARK 14:22-31 | THE REVERSAL OF DEATH AND FAILURE

I.    Greetings: 

 

II.   Introduction:  One of the things we fear is failure.  Often we will not try something, not because we think it is wrong but because we are afraid to fail.  Another thing we fear is death, and we can often be crippled by the fear of it.  Jesus fears neither.  In His Work and in His Person is the reversal of both death and failure.  Mark 14 deal with both of these issues.

 

III.  The Lord's Supper:  The Reversal of Death.  Mark 14:22-26.

>>>> Have someone read Mark 14:22-26.

            Q  What do you think the bread symbolizes in 14:22?

               An = Lane thinks it does not symbolize the broken body as it does a pledge of personal presence.  Whenever we hold any piece of bread, we hold a reminder that He is with us.  He was once bread for us.  He is now with us. (Lane, p. 506)

            Q  What does the wine symbolize?

               An = That He died for us.  Blood also seals a covenant.             

            Note:  In the Passover service the youngest person present asks what makes this day different.  The head of the household tells the history of Israel down to the passover.  To the Jew it can never become a ritual, rather it always symbolizes the power and mercy of God.  (Barclay, p. 354)

            Note:  Mark records that Jesus and the disciples sung a hymn before they left.  The reason for this is that they sung hymns at a passover service as well.  One of the hymns they sung was from Psalms 118. 

>>>> Have someone read Psalms 118:22-29

            Note:  One thing the Lord's Supper clearly teaches is that our ultimate good cannot be accomplished without His death.  It is not our religious actions, our faithfulness, or our good deeds that accomplish our salvation.  It is His death!

            Q  For His death to be affective can we take communion unworthily?

               An = Today we are quite willing to despise Judas and those who killed our Lord, but it is not despicable to attempt to receive such a great sacrifice with a filthy soul?  Are we not despising Jesus, and His sacrifice, by such actions?

            Note:  It is by His embracing death for us that He breaks the power of death.  He did not want to die, but He did not let the fear of death overshadow His love for us.  He took the power of death and made it the means of our salvation.  He reversed the greatest tragedy on earth and made it the greatest reason to have hope.

            The cross is not a symbol of condemnation but of hope.  By dying Jesus reversed death!

 

IV.  The Disciple's Failure:  The Reversal of Shortcoming.  Mark 14:27-31.

>>>> Have someone read Mark 14:27-28.

            Note:  Jesus told them they would fail Him and all of them would "fall away".

            Q  Do we like to be told that we will fail?  Why not?

               An = (Let them give their answers.)  No one likes to hear bad news about themselves, especially about their actions.  Let me give you a simple reason:  pride! 

 

            Q  Is it cruel to tell someone they will fail when you know it is the truth?

               An = It is not necessarily cruel if it is true, and it has a loving intent behind it.

            Q  Was Jesus trying to put them down?  Was He trying to demean them?

               An = No, He loved them!  He wanted them to succeed, and He knew they were going to fail.  He knows human nature.  He also specifically knew their future, it was predicted in Scripture.

            He knew they would be devastated when they failed and it would eventually be helpful to know that He knew before hand.  He was not devastated.  I once spoke with a young high school age Christian as I was dropping him off from camp on a Sunday afternoon.  He told me he felt so good that he would never feel spiritually low again in his life.  I then warned him about the let down that would happen after the "camp-high" was over.  He defiantly looked me in the eye and said, "You're wrong, it will not happen to me!"   The following Tuesday I was on his campus, and he came up to me privately and said, "How did you know man?"  I told him, I had seen this many times before and had experienced it many times myself.  It did not invalidate his camp experience, nor did it make him a lessor Christian.

            Jesus was not trying to put the disciples down, but warn them.

>>>> Have someone read Mark 14:29.

            Q  Peter was wrong in his brave statements, but was his heart in the right place?

               An = Yes, it was!  Many of us have started out well but failed.  We have the right motives, but as Matthew records Jesus saying,  "The Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."

            Note:  Chrysostom (pp. 494-495) says there are two ingredients to gaining spiritual maturity:  our willingness to struggle and our willingness to receive help from God.  Without both we will fail.  We must be willing, but we cannot succeed alone. 

            Some of us are not willing to struggle and to try.  We want things easier and God will not make it easier.  However, once we truly struggle with all of our might we will soon learn that we cannot succeed without His grace. 

            We must then be willing to ask for His power to backup our efforts.  Peter thought his bravado and natural love for Jesus would be enough to carry him through.  He was wrong.  Peter needed to learn that Jesus' sufficiency was going to be necessary. 

>>>> Have someone read Mark 14:30-31.

            Note:  Is it not amazing that the holy disciples of God did not listen to Jesus Christ, the Holy Son of God?   We did this with our parents when we were young, or if we are young are we doing it now.

            Note:  My dentist in Los Angeles used to tell us:  "Jr. highers should rule the world while they still know everything?"  Sometimes we are like the apostles, we are still in spiritual adolescence, we are spiritual know-it-alls. 

            Note:  Jesus kept pressing on.  He would not give in to Peter's living in denial, until Peter insisted on incriminating himself.  Jesus let him do it, and then painfully Peter learned.

 

V.  Conclusion:

            Q  Why did Jesus allow Peter to fail?

               An = After they have given their answers, share with them some of Chrysostom's view point (if they did not come up with it on their own) that Peter, though the chief apostle, is allowed to fall, it "makes him humbler in mind, training him for greater love".  (Chrysostom, p. 495). 

            It is easy to see how Peter was to become more humble by his failure.  We are less apt to judge others when we experience failure ourselves.  However, ....

            Q  How does Peter's failure train him for greater love?

               An = Chrysostom then quotes Luke 7:47:  about the one who has been forgiven much loves much and who has been forgiven little loves little (p. 495).  Peter received Jesus' forgiveness in a great and powerful manner and was to open his heart to Jesus in an even more powerful loving way.

            RQ Have you ever noticed that those who receive forgiveness for great sins seem to be the more loving Christians?

            Note: It is when we see our failures that we can begin to be true leaders in the church.  So many in church work or christian work today have not seen their failure and consequently they do not see what ministry is really about.  They are so afraid that they will not be accepted by others if someone sees a crack in the armor. 

            As some have put it they do not have a good theology of failure. 

            Q  When do we not have a good theology of failure?

               An = When we never confess our failures, even though everyone has them.  However, because we do not confess, we do not understand the power of reversal because we have never experienced it ourselves, and therefore we have no hope that it can happen to us or to others by God's power.  We must see our own sin, and failures to see the true meaning of the Gospel.

            The Christian religion is founded on eleven men who were failures.  If you know yourself as a failure, then a true Christian walk can begin.

            Note:  It is our denials of failure that drown out Jesus' promises.

>>>> Have someone re-read Mark 14:28.

            Peter did not hear the promise of rejoining Jesus after the failure in Galilee.  Peter never heard that promise because he was too busy denying his possibility of failure.   If we cannot face our failures we cannot see that Jesus sees beyond the failure.   Jesus sees the hope.  He knows who and what we are and that we will fail and still He wants us back!  

>>>> Have someone read Zachariah 13:9.

            Note:  May we become like refined silver and tested gold and as we face our betrayals of God, for then we can join Him in Galilee.  From there grace begins.