📖Mark 14:32-52

➡️ Jesus Prays in Gethsemane

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prays with deep sorrow.

“Abba, Father,” He pleads, “remove this cup from me.”

It’s a window into His full humanity.

Jesus knows what’s coming: not just the nails and thorns, but the full wrath of God.

He’ll be abandoned, crushed under judgment meant for us.

It shows that we too are allowed to bring our fears to God.

And yet, Jesus finishes with, “Not what I will, but what You will.”

Meanwhile, His disciples can’t stay awake. This isn’t just sleepiness—it may be despair.

Their bodies shut down under the weight of grief and fear.

Jesus tells them, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

➡️ Jesus is Betrayed and Arrested

Then comes Judas. The Uncultured Saints wrestle with what’s really going on with Judas.

Was it greed? Despair? Misguided hope?

Did he think Jesus would escape again and this was just a push?

He calls Jesus “Rabbi,” not “Lord” — a hint he still didn’t truly see who Jesus was.

The kiss, a sign of peace, becomes a signal of betrayal.

Whether his intentions were confused or malicious, the outcome was the same.

Judas’ betrayal triggers the arrest, yet Jesus remains in control, willingly surrendering to fulfill His mission.

➡️ A Naked Man Flees

Mark describes a young man following Jesus, wearing nothing but a linen cloth. When the crowd grabs him, he escapes by slipping out of the cloth and runs away naked.
Many believe this was Mark himself, quietly placing his own story in the margins.
A confession of fear, maybe shame — but also a witness. He was there. He saw it. And even though he ran, he still wrote it down.
Because that’s the point: Jesus didn’t run. He faced the cross — for them, for Judas, for Mark, for us.
Contributor Rev. Harrison Goodman is the Higher Things Executive Director of Missions and Theology.
Contributor Eli Lietzau is the pastor at Wheat Ridge Evangelical Lutheran Church in Wheat Ridge, CO.
#higherthings #lcms #lutheran #jesus

📖Mark 14:22-31

➡️ Jesus Institutes the Lord’s Supper

Jesus gives His disciples bread and wine and declares, “This is my body” and “This is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many.”

This moment isn’t just symbolic — it’s sacramental. Jesus isn’t speaking metaphorically; He’s delivering His very body and blood for the forgiveness of sins.

As Lutherans confess, Christ is truly present in the Supper, and His gifts are given to sinners in real time. It’s not nostalgia or reenactment. It’s God working here and now.

This meal fulfills the Passover. In the OT, the Passover wasn’t just a remembrance — it was participatory. Israelites didn’t simply recall the Exodus; through the meal, they were joined to it.

Jesus brings that same reality to the Lord’s Supper. No longer are believers just remembering past salvation. In the Supper, they receive it.

Recreating Seder meals today misses the point. Clinging to the shadow when the reality is given every Sunday in the Lord’s Supper turns salvation into nostalgia instead of participation.

➡️ Jesus Predicts That Peter Will Deny Him

Immediately after this, Jesus predicts Peter’s denial.

Though Peter insists that he won’t, Jesus tells him the rooster will crow twice before he denies Him three times.

The disciples all join Peter in pledging loyalty.

This exchange shows the danger of turning Jesus’ words into challenges instead of warnings. Jesus wasn’t testing Peter — He was preparing him.

But Peter, in pride, saw it as a chance to prove himself. Like us, he wanted to be the hero. Salvation doesn’t rest on our performance — it rests on Christ.

The Lord’s Supper isn’t a ritual for the strong. It’s a gift for the weak, the scattered, and the sinful — for Peter, for you, for me.

Contributor Rev. Harrison Goodman is the Higher Things Executive Director of Missions and Theology.

Contributor Eli Lietzau is the pastor at Wheat Ridge Evangelical Lutheran Church in Wheat Ridge, CO.

A Bible Study of Mark 14:1-11

➡️ The Pharisees Plot to Kill Jesus

It was now two days before Passover. The chief priests and scribes sought to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him, yet feared causing an uproar during the feast.

Their need for secrecy spoke volumes — if they were truly doing God's work, why hide in darkness?

Since the beginning of Mark's gospel, they had been at odds with Jesus, looking for ways to destroy him.

Even back in chapter three, they allegedly planted a man with a withered hand in the synagogue to test if Jesus would heal on the Sabbath.

Their secretive plotting revealed their fear — not of wrongdoing, but of the people's reaction.

They were fully committed to silencing Jesus, willing to employ dangerous and evil methods.

➡️ Jesus Anointed at Bethany

While at Simon the leper's house in Bethany, a woman approached Jesus with an alabaster flask of pure nard, costly ointment worth a year's wages.

Breaking the flask, she poured it over his head.

Some became indignant, asking why such waste when it could have been sold for over 300 denarii and given to the poor.

Jesus defended her: "Leave her alone. Why trouble her?

She has done a beautiful thing.

The poor you always have with you—whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me."

He explained she had anointed his body for his coming burial.

What she did would be remembered wherever the gospel was proclaimed. (And it is!)

➡️ Judas Decides to Betray Jesus

Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus.

They were glad and promised him money.

Judas sought opportunity to betray him.

The contrast is striking — the woman spent extravagantly to honor Jesus while Judas sought payment to betray him.

While some saw her act as wasteful, Jesus recognized it as faith.

Contributor Rev. Harrison Goodman is the Higher Things Executive Director of Missions and Theology.

Contributor Eli Lietzau is the pastor at Wheat Ridge Evangelical Lutheran Church in Wheat Ridge, CO.

#higherthings #lcms #lutheran #jesus