Lenten Reflections on Jesus' Last Week 4

Week 4:  Mark14:1-31  Giving Up: Giving In

We have been hearing, amidst all the pandemic and political news, of the protests in Myanmar over the military coup.  Can you imagine yourself as one of the protesters going into the streets, day after day, week after week, never knowing if this would be the day that you would be in the line of fire when the military descended or if this was the day the massacre would come?  Can you imagine being one of the leaders whose continued involvement meant almost certain arrest, probably torture and possibly death?  Do you wonder how long they can go on before the movement fizzles and democracy is snuffed out by violence once again?  It is hard for me to imagine myself in that situation.  How much courage or desperation would it take to get me out on the streets? 

photo by Zoe VandeWater (unsplash)

Jesus and the cheering band of supporters came into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday full of hope and resolve but all that was quickly dissolving into fear and resignation.  The movement was going underground.  Jesus’ enemies were looking for a stealthy way to find and kill him.  One unnamed woman seemed to have sensed the immanent danger that Jesus faced.  Judas agreed to betray him for money.  Then Jesus turned what was a Passover feast into a Lenten fast.  The arrangements had all the intrigue of a secret covert operation.  Two unnamed and unknown representatives were to meet a contact on the street who through a coded message would direct them to a secret pre-arranged location where the group later met up, after dark.  The intimacy of dipping bread in the same bowl is shattered by the ominous prediction of betrayal.  The bread and the wine which in a typical Passover Feast are celebratory remembrances of a past liberation become symbols of Jesus’ body about to be desecrated and his blood about to be spilled.  He began a fast that would last “until that day…”

If the radical movement you had been a part of for three years was crumbling, would you be there till the end?  How do we know in this life when to cut our losses and live to fight another day and when to hang in to the bitter end?  

Even with the clear acknowledgement of betrayal and denial, Jesus told his followers: “I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter but…I will go before you to Galilee.”  We are never alone.