Mark 14:2 Commentary and Bible Study

Luke says they feared the people, because the people at that moment were for Christ. He was their great prophet, their healer. He healed thousands. Everybody was related to someone, or knew someone, who had been amazingly healed by him, instantaneously. Those who were severely handicapped, whose limbs were twisted, distorted, or shrivelled and wasted, had been returned to complete wholeness and health before the eyes of the multitudes. The leaders couldn't possibly take him; he was too popular. Many felt he was even the Messiah. They should all have realised that. He fulfilled all the prophecies. He was the perfect Son of God: God and man. So the leading clergy who were against him said, ‘Not during the feast.’ They weren't going to get it done any sooner, unless some of them perhaps thought it could be done secretly when the feast started on the Thursday. Could he be taken and done away with without the people knowing? Then there wouldn't be a popular uprising to protect him. But more likely, they plotted how they could take him after the feast, when the crowds dispersed and went from Jerusalem, when there was a moment of anti-climax, and then he could be taken and done away with, secretly, cunningly. But not on the feast day. And yet Christ had said otherwise to his disciples. Matthew’s Gospel adds: ‘And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said unto his disciples, ² Ye know that after two days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified’ (Matthew 26:1-2). So the Lord Jesus predicts that in two days’ time – on the Thursday – he will be taken. Here then are two predictions, that of Christ – that he would be taken in two days’ time; and the determination of the Sanhedrin council – that they would not take him in two days’ time, but either before or afterwards, when the crowds had dispersed. Whose plan would stand? Of course, it was Christ who was right and his plan that was fulfilled. Even though they did not want to do it then, circumstances would compel them; the Jews and the Romans would put him to death. Wicked hands would take him and slay him, but by the overruling of God, it would be done exactly when God had determined. Of course, the feast of Passover was given by God as a picture of Christ’s death on Calvary. To link the two forever in the minds of God’s people he must be crucified during the Passover feast. It was going to be the time of his atoning death on Calvary's cross. It was going to happen at the same time as the offering up of the lamb, the Passover lamb. Christ was the fulfilment of that offered up lamb, and within a few hours, just as the Passover lamb would be killed on the Thursday and formally divided and taken on the Friday, so Christ would be arrested, leading to his execution.