Let the Scriptures Be Fulfilled

What Jesus does he must do alone.

They’ve come in the middle of the night to arrest Jesus and they’ve come armed as if they expected armed resistance. For this Jesus rebukes them.

Mark 14:49a ESV - Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me.

Shame on them. All they had to do was listen to him in the temple, expounding the word of God, the law of Moses. All they had to do was listen to know that he was no zealot. And at anytime they could have arrested him then had they thought he had said something worthy of arrest.

To the contrary, when they had tried to set him up with a loaded question (remember that?) to get him to utter something which they might be able to twist into insurrection against Caesar, he had deftly avoided their trap. “Render under Caesar the things that are Caesar's,” he had said, “and unto God the things that are God's.”

Now come Jesus’s final words to them before his death.

Mark 14:49b ESV - But let the Scriptures be fulfilled.”

Over and over again Mark has reminded us of this. The Scriptures must be fulfilled. It is partly from this emphasis that we are made to understand that all Scripture speaks with one voice, pointing us to the redemption to be found in Jesus Christ.

The Scripture must be fulfilled. Why? Because it is the word of God. God's will will be done. Does the Sanhedrin act freely? Certainly. Are they culpable of a heinous crime against justice and against God? Absolutely. And what about the temple guard that has come to arrest Jesus? Are they acting freely? Yes. And yet all of it happens because the Scriptures must be fulfilled. God's will will be done.

What Scripture is being fulfilled? What passage might Jesus be referencing? The one that immediately comes to mind is…

Isaiah 53:12 ESV

Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,

and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,

because he poured out his soul to death

and was numbered with the transgressors;

yet he bore the sin of many,

and makes intercession for the transgressors.

Jesus was not a robber. He was not a thief. He was not an insurrectionist. Yet he was numbered among them. In the next chapter one insurrectionist will be set free while Jesus is sentenced to be crucified. Later Jesus will be crucified between two robbers, thieves, insurrectionists, transgressors.

And isn't that what we all are? Transgressors of God's law? And isn't that what Christ came to do? Die as a substitute for the transgressors, the insurrectionists against God?

Mark 14:50 ESV - And they all left him and fled.

In spite of all the bravado of James and John and Peter and all the rest, in spite of all the promises and good intentions, all the disciples forsook him that night. Seven words in verse 50 and yet those seven words are devastating.

Where are we in the story? We are among those who forsook him and fled. And really what else could we do? For it's not just arrest by the temple guard and trial before the Sanhedrin that Jesus faces. No, it is more than that. It is not just a hearing before Pilate and a presentation before a mob that Jesus will undergo. It is more than just the flogging, horrible as that may be, which he is facing. It is not just crucifixion. It is the wrath of Almighty God, which he has agreed to undergo on our behalf.

Should the disciples have remained faithful? Yes. Could they have? No. What Jesus does he must do alone. And think about this, what Jesus does alone, he does for them.