God's Unsurpassed Love: Mark 14:17-21

God’s love is so incredible we often struggle to understand its scope.  How many times do I fall prey to sin, have an ungodly thought, or not reflect God’s character in some way?  How often do I give Him opportunity to turn away from me and use someone else?  Yet, He is still there, always calling me back into His presence.

Prior to instituting what we now call the Lord’s Supper, Jesus teaches about Judas.  Jesus is aware there is a movement among His own disciples for people working their own agenda together with the religious elite.  This ties together the themes of the last couple of days of study.

It is still God’s plan.  God is aware of what is happening, and He can use it to accomplish His will.  Jesus will go out and do what needs to be done so scripture may be fulfilled.  We may think we work in the shadows, but that doesn’t mean our actions are hidden.  They’re not.

Furthermore, Jesus is still trying to teach Judas.  Jesus tells Judas the coming hours are going to be difficult.  Judas will wish he had never been born.  Knowing what He knows, Jesus is still preparing one of His disciples for the coming trial. 

Most of us would be angry at Judas and probably barred him from attending the Passover celebration.  We would have cast him away, or confronted him, and laid our judgment upon Judas.  Jesus does not do this.  Jesus attempts to prepare him for the guilt he will feel when God takes Judas’ plan and uses it to accomplish eternal salvation.

This is the love of God.  God looks at Judas, knowing he’s pursuing his own agenda, and calls him back.  It is the same love God had when Adam and Eve lied to His face in the Garden of Eden.  It is the same love God had upon the sons of Jacob after they sold Joseph into slavery.  It is the same love that spared Saul time and time after he tried to kill David.  God’s love doesn’t terminate relationships; it calls us out of brokenness into restoration.

  The rest of the disciples don’t understand.  They can’t be faulted, either.  The rest were unaware of what Judas had already done.  When Jesus dropped His hint about Judas’ work, the rest of them were confused.  In fact, many were confused enough to question their own possible guilt by asking “Am I it?” – which is likely an indication Judas was not the only one to toss out the idea of advancing the zealot agenda by forcing confrontation between the religious elite and Jesus.  In the disciples’ confusion, though, they don’t see God’s love on display.

That’s okay.  We usually don’t recognize God’s grace and love the first time we come upon it, either.  We need time to process and think about what God is doing.  God’s love is so incredible we often struggle to understand its scope.