Just as Planned (Mark 14:1,2)

The Almighty God is a God of detail and precision, and nowhere is this more clearly seen than when He sent His only Son into the world so that anyone who believed in Him might have eternal life. How was this to be accomplished? When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he proclaimed, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29)! When would this be accomplished? It would be accomplished on Passover.

The date and time had been fixed since the foundation of the world. God had spoken through His prophets, and every last detail had been planned. Jesus rode down the Mount of Olives toward the eastern entrance to the city of Jerusalem on the day that lambs were being chosen from the flocks that the Sadducees had bred and raised for that occasion. In a very symbolic way, Jesus was presenting Himself as the Passover Lamb.

Two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the chief priests and scribes came together looking for a treacherous way to arrest and kill Jesus. They only had one stipulation: they didn’t want it to take place on Passover. However, they were not in control.

The chief priests were made up of Sadducees, the very ones who were responsible for breeding and raising the lambs that would be used during Passover, But they didn’t recognize the Lamb of God. The scribes were scholars of the Old Testament. However, although they devoted themselves to the study of the law and copied the Old Testament Scripture, they did not recognize the true Word of God when He was in their midst.

Times and seasons are set by God, not man. Jesus had come to break the curse and take away the sins of the world. The chief priests and scribes were spiritually blind and unable see the true Passover Lamb. In Revelation John was given a prophetic vision. In his vision he saw the Lamb who was slain. But this time it was proclaimed by myriads and myriads and thousands of thousands of angels that the Lamb was worthy “to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing” (Revelation 5:12)!

But the chief priests and scribes were blind to this reality. All they knew was that they wanted to arrest and kill Jesus, just not on the Passover!

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