Mark 14:12-16

On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb was sacrificed, the disciples said to Jesus, “Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover meal?”

He sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city. A man carrying a water jar will meet you. Follow him. Wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, ‘The teacher asks, “Where is my guest room where I can eat the Passover meal with my disciples?”’ He will show you a large room upstairs already furnished. Prepare for us there.” The disciples left, came into the city, found everything just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover meal.

Mark 14:12-16, Common English Bible (c) 2011

Think of a significant annual celebration that involves a dinner laden with tradition.  Consider all the details:  from guests to menu to shopping to food preparation to setting the table.   Move the meal from the familiar place where it is always celebrated to a busy city crowded with people who are planning the very same thing.

The Passover is a celebration of God making a way when there seems to be no way.  A band of slaves in Egypt follows Moses’ directives (which had come from God).  Death, the tenth plague, passed over their homes while killing the first born of every Egyptian family.  The pharaoh finally wakes up and orders them out of Egypt.  A way is made to cross the Red Sea (Exodus 14); Moses, Miriam, and others break into song (Exodus 15).  The remembrance of it becomes an annual event.

Two of the disciples are ready, asking Jesus where they should prepare.  Surely someone among their traveling companions has relatives or other connections in the city.  To our surprise, Jesus doesn’t give them an address or even a name.  He tells them to follow a man with a water jar.  They do.  A way is made.

-Teressa Clark, 2012

Lenten Reflections 2019:  Following Jesus from the Mount of Olives to the Tomb ~ Day 25