Mark Photos - 14:12-21 - Falling into Place
The Passover with the Disciples On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, his disciples said to him, “Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?” So he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks, Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.” So the disciples set out and went to the city, and found everything as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal.
When it was evening, he came with the twelve. And when they had taken their places and were eating, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” They began to be distressed and to say to him one after another, “Surely, not I?” He said to them, “It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the bowl with me. For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.”
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While I played it a lot in the 90s, I never quite understood the appeal of the video game, Tetris. Part of it was undoubtedly that it was largely a brainless activity and not all that complex to figure out...but beyond that? Not quite sure. Maybe it was the precursor to Angry Birds...anyway, one of the things about Tetris was that it was a game of having things quite literally fall into place. That was the point of the game - having the right blocks fall into the right places. Not much more than that.
As I read this passage today, it felt like the different pieces of this stage of Jesus' story are falling into place. The disciples find the man carrying the jug of water, the room is ready for them, and meal is prepared...from there we have the betrayal around the corner, the prediction of denial ahead, and the Lord's Supper to come. All the pieces are falling into place. As challenging as this story is, we can look back upon it and see the ways that all the pieces came together to fulfill God's plan for Jesus and for us.