Mark 14:1 — Community Reflections

MARK 14:1 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“After two days was the feast of the passover, and of unleavened bread: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death.”

Now the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread were only two days away, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were scheming to arrest Jesus secretly and kill him — the passion narrative begins with the double festival approaching: Passover (the 14th of Nisan, commemorating the Exodus) and Unleavened Bread (the 15th–21st). The schemed arrest is secret because the public crowds who welcomed Jesus make an open arrest too dangerous politically. The Jewish leaders are trapped between their desire to eliminate Jesus and the popular support that prevents it.

Church Fathers on Mark 14:1

Let us now sprinkle our book, and our thresholds, with blood, and put the scarlet thread around the house of our prayers, and bind scarlet on our hand, as was done to Zarah [Gen 38:30], that we may be able to say that the red heifer [Num 19:2] is slain in the valley [Deut 21:4]. For the Evangelist, being about to speak of the slaying of Christ, premises, 'After two days was the feast of the Passover, and of unleavened bread.'
Pseudo-Jerome · 5th century

Pascha, which in Hebrew is, phase, is not called from Passion, as many think, but from passing over, because the destroyer, seeing the blood on the doors of the Israelites, passed by them, and did not smite them; or the Lord Himself, bringing aid unto His people, walked above them.
Bede · 8th century · Marc., iv, 43

Nevertheless, Christ Himself had determined for Himself the day of His Passion; for He wished to be crucified on the Passover, because He was the true Passover.
Theophylact · 11th century

Read all 7 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

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