Taken from a WayForward training in 2023.
Jesus knew his scripture. In the gospel of Mark, when Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem to be crucified, he quoted countless Old Testament scripture. Many times using the phrase “as it is written” to show what he was doing was finding its fulfillment from the OT. In Mark 14:27-28, right after Jesus institutes the Lord’s Supper, we read:
“27 Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.” 28 But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”
Jesus quotes Zechariah 13:7 from the past, tells his disciples that they will be scattered in the present, and predicts his own resurrection in the very near future. What incredible meaning in such a short verse. But what exactly does this mean for his disciples today? With this verse, Jesus predicts he will be stricken with his own arrest in the garden, the coming dispersal of his disciples, and his own consequent death. This will all result in the disciples scattering. Interestingly, Jesus sees the disciples scattering, not as a result of persecution toward them, but as a result of stumbling on the disciples’ part. Jesus was stricken and they all left him because their faith stumbled.
Scripture does not say the sheep will be stricken, but the shepherd will be. The shepherd is the one stricken and on behalf of his sheep. We can learn from the twelve disciples here. Jesus was stricken and their faith stumbled and staggered. They all left him, even Peter. Jesus was stricken so that our faith today would be strengthened. This is the good news of the gospel. Jesus was stricken so that we would not have to be. He was stricken in our place so that we might put our faith in him as our substitute and that faith be strengthened.
“4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.” – Isaiah 53:4.
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