The Last Days of Jesus and the Passion
The Last Supper (Mark 14:12–31)
On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Jesus instructs two of his disciples to prepare the Passover meal. The evening meal that follows (Mark 14:12–31) becomes one of the most theologically significant events in the whole New Testament. While they are eating, Jesus takes bread, gives thanks, breaks it and gives it to his disciples saying: “Take it; this is my body.” He then takes a cup, gives thanks and shares it, saying: “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.”
This is the institution of what Christians call the Eucharist. The language of “covenant” and blood echoes Exodus 24, where Moses sprinkled blood on the people to seal the covenant at Sinai. Jesus reframes the Passover — a celebration of liberation from Egypt — as a new covenant sealed with his own death. This passage is the scriptural foundation for Christian sacramental practice in most denominations, though Quakers and the Salvation Army do not celebrate the Eucharist.
Also in this passage, Jesus predicts that one of the Twelve will betray him. He predicts that all of them will “fall away” and specifically that Peter will deny him three times before the rooster crows twice. These predictions set the stage for the passion narrative that follows.
The Last Supper passage is Mark 14:12–31. The central actions are: Jesus takes bread, gives thanks, breaks it, and says “This is my body.” He takes the cup, gives thanks, shares it, and says “This is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many.” This is the basis for the Eucharist celebrated in churches worldwide.
Gethsemane (Mark 14:32–42)
After the meal, Jesus takes his disciples to the garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives (Mark 14:32–42). He takes Peter, James and John deeper into the garden and tells them: “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch.” He falls to the ground and prays: “Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
He returns to find the disciples asleep. He wakes them, returns to pray, comes back again and finds them sleeping again. A third time the same. This threefold pattern (like Peter’s threefold denial) is a literary device in Mark emphasising the disciples’ failure at the crucial moment. Jesus’s prayer — especially the address “Abba” (an intimate Aramaic term for Father) — shows a real human struggle with the prospect of death, while the submission “yet not what I will, but what you will” models obedient trust.
The Betrayal and Arrest (Mark 14:43–52)
While Jesus is still speaking, Judas Iscariot arrives with an armed crowd sent by the chief priests. Judas identifies Jesus with a kiss — the customary greeting between a student and his rabbi, now perverted into a signal for arrest. One of the bystanders draws a sword and cuts off the ear of the high priest’s servant. Jesus challenges his arresting party: “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me.”
Mark then adds a striking detail found only in his Gospel: a young man following Jesus, wearing nothing but a linen garment, is seized. He flees naked, leaving his garment behind. Scholars debate whether this is the author’s subtle self-insertion into the story, a symbolic detail (nakedness as shame), or simply an eyewitness memory included for vividness.
The Trials (Mark 14:53–65; 15:1–15)
Jesus faces two separate trials. In Mark 14:53–65, he is brought before the High Priest and the Sanhedrin. Witnesses are produced but their testimony does not agree. Finally the High Priest asks directly: “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” Jesus answers: “I am.” He adds that they will see “the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” The High Priest tears his clothes and declares blasphemy. Jesus is condemned to death.
In Mark 15:1–15, Jesus is brought before Pilate. Pilate asks: “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus replies: “You have said so.” He gives no further answer, to Pilate’s amazement. Pilate offers to release a prisoner as was his custom at the festival — but the crowd, stirred up by the chief priests, call for Barabbas. Pilate asks what to do with Jesus; they shout “Crucify him!” Pilate, “wishing to satisfy the crowd,” hands Jesus over to be crucified.
In first-century Judaea, the Sanhedrin (Jewish ruling council) had authority over religious law but could not carry out the death penalty without Roman authorisation. This is why Jesus faces two trials: the Sanhedrin condemns him for blasphemy (Mark 14:53–65), and Pilate then must authorise the crucifixion (Mark 15:1–15). The Jewish authorities wanted Jesus dead but needed Rome to do it. This two-stage legal process is consistent with what historians know about Roman provincial governance.
Each trial has a different focus. The High Priest’s trial revolves around Jesus’s identity: “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” Pilate’s trial revolves around political threat: “Are you the king of the Jews?” The Sanhedrin charge is blasphemy; the Roman charge must be sedition against Caesar. Mark shows how the same claim — that Jesus is the Christ — is processed differently by Jewish religious law and Roman political law.
The Passion and Crucifixion (Mark 15:21–39)
Jesus is crucified at a place called Golgotha (“the place of the skull”) at nine in the morning. Mark notes that Simon of Cyrene is compelled to carry the cross. At midday, darkness covers the land for three hours. At three in the afternoon, Jesus cries out in Aramaic: “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” — which Mark translates as “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This is the opening line of Psalm 22, a psalm that moves from abandonment to vindication.
Jesus utters a loud cry and breathes his last. At that moment, the curtain of the Temple is “torn in two from top to bottom” — a symbol that the barrier between God and humanity has been removed. Immediately the Roman centurion standing opposite Jesus says: “Surely this man was the Son of God!” In Mark’s Gospel, this is the first time a human being — not a demon — correctly identifies Jesus with this title, and he says it moments after Jesus has died. And it is a Roman soldier, a Gentile outsider, who says it.
The centurion’s confession at the cross — “Surely this man was the Son of God” (Mark 15:39) — is the climax of Mark’s narrative on Jesus’s identity. It is spoken by a Gentile Roman soldier at the moment of death, not triumph. This reflects Mark’s whole theology: Jesus’s divine identity is revealed in and through the cross, not despite it.
The Resurrection: The Empty Tomb (Mark 16:1–8)
On the first day of the week, three women — Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome — come to the tomb to anoint the body. They find the stone already rolled away and a young man in white inside who tells them: “He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”
Mark’s Gospel ends at this point (16:8): “Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.” This is the authentic ending of Mark. The abruptness is deliberate — the reader is left with the empty tomb, the proclamation, and the challenge to believe and follow. There is no appearance of the risen Jesus in the genuine Markan text. This ending has troubled Christians across the centuries, which is why later scribes added a “longer ending” (Mark 16:9–20) that most scholars consider a later addition, not part of the original Gospel.
The ending at 16:8 — with the women fleeing in fear — is theologically rich rather than incomplete. Mark has shown disciples who repeatedly fail, misunderstand and abandon Jesus. The women at the tomb are the disciples’ last chance, and they too fail to deliver the message. Yet the risen Jesus has gone ahead to Galilee. The open ending invites the reader to become the one who does go to Galilee, who does tell the disciples, who does follow. Some scholars argue Mark ended abruptly because the original last page of the scroll was lost; others argue the ending is deliberate.
Christians who find the ending abrupt are reassured by the other Gospels (Matthew, Luke and John), which all record resurrection appearances. But for students of Mark specifically, the challenge of the spec is to understand Mark 16:1–8 on its own terms — the empty tomb, the proclamation, and the challenge to respond in faith. This is the authentic Markan witness to the resurrection.