Responding to Jesus: God's Sovereign Savior

Jesus is God's sovereign savior. As sovereign God, Jesus orchestrated the tiniest details of His journey to the cross. He knowingly guided the means of His own betrayal and death for sinners. And yet the people involved in Christ's passion were responsible for their behavior. The disciples trusted Jesus' provision of an upper room for their last Passover meal with Him, but nonetheless they had to act on their trust. "His disciples went out... and found it just as He had said to them..." Mark 14:16 (NKJV) Judas, though ordained by God to be the "son of perdition," nonetheless acted of his own volition to betray his loving Master. "The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! I
would have been good for that man if he had never been born." Mark 14:21 The gospel of Mark's account of the Last Supper shows us the authority of Jesus to control every detail of His journey to the cross. And it also shows us that all people are responsible for their response to Jesus' sovereignty, be it surrender or sedition.