The pre-Arrest part of Mark (as I have defined it, that is, commencing after the "Eschatological Discourse") is the two-day period that starts with the chief priests and scribes discussing how to get rid of Jesus under color of the law. This is followed by the brief episode of Jesus being anointed by "a woman" (in Mark's typical terse phrasing) with expensive "spikenard" (in the KJV's inimitable phrasing.) This latter episode, culminating in Jesus asserting that the woman is preparing him for his burial, could scarcely have been placed elsewhere in the gospel.
Notable about the discussion of the chief priests and scribes is their desire not to have Jesus' arrest occur at a time of festivity--far too little attention is paid to this point, and far too rarely is it noted that they were frustrated in their hopes, with Jesus' recorded arrest occurring at precisely the wrong time. Jerusalem was crowded and apt to be restless throughout any of the time-frames in which the gospels recount Jesus' demise.
And so it seems (as related after the anointing episode) that the chief priests were presented unexpectedly with Judas' offer, and that they accepted the offer of betrayal as a fortunate happenstance--no matter how unfortunate for them might be the timing. For Judas, on the other hand, the festivities of those days might have been the opportune cover under which to make his escape--if we might entertain the notion that what really motivated Judas was to avoid legal peril, not to make money. In this Gospel of Mark, it should be noted, it is the chief priests who are described as mentioning money, and then only after Judas has approached them about betraying Jesus.
Absent the contributions of the other gospels, the notion of Judas offering his betrayal as a way for him to stay out of trouble would be far more likely. Only elsewhere in the gospels does Judas ask for a price for betraying Jesus, and we are confronted there with the unlikely assertion that the authorities would have handed over money up front. And as for the supposed amount, the "thirty pieces of silver" held to be the evocative and tragic "price of a slave?" One might ask, was Judas going to escape to a far land and set himself up with a new life on that pittance?
The notion of "thirty pieces of silver" as a tempting price for Jesus--incomprehensible in the gospels other than as a device to show a prophecy fulfilled--has long haunted the literal-minded. The 1978 Ryrie Study Bible KJV wails plaintively about the "thirty pieces of silver" that "this sum represented approximately five weeks' wages. It could have amounted to much more." Redoubling the notion of greed as a motive, the Gospel of John goes so far as to describe Judas as a thieving treasurer of the common purse. Of course, if that were the case, Jesus as Judas' master would have been responsible for his underling's conduct, and one would assume that Judas, as anyone else, would be as deserving of the stepwise confrontations of progressive discipline that Jesus prescribes for malefactors. What is more, thirty pieces of silver would not have taken all that long to filch from the purse, for as long as Judas could work that scheme. The whole notion of betrayal for money seems ludicrous, and the Gospel of Mark spares little time for it.
Following Judas' communication with the chief priests is a recounting of the preparations for Jesus' Passover, a Passover that Jesus celebrates with "the twelve." "The twelve" are described as an intact entity by Mark, right up until Judas (presumably with time for maneuverings while Jesus is praying in the garden) is referred to again as one of "the twelve" when he comes with a crowd "with swords and staves" (so much for a discreet apprehension.) At this point the disciples all abandon Jesus, culminating in Peter betraying Jesus--"betrayal" being a word we would not hesitate to use of Peter if we were not forced to see it as the property of Judas.
What matters, on the evening before the Arrest, is the fact that a propensity for betrayal is intrinsic to all of the twelve. Only an appreciation of this reality can make understandable the otherwise horrid business of "Verily I say unto you, One of you which eateth with me shall betray me." In the larger sense, ALL of those who ate with Jesus betrayed him, and each of them (and us) have ever and always been deserving of such soul-plumbing scrutiny. Even if Judas (somewhat like Jesus' family) had wanted in the immediate context merely for Jesus to be restrained for his own good ("take him, and lead him away safely"), an element of betrayal would always present itself.
"One of you which eateth with me shall betray me" has echoes of Psalm 41:9, "Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me." As often in the scriptures, the aspects of experiential existence take precedence over the particulars of time, place, or person. This is important to remember as we discuss now the one remaining aspect of the pre-Arrest narration in Mark: what is often called The Institution of the Lord's Supper, or the like.
Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and passed it around. That was all a matter of course. Then he referred to the bread as his body. Jesus took wine, gave thanks for it, and handed it around. That was all a matter of course. Then he referred to the wine as his blood. This is the same Jesus who, earlier in Mark, said, "Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him . . . ?" and "That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man." The reverse must be seen of the beneficial.
The substance of the bread and wine as "food for thought" is the most logical implication, Mark's gospel being seen as a whole. The "new covenant" to which Jesus refers must overarch and subsume all aspects of existence, and if we attempt truly to address ourselves to our participation in that covenant, then we must never count ourselves as truly separate from the sensations of wondering about ourselves as betrayers of Jesus. Neither can we imagine that we can ever truly understand or merit the "kingdom of God" in which Jesus now tells us he will once again drink wine--as though "wine" or "bread" was ever what any of this was about.
Moreover (if the conceits of the denominations through the intervening centuries are to be applied), any notion of Jesus instituting the Eucharist must include in the first particular instance the instituting minister--Jesus himself--knowingly extending the bread and wine to the unworthy, to the unsorted twelve. Perhaps that ought to be food for thought.
What is probably more important to consider is the sparse nature of the Gospel of Mark itself. Mark is understood usually to have been the first of the gospels, and it would be unsurprising to find it the least obscure or complicated--such obscurity or complications it now seems to have being from the fact that it is usually seen in light of the other gospels. Perhaps it would be well to consider--had Mark been later than, and understood to stand independently from, the other gospels--whether it would been seen properly to strip from them all manner of accretion.
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