The Last Passover Meal

Two summers ago I went to Israel with a group from Beeson Seminary. One day as we walked to our destination, the streets of Jerusalem filled with sounds of trumpets and singing. Fathers danced and clapped their hands announcing the way to their sons' bar mitzvah. Occasionally, the parade of family and friends would stop and break into a rejoicing song - faces brilliant, hands clapping, feet dancing. Eventually these parades found their goal ... the Wailing Wall where they celebrated the service - the men crowding in on one side with their sons and the women pressing together at the separating curtain, standing on chairs in order to see, and throwing candy upon their sons. It was a throng of people... a throng! And, all of this happening in the midst of tourists and shop keepers and sidewalk cafes and ... and ... ! Now, imagine what it was like for hundreds of thousands of Jews to ascend Jerusalem ... actually, the Temple Mount itself ... to bring their perfect sacrifices in order to celebrate the Passover Meal. Talk about throng! Talk about rejoicing!

Passover was a festival ... a celebration remembering God's deliverance of his people from bondage. For the Jew, tonight's meal began a week of feasting ... a feast of remembrance, of thanksgiving, of praise and joy for what God had done for them. In the midst of all these people making all the preparations for their Passover Meal ... in all their joy and singing and chatter ... Jesus in willing obedience is walking into what he knows will be a night of suffering. He also knows that it will end with the sacrifice of his life for the deliverance of his people whom he loves. Is His heart breaking? Or, is His heart full of love for his Father ... and for his people, full of the joy that is set before Him?

During this Last Passover Meal, the disciples with their families and Jesus with his family* gathered in the Upper Room. And in eating the bread and drinking the cup, Jesus said to them, "Do this in remembrance of me." Tonight, we celebrate that Last Passover Meal. Tonight, we break bread and drink the cup in the Eucharistic Feast - a meal of thanksgiving and praise for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for us, who delivered us from our bondage to sin and death. Tonight, we remember ...

*Passover was a meal to be eaten with your family. In my very humble opinion, their families had to be there. Mary, Jesus' mother, was at the Cross ... she had to be at what we call the Last Supper. But, I could be very, very wrong.