This Night

Lenten Vespers, Week Three: The Last Supper

A Reading from the Holy Gospel According to St Luke:

Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover meal for us that we may eat it.” They asked him, “Where do you want us to make preparations for it?”

“Listen,” he said to them, “when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him into the house he enters and say to the owner of the house, ‘The teacher asks you, “Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?” ’ He will show you a large room upstairs, already furnished. Make preparations for us there.” So they went and found everything as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover meal.

When the hour came, he took his place at the table, and the apostles with him. He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for I tell you, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he said, “Take this and divide it among yourselves, for I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”

Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. But see, the one who betrays me is with me, and his hand is on the table. For the Son of Man is going as it has been determined, but woe to that one by whom he is betrayed!”

The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.

Grace mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

“What makes this night different from all other nights?”

Such is the first of four questions to open the Passover meal. Jesus has heard this since He was a

 boy, or something very like it. He has gone to Jerusalem, throughout His life, with family, friends, and now disciples, to celebrate the Passover, to tell the age-old story of the Exodus. He would’ve known it by heart, as would any observant Judean. Each part of the meal told a story: the flatbread to represent the celerity of freedom; the lamb whose blood delivers from death; the wine as the joy of the promises of God.

But this night is different. This Passover is different. Tonight is Jesus’ Last Supper.

It’s been a while in coming. For some three and a half years, so far as we can tell, Jesus has been gathering a following. Starting around age 30, He began to preach and to call His disciples, to work wonders in a Galilee known for supernatural sages. He then moved His ministry to Capernaum, along the Way of the Sea, such that His teachings could travel on trade routes, like an artery pumping out blood. With each gain in notoriety, the danger started to swell, the pressure continued to rise.

Judea, we must remember, is a land under occupation, a freshly-minted province of the mighty Roman Empire. Rome loves money, and Rome hates kings. So whenever these Zealots pop up—these dagger-men, these fundamentalist freedom-fighters hoping for a messiah to come and liberate them from Rome—the Legions would strap on their boots and wipe out the rabble-rousers with Western military efficiency.

They’ve gotten pretty good at knocking off messiahs. It’s only a matter of time now before they decide that Jesus is more trouble than He’s worth.

It’s Lazarus who tips the scales, according to St John. Once Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead—by all accounts a wealthy and important fellow—in broad daylight before a great crowd of mourners from nearby Jerusalem, all hell breaks loose. The next time that Jesus shows up for the Passover, the people go nuts, hurling cloaks and palm branches before Him, screaming out that He’s the king. You can almost hear the creak of leather as the Romans on the walls tighten their grips upon the pommels of their swords.

Jesus is clever, though; He rides in on a donkey, a sign of royal peace. But now the die is cast. The Great Sanhedrin, tasked with governing Jerusalem, knows that they have to get rid of Him before He sparks a riot. But they can’t just snatch Him off the street. No, that would set off the very cataclysm which they hope to avoid. What they need is a spy, an inside man, to tell them where He spends His nights, so that they can simply disappear this Christ in a no-knock raid, keeping the Romans quiescent.

And so this Passover is one of tension, of fear, of barely-bridled bloodletting. Even the Apostles don’t know, until the last minute, where they will celebrate the seder. It’s all very cloak-and-dagger. Imagine eating nervously in the night, knowing that the authorities want to kill you, if only they could find you. But then Jesus makes it weird.

He takes off His outer cloak, ties a towel about Himself, and begins to wash His disciples’ feet. Keep in mind that this is servant work, the sort of hospitality that ought to be performed, or at least directed, by Peter and John, who were tasked with organizing the meal. To have Christ, the guest of honor, wash dust off people’s feet is an utter inversion of proper order. That’s why Peter freaks out about it. But Jesus says that this stands for us as our example: that none of us are too good for humble loving service.

Then He gives to us His last commandment, His last mandate—hence, Maundy Thursday—that we love one another as He has first loved us. “This bread,” He says, holding up the flatbread, “is no longer about the Exodus. It is My Body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.” Then He holds aloft a cup of wine. “This wine,” He proclaims, “is the long-awaited New Covenant in My Blood, shed for you and for all people, for the forgiveness of sin. Do this in remembrance of Me.”

And this remembrance, mind you, it isn’t simply the rote recitation of facts. It’s anamnesis, that fancy word we talked about last week, which indicates a ritual and spiritual remembrance, a remembrance that connects the faithful to the original event. Jesus Christ has flipped the script. This Passover isn’t about the Exodus of old, but about His Exodus here and now, His deliverance of all people from sin and death and hell, where He is the Passover Lamb whose Blood has saved us all.

In the middle of this, mind you, Judas Iscariot gets up and leaves, utterly baffling the Apostles. No-one in the classical world goes out after dark, not unless you’re rich enough to have bodyguards, or poor enough to steal. Where has Judas gone and why? Peter and John are whispering something about Judas as the betrayer, but that doesn’t make any sense. He’s an Apostle, part of the inner circle. He knows what Jesus can do, who Jesus is. Why would Judas betray Him? Why would anyone turn on the Christ?

And then we come to the end: the part of the Passover at which one last cup of wine is shared, a parting hymn is sung, and the meal is formally closed. But that isn’t what Jesus does; He has yet more surprises. Instead, following the hymn, He says of the wine, “I shall not taste it again until I taste it in My Father’s kingdom.”

And He up and leaves the room, out into the night! He keeps going, through the city, down into the tombs of the Kidron Valley, up the steep slope of the Mount of Olives, all in the dark! And what can the Apostles do but follow, fearful all the way, watching for torches and the telltale glint of steel?

This is His Last Supper, but it isn’t over yet. It won’t be until He is captured on that mountain, tried in a kangaroo court, and crucified as a traitor for claiming to be a king, when “we have no king but Caesar.” It is there, on the Cross, that He finally tastes the wine—a vinegary drink held up in a sponge on a stick—and there declares, with a dignified defiance, “It is finished.” And He dies. The meal, at last, on Calvary comes to conclusion.

All of this is the Passover of Jesus Christ our Lord, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, from death to life eternal, from the Cross to the empty Tomb. It is His Last Supper; the one which we share every Sunday; and to which we shall return as the subject for our Vespers homily next week.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pertinent Links

RDG Stout

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St Peter’s Lutheran

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Website: https://www.stpetersnymills.org/

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Nidaros Lutheran

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