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THE SUPPER AT PASSOVER TIME: LAST OR FIRST?      

Preparation

Passover was the meal celebrating deliverance of God’s people from bondage in Egypt. As described in Exodus 12 it was observed in families who themselves kill the lamb on 14 Nisan after selecting a perfect specimen on the 10 Nisan/Aviv. watching it for five days, sacrificing it, and eating it in the twilight. In Deuteronomy 16, as Israel prepared to enter the promised land, the lamb was to be sacrificed at ‘the place the LORD will choose as a dwelling for his Name’, that is, the tabernacle and later the temple. In this way it was to become a pilgrimage festival bringing people to Jerusalem. In the reform of Hezekiah around 715 BC a delay of a month was allowed for those unclean on the regular date as provided for in Numbers 9:6-13, and some ritual rules were relaxed and had the Lord’s approval (2 Chron 30:2-4; 18-20). When the Passover was observed a century later by King Josiah, it was clear it had been much neglected for centuries (2 Chron 35:17-19). With the exile and subsequent return and rebuilding of the temple around 516 BC we read that the exiles celebrated the Passover once more (Ezra 6:19-20).

What changes occurred over the years concerning various practices we can only guess at. However, after the temple was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70 sacrifices became impossible. Thereafter the Jewish religious leaders developed a Seder (Hebrew: ‘order’) providing a detailed form for remembering the Passover in the absence of sacrifice. Some evangelicals see this as largely descriptive of the Last Supper and interpret it in that way. The descriptions given in the Gospels have no mention of specific parallels to this Seder, other than those of a general nature. We need to consider what Scripture itself says and stick to that.

In Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus arranges to eat the Passover with his disciples on what we would call Thursday, but from John 18:28 it is clear that Jesus was arrested before the Passover was eaten on Friday. How can this difference be reconciled? Has Scripture a mistake? Certainly not!

First, we need to recognise that difficulties in scripture suggest the genuineness of scripture since someone inventing an account would surely avoid apparent discrepancies. Why on such a significant matter would such a glaring error be tolerated?

Second, even if we are not able to explain the seemingly contradictory dates for Passover, it is known from the Dead Sea scrolls that there were at least two different calendars in Jesus’ time for calculating it, while even the commencement of a day – whether from sunset or sunrise or from midnight, as with the Romans and us, could be relevant.

Finally, passing over various possibilities but taking sunset to sunset as the duration of a day in Jewish eyes, perhaps the easiest explanation is that the Last Supper was in fact a pre-Passover gathering on Nisan 13 in the twilight as the day ended and as Nisan 14 began. There is no mention of a lamb, or of bitter herbs. In the ordinary course these would have come after the lamb was slain by the priests and brought to the home on the disciples’ behalf to be roasted and eaten.  In the preceding days after he entered Jerusalem, Jesus had confounded those Sadducees, Pharisees and Herodians who sought to trap him but could not answer him; he remained without defect. He had also foretold the end of the temple and its sacrificial system. After the Last Supper, Jesus went to Gethsemane. There the innocent one was betrayed, arrested, tried and condemned. John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus was crucified about 9am and died at about 3pm on Nisan 14.  So, as befits ‘Christ our Passover sacrificed for us’ (1 Cor 5:7), in this time of slaughter of the lambs without defect, the perfect Lamb of God laid down his life for us.

Participation

Jesus had arranged with someone he knew that the Last Supper be held in the guest room. In this case it was an upper room accessed by a stair at the side of the house. It is not an ordinary family occasion but a meeting of Jesus and his twelve disciples including Judas. This is table fellowship among those who trust one another, hence the shock when Jesus says that one of them will betray him (cf. Psalm 41:9). Already he had told them several times that he would be put to death and rise again but they didn’t really understand the ‘rising again’ part. The mood must have been one of some anxiety, yet the disciples’ concern is more for themselves – ‘Lord, is it I?’ – rather than for Jesus or even the betrayer. That Jesus dipped a piece of bread in the dish at the same time as Judas indicates some preliminaries before the action of breaking bread but, as already noted, there is no reference to a lamb or bitter herbs: this does not appear to be the regular Passover meal although it is part of the fulfillment of all the Old Testament foreshadowed. Judas seems to have left before the action of Jesus with the bread and wine (Matthew 26:25-26), or the discourse recorded in John 13:31-16.33.

The Passover celebrated the deliverance of God’s people and their birth as a nation in terms of the old covenant; hence it marked henceforth the religious New Year (Exodus 12:1). The event was to shape Israel into a community led from slavery to freedom by the sheer grace of the Lord, just as the Cross and Resurrection of Christ shapes us. It gave strength for the journey towards the future Promised Land, and was to be kept each year. Participants looked back so that the Exodus of the past became a present reality to them as if they had been there (cf. Psalm 66:6  literally ‘there we will indeed rejoice in him’), and it pointed forward to the future of God’s comprehensive salvation from sin through the Lamb of God. 

Bread was a feature of Passover – ‘bread of affliction’, unleavened since they did not have time for it to be leavened for they had to depart in haste (Deut 16:3; Ex 12:33-34,39). Jesus had spoken of himself as the Bread of Life sent down from heaven (John 6:22-66). The feeding of the 5,000 with 12 baskets left over spoke of him in reference to Israel, and his feeding of 4,000 Gentiles with 7 baskets left over spoke of the universal nature of his mission.  But when at a certain point, perhaps just after Judas Iscariot left, Jesus took bread, broke it and said: ‘This is my body’, he said something that indicated a new beginning, for while thanksgiving for food began a meal, this is after the meal had begun. The words remind one of Jesus’ teaching of himself as the living bread that came down from heaven. His remarkable discourse and prayer in John 13:31-17:26, which presumably follows, shows this. By his death he inaugurates a new community that receives life from him.

After the Supper he took a cup of wine, again giving thanks, and gave it to all of them, explaining it was ‘the blood of the covenant poured out for many’ (Matthew adds, ‘for the forgiveness of sins’). The point to note here is that Jesus interprets his coming death as a covenant sacrifice, just as blood was dashed against the altar and the people in Exodus 24:4-8. The sacrifice is evidence od God’s prior decision to forgive those he has chosen, but the sacrifice is not the cause of God’s love. Our Passover Lamb did not purchase God’s love, but demonstrates it. ‘God so loved that he gave…’

On the view given, the Last Supper was not properly speaking the Passover but is closely connected with it by anticipating its true fulfillment in Jesus’ sacrifice. The annual Passover festival is superseded. The regular observance of the Lord’s Supper presupposes Christ’s sacrifice but is not a kind of re-enactment of it. It is observed in the setting of table fellowship using the staple elements of a normal meal in New Testament times which sustain the body and give joy to the heart. The table is not an altar. The spiritual meal of the Supper is the feast of fellowship with Christ for the community of the faithful. Believers have a communal participation or union in Christ’s life, death, resurrection and ascension to glory, of which the new covenant in Christ’s blood speaks (Matt 26:27-28; 1 Cor 11:25). It follows that the mystical body of Christ, the church, cannot share in idolatrous observances (1 Cor 10:14, 21) or practise social discrimination (1 Cor 11:17-22) for in Christ Jesus we are one.

The New Testament Passover in Christ celebrates a new Exodus (Luke 9:31) accomplished by Jesus, the greater than Moses. It is the celebration of the once-for-all-time redemption of God’s people through the new covenant in Christ’s blood. Biblically speaking, to remember a past event is not simply to recall it but to remember in such a way that heart and mind are engaged in the present and it has a future dimension too – ultimately, participation in ‘the marriage supper of the Lamb’ (Rev 19:6-9).

Singing closed the meal – undoubtedly part of the Hallel – Psalms 113 – 118. How fitting this was! Much more of a practical application can be made but this will have to suffice for the present.

– Rowland S. Ward