The Last Supper
“And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is My body. And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is My blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” Matthew 26:26-28
The last few days had been extremely busy for Jesus. He had thrown out men who were using His Father’s house for a marketplace, men who were cheating people trying to convince them that the animals that they brought were not good enough for sacrifice and selling them other doves at inflated prices. Jesus also had His authority questioned by the chief priests and elders. He told more parables, some of which had direct references to the religious leaders because of their hypocrisy. They were still trying to trap Jesus into violating the law so that they would have an excuse to expose Him as a supposed fraud to the people of Jerusalem. These men were Pharisees, scribes, priests, elders, and even some Sadducees. The Pharisees and the Sadducees had a major disagreement about resurrection. The Pharisees believed in a bodily resurrection, but the Sadducees did not. However, their common hatred of Jesus caused them to band together–you know, the old “enemy of my enemy is my friend” thing.
The disciples of Jesus privately questioned Him about the signs that would appear just before the end of the world. He gave them several things to look for of which have been occurring for hundreds of years, but in the final days, will increase exponentially (see Matthew 24). Jesus spoke in parables about those who would be prepared when He returned (the five virgins and the men who doubled their talents) and those who would not be prepared (the other five virgins and the man who hid his talent for fear of his master). He talked about how believers, the sheep, would be set on His right hand and the unbelievers, the goats, on His left. Jesus went on to say that the righteous who serve the needy in the name of Christ are counted as serving Him, and the wicked, because they ignored the needy, they ignored Him as well. The righteous would receive the reward of eternal life in God’s kingdom while the wicked will go into everlasting punishment. So, you can see that Jesus made very good use of the few days that He had left before making His final sacrifice. Of course, He made good use of every single day that He walked on planet earth.
The time had now come to celebrate the Passover. There was a man in Jerusalem whom God had already spoken to about furnishing a room for the Passover meal. The disciples readied the room and prepared the food for the meal. When evening came, Jesus came into the room and sat down with the twelve disciples. They began to eat the Passover meal, but a cloud of grief hung over the room when Jesus announced that one of them would betray Him. I would imagine that fear gripped every one of them. We know which one it was, Judas Iscariot, and he knew that it was himself for he had already sold Jesus out to the religious leaders for thirty pieces of silver. I don’t know how he could have even attended the meal with that on his conscience. Maybe it was because he didn’t have a conscience, but later he would develop one, however, it would be too late. The disciples all began to ask Jesus, “Lord, is it I?” I would also imagine that, as each one asked, he was thinking in the back of his mind, “Oh, please don’t let it be me”. It is not recorded that any of them vowed that he could never do such a thing. Perhaps they were all too shocked at what Jesus had said or were fearful to contradict Jesus. Later though, one of the disciples vowed that he would never leave Jesus, no matter what. Just ask Peter what happened to his vow. Finally, Jesus did identify the betrayer as Judas Iscariot.
During the meal, Jesus took some unleavened bread, blessed it, and broke it, giving it to His disciples to consume. The bread represented Jesus’ body which would be sacrificed the next day on the cross for the sins of mankind. He then took the cup of wine, gave thanks for it, and then shared it with the disciples for them to drink. The cup represented Jesus’ blood which would be shed on the cross as He hung there, suffering, in terrific pain. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission, or forgiveness of sin (Hebrews 9:22). In ancient Israel, the blood of bulls and goats gave a temporary reprieve from judgment for sin, but Jesus’ sinless sacrifice of His blood can purge one’s “conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Hebrews 9:14), a once-and-for-all sacrifice to completely satisfy God’s requirement for justice. When believers partake of the Lord’s Supper, or Communion, it is a solemn occasion that represents the sacrifice that Christ made to save us sinners. Paul wrote in I Corinthians 11:29 that whoever partakes of the bread and juice unworthily, damns himself because he has made a mockery of Jesus’ sacrifice. In this event, may none of us ever have to ask, “Lord, is it me?”