Think about your dearest friends and loved ones... I'd wager that some of the memories which flood your mind are around a meal table. The long breakfast on a sunny morning. The birthday meal where you got to eat all your favourite food with all your favourite people. The wedding banquet which saw two of your best friends celebrate their marriage...
Eating together is one of the surest ways to cement relationships. Food also has huge ritual significance in cultures around the world. It's no surprise, then, that when we think about the Last Supper, we realise Jesus chose to spend His last earthly hours over a meal. He spent it with His disciples, those whom he'd spent so much time with over three years.
The meal itself, of course, was a Passover celebration. The great Jewish feast marked the people of God's deliverance from the hands of the Pharaoh in dramatic fashion. Unleavened bread would be consumed and the story recounted. This festival is still marked by Jewish people around the world. In Jesus' day, Jerusalem would have been full of people who had come to celebrate.
The significance of Jesus being arrested on the night of the Passover is hard to overstate. This was the festival where the Jewish people marked God's great act of intervention to save them from the oppression of Egypt. Jesus was to take part in His own great act of deliverance, one not just for the Jewish people, but for the whole of humanity and the whole created order. He was the Passover lamb, as 1 Corinthians 5:7 says, "Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch – as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed."
As the meal went on, Jesus showed that he was aware of the fate which was about to befall him in the garden. He identified Judas as the man who would betray him. That He sat down and ate with Judas shows the grace emanating from Jesus – to be present with the man who would hand Him over to be killed must have been a tortuous experience.
Jesus then uses the bread and wine and undertakes one of the most significant moments of His entire ministry. As Luke has it, He "Took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.'"
Though Christians have debated the status and significance of the Eucharist/Lord's Supper/Mass/Holy Communion/Divine Liturgy/Holy Offering ever since, what can't be denied is that it has been understood as the central act of Christian worship for 2,000 years.
Jesus gave us a meal by which to remember Him. A meal through which to celebrate Him. A meal which brings us together as one family of believers. He gave us words throughout the Gospels, but in the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the wine He gave us something more, something sacramental – a physical act in which we partake so that our bodies recognise the Good News – as well as our minds.
As NT Wright says in his wonderful little book, The Meal Jesus Gave Us, "The whole world is coming, symbolically in that bread and wine, to the foot of the cross. The Church is a 'Royal Priesthood' gathering up the praises and pains of creation and turning them into prayer and sacrament." This is what Jesus was doing at the Last Supper – allowing His disciples one last chance to eat with Him, but also allowing the Church across time and space to share with Him in this extraordinary meal.
In John's Gospel there is an additional part to the Last Supper – Jesus washes His disciples' feet. "Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean," said Jesus. This amazingly intimate act was one of a servant. Jesus was prefiguring the role that He would play only hours later on the cross itself. He was wiping away the grime of life that had accumulated on the disciples' feet.
This was an astonishing act for a rabbi to carry out, but as usual, Jesus was full of surprises. Having washed their feet, Jesus explained His actions, "Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet.I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you." Even as His time on earth was ending, Jesus was modelling the role that the Church should play.
This extraordinary meal is remembered daily and weekly at communion services worldwide. Today, Maundy or Holy Thursday, it is especially remembered with services featuring foot washing and sometime Passover-style meals. As we venture into Good Friday and beyond, we can pause and remember the great lessons Jesus taught the disciples, and us, at the Last Supper.
