JC & the Law: the Last Supper … (12/08/18)
One of the more well-known episodes of Jesus’ ministry (and possibly the second-most important symbolic teaching of Jesus’ quite unique gospel in the Bible) is the final meal he shared with his disciples; known by many as “The Last Supper” (see Matthew 26:17-30, Mark 14:12-26, Luke 22:7-20, & John 13:2-30). Though the four Gospel tellings do differ somewhat from one another, the majority of scholars tend to agree with the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, & Luke that the following events took place “on the first Day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb [was traditionally] sacrificed” (that is, the 1st day of the traditional Passover celebration1 – see Matthew 26:17a, Mark 14:12a, & Luke 22:7):
*that Jesus’ disciples asked him where they were to make preparations for the Passover meal (see Matthew 26:17b, Mark 14:12b & Luke 22:9),
*that Jesus responded by sending two of his disciples (Peter & John, according to Luke 22:8a) to Jerusalem – telling them that they would be approached there by “a man carrying a water jar”2 (see Mark 14:13 & Luke 22:10); a man they were to follow,
*that they were thereafter to approach the owner of the house entered by the water-bearer and say to him, “The teacher asks you: ‘Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?‘”3 (see Mark 14:14 & Luke 22:11),
*that the man in question would then show the two disciples “ a large room upstairs, furnished and ready” in which to they were to make the Passover preparations (see Mark 14:15 & Luke 22:12),
*that the two disciples then did as Jesus asked – that they went to Jerusalem, met the water-bearer, followed him to the home with the “upper room,” and made the relevant Passover preparations there (see Matthew 26:19, Mark 14:16, & Luke 22:13),
*that Jesus ate the Passover meal with his disciples in that room that evening (see Matthew 26:20-30a, Mark 14:17-26a, & Luke 22:14-38),
*and that Jesus & his disciples all departed thereafter to the Garden of Gethsemane (located at the foot of the Mount of Olives, “across the Kidron Valley” – see Matthew 26:30b, Mark 14:26b, Luke 22:39, & John 18:1).
Despite this mild consensus, a significant number of scholars admit that the Gospel of John quite strongly intimates a valid contrarian view4 – namely, that this “Last Supper” was not the Passover meal (which was actually celebrated several days later, on the eve of Jesus’ crucifixion), but rather an earlier meal purposefully designed to resemble the Passover Seder; a final gathering of Jesus with his disciples both to prepare them emotionally for what was soon to come (namely, his pre-arranged crucifixion; a most dramatic exemplification of selfless Love – one of which they were still mostly in denial, and one for which they were still quite poorly prepared – see Matthew 16:21-23, Matthew 17:22-23, Matthew 26:1-12, Mark 8:31-33, Mark 9:31-35, Luke 9:43-45, & Luke 18:31-34) and to symbolically remind them once more of the primary purpose of his ministry: that being, to enliven the fulfillment of the Law5 – by enabling common Jews to transcend the priests’ (and all other “scribes & Pharisees”) shallow & soulless interpretations of the same. And what evidence is there to support such a contention? Consider the following facts (biblical as well as historical) …
*The Gospel of John itself plainly states that Jesus’ crucifixion took place on “the Day of Preparation for Passover” (John 19:14) – having him therefore supposedly dying on the cross at essentially the same time the Passover sacrifices were being offered and several hours before the Seder meal was then celebrated in Jewish homes later that evening.
*The only portions of the probable Seder tradition present in the Gospel of John‘s rendition thereof is the washing of one another’s feet6 (an act that is interestingly fully absent from the tellings of Matthew, Mark, & Luke) and possibly the eating of bread after it has been dipped in bitter herbs (see John 13:26-27).
*If Jesus and his disciples did indeed celebrate their “Last Supper” on the first night of Passover (as is seemingly described in the Synoptic Gospels), then both Jesus’ trial(s) and his crucifixion would have taken place during the seven-day Passover holiday that followed – activities which no Jewish authority figure could have legally performed at that time (a la Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:1); a fact that the Gospels, especially the Gospel of Matthew, would almost certainly have both noted and harshly critiqued.
*The only foods mentioned in the Synoptic portrayals of the “Last Supper” are bread and wine. If it had been a properly traditional Passover meal, then the telling of the Exodus story, the eating of a murdered lamb, and the sharing of bitter herbs would also have played prominent roles in the ceremony (see Exodus 12:6-8+14).
*According to Luke 22:19b-20 Jesus tells his disciples to partake of the wine and the bread “in remembrance of me,”7 instead of in the Seder’s actual remembrance – namely, the Jewish Exodus from Egypt and concurrent liberation from bondage (neither of which are mentioned in the Gospel accounts).
*While one of the most important rites of the Seder meal involved eating only unleavened bread (see Exodus 12:15, which also mandated that no leaven even be present inside the home at all during the Passover), Jesus and his disciples ate leavened bread (the Greek term arton Strong’s #740 used in Matthew 26:26, Mark 14:22, & Luke 22:19)8 during their meal instead of the unleavened bread (the Greek word azumos – Strong’s #106) that is mentioned in Matthew 26:17, Mark 14:12, & Luke 22:7.
*Another critical rite of the Seder meal was & remains the drinking of the sacred wine9, traditionally recalling God’s primary Covenant with the Jews; essentially a promise of freedom and abundance10 … In the case of the Passover celebration, participants traditionally shared wine via a single cup11 – in all probability representing both the “cup of desolation” (in the Seder’s case symbolizing the Israelites’ famed enslavement to the Egyptians – see Exodus 6:5, along with Psalm 11:6, Psalm 75:8, Isaiah 51:17-22, Jeremiah 25:15, & Zechariah 12:2) and the “cup of salvation” (symbolizing the Israelites’ subsequent liberation from the same – see Exodus 6:6-712, along with Psalm 16:5, Psalm 23:5, & Psalm 116:13). While the consumption of wine was not biblically mandated at the earliest Seder ceremonies (it is not specifically mentioned in Exodus 12), wine did serve many sacred purposes in ancient Jewish culture13 and the Gospels clearly show that it was indeed an intimate part of the Seder tradition in Jesus’ day. That having been said, by avoiding any mention of the Exodus event and instead announcing that the cup represented “the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20), Jesus made a clear & bold reference to the well-known promise of Jeremiah 31 – the promise that duly reflected the primary intention underlying his orchestration of the Last Supper (as well as the underlying purpose of his entire ministry14); a promise having God unequivocally stating that “The days are surely coming when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel … It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I brought them out of Egypt … But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days: I will put my Law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me – from the least of them to the greatest … For I will forgive them their iniquities, and remember their sins no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-35 – quoted as well in Hebrews 8:8-13)
*In addition, it is important to note that Jesus verbally offered his disciples not wine at the meal, but rather his own blood (see Matthew 26:28, Mark 14:24, & Luke 22:20 – also John 6:53-56) – what was in effect a direct (albeit metaphoric15) call to the transcendence of the Law – not only via his bold alteration of the traditional wine-drinking rites of this supposed Seder meal, but also by directly encouraging a blatant breaking of Leviticus 3:17‘s clear prohibition against the eating or drinking of blood.16
*In a similar vein, Jesus also sharply veered from the accepted Jewish theology of his day when he told his disciples to eat of the bread that was actually his body (see “this is my body” in Matthew 26:26, Mark 14:22, & Luke 22:19) – this, which was an obvious symbolic violation of the Hebrew Bible’s many proclamations against the eating of human flesh.17
“Come, eat of my bread and
drink of the wine that I have mixed.”
(Proverbs 9:5)
In conclusion, while several additional minor Seder discrepancies that Jesus possibly orchestrated purposefully during the “Last Supper” could be discussed, there has been more than enough evidence presented herein to reasonably conclude one of the following two postulations about the Last Supper – that either A) Jesus did celebrate a traditional Seder meal18 – the rites of which he intentionally altered19, or B) Jesus staged a symbolic-Seder ceremony several days before the actual Passover meal in order to metaphorically communicate the same message to his disciples. Either way, it is plain to see that “the Last Supper” was not a celebration of the Jewish Law as much as it was a call to drastically alter the way the Law was honored – and thereby ultimately transcend the Law itself.
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1For practicing Jews the Passover was and still remains a celebration commemorating the Exodus from Egypt and concurrent Jewish liberation from the bondage of slavery. The roots of the festival itself are found in Exodus 12:6-25, a passage which demands that the Exodus be celebrated every year in perpetuity (Exodus 12:14+24-25) on the 14th day of the month of Nissan via the eating of a sacrificial lamb with wine, unleavened bread, and bitter herbs. Originally to be eaten “with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, your staff in your hand, and … hurriedly” (Exodus 12:11), the rites of the Passover celebration evolved once the Jews settled in Israel and built their Temple in Jerusalem. At that point the Passover steadily became a yearly Jewish pilgrimage for the devout, a pilgrimage which Jesus’ family regularly made when he was a child (see Luke 2:41). Over time – especially after the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD – the rites of the Passover celebration continued to shift and change, with many of them eventually being recorded in ancient rabbinic literature. Rabban Gamaliel (grandson of the elder Gamaliel at whose feet Paul is said to have studied – see Acts 22:3) noted that the mandates to eat of the sacrificial lamb, unleavened bread, and bitter herbs remained intact throughout its history, and other scholars note as well that the practices of traveling to Jerusalem, of communal foot-washing, of ceremonial wine-sharing, and of celebratory hymn-singing were in all probability also parts of the traditional Seder meal in Jesus’ day.
2Even though the Gospel of Matthew does not mention a male water-bearer, mention thereof in Mark & Luke remains a viable portion of the massive bundle of evidence in the Gospels showing that Jesus intentionally orchestrated the final days of his ministry (probably via “the seventy” disciples he had sent out some days/weeks beforehand – see Luke 10:1), including his own crucifixion (seeing as how men did not normally carry water jars in Jesus’ day). Indeed, much of this evidence is contained within the telling of the Last Supper itself – including the already furnished “upper room”, Judas’ blatantly obvious collaboration with said plan (see John 13:26-31), and Jesus’ own frequent admissions made to the same effect (see Matthew 26:24, Mark 14:21, Luke 22:22, Luke 22:37, John 13:1, & John 13:18-19).
3In mild contrast, the Gospel of Matthew has Jesus giving the disciples the code-phrase of “The Teacher says: ‘My time is near. I will keep the Passover at your home with my disciples.”” (Matthew 26:18) … NOTE as well that all of the phrases given in all three Synoptic accounts open with reference to Jesus as “the Teacher asks/says”, in all possibility revealing that the mysterious water-bearer had encountered one of “the seventy” Jesus had sent ahead in Luke 10:1.
4It would be unfair not to NOTE that the Gospel of John, while indeed lacking any mention of sharing wine & bread in its “Last Supper” description, does contain Eucharistic words similar to those found in the Synoptic Gospels (see John 6:58’s “This is the bread that came from Heaven; not like that which your ancestors ate and died. Instead, the one who eats this bread will live forever”) … Also worth noting is that the “Last Supper” words of John 13:16 (“Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them”), which directly reflect similar passages found in Matthew 20:25-27, Mark 10:41-45, & Luke 22:24-27 (“whoever wishes to be great among you must be a servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must become a slave”), are uttered immediately after Jesus has finished washing his disciples’ feet – a task typically performed by the lowest members of Judean society.
5Again, please refer to Strong’s #4137, the ancient Greek word plerosai – often translated as “to fulfill” in the Scriptures (see Matthew 5:17-18), but more accurately translated as “to hone” or “to perfect” or “to make whole or complete.”
6NOTE two intriguing things about this humble deed – First, Jesus symbolically violated the Law of Leviticus 18 (as well as the shame implied with all post-Fall nudity – see Genesis 3:7-11, Exodus 20:26, Deuteronomy 28:48, Isaiah 47:3, Nahum 3:5, Lamentations 1:8 et al) when he disrobed and was briefly naked before his disciples both before he began washing their feet (“Jesus got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and [then] tied a towel around himself” ~ John 13:4) as well as immediately thereafter (“After he had washed their feet, had put his robe back on, and had returned to the table, he said to them” ~ John 13:12) … and second, that the act is not done to cleanse one’s self ritually for the Seder meal (after all, nowhere do we see anyone washing Jesus’ feet or anyone washing their hands prior to eating), but rather as an example of the “New Covenant” of active, humble, selfless Love that Jesus had come to relay – a New Covenant that did not denounce the Law, but that did indeed enable those practicing it to transcend the same (see John 13:15-17 “For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you … If you understand these things, blessed are you while you do them” followed shortly thereafter by John 13:34-35 “I give you a new Commandment: that you Love one another. Just as I have Loved you, so should you also Love one another. Indeed, by this everyone will know that you are my disciples: if you show Love for one another”).
7Interestingly, Luke 22:19b-20 (“’do this do in remembrance of me.’ And he did likewise with the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you’”) is a highly disputed text, with the words of which failing to appear in the majority of the earliest manuscripts of Luke’s Gospel.
8It is worth noting that even though John 13:25 does use the Greek term for “morsel” (psomion Strong’s #5596) instead of the one for “leavened bread”, an examination of Ruth 2:14 (where the Hebrew equivalent of that term is also used) shows that even John claimed thereby that Jesus dipped leavened bread into the supposedly Paschal Cup.
9The scarcity of water in the ancient Near East made wine a necessity of survival more than a mere luxury (see Genesis 27:28 “May God give you of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth; and plenty of grain and wine” & Sirach 31:27a “Wine is very life to human beings”). As such it came to generally symbolize sustenance and life itself for residents thereof, and this truth is reflected clearly & regularly in the texts of the Old Testament – with Judges 21:20-21, Jeremiah 48:33, & Isaiah 16:10 all noting that the grape harvest was an especially festive occasion, with Psalms 104:14-15 noting that it was God himself who “brought forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart”, and with Sirach 31:27b stating that “What is life to one who is without wine? It has been created to make people happy.”
10Due to its intimate connection with the everyday ongoing life of the ancient Jewish culture, wine – along with grain and oil – is directly representative of the covenant blessings that God promised the people of Israel for their obedience to his religious Law (see Deuteronomy 7:13, Isaiah 25:6, Isaiah 36:17, Isaiah 55:1-3a, Isaiah 62:8, Jeremiah 13:12, Jeremiah 31:12, Joel 2:19-24, Joel 3:18, Amos 9:13-14, & Proverbs 3:10); the same blessings He would withhold from them for their lack thereof (see Deuteronomy 32:28-33, Isaiah 16:10, Jeremiah 48:33, Hosea 2:8-9, Joel 1:10, Amos 5:11, Amos 9:13-14, Micah 6:15, Zephaniah 1:13, & Haggai 1:11).
11Ancient rabbinic literature actually mandates drinking from the Seder cup four times, possibly from four different cups (tied to the four phrases found in Exodus 6:6-7 – see Mishnah Pesachim 10:1), a rite that remains viable amongst devout Jews to this day. The first of these cups was the “cup of sanctification” with which the Seder meal officially began (this is possibly the cup mentioned in Luke 22:17). The second cup – tied to the ceremonial retelling of the Jewish Exodus from Egypt (see Exodus 13:8 & Mishnah Pesachim 10:4-5) – was the “cup of plagues” or the “cup of desolation” (mention of this cup is missing from the Gospel accounts; possibly because the Last Supper was not a sanctified Seder meal). The third cup was the “cup of blessing”, a drought shared after the meal was completed (this would have been the cup mentioned in the Gospels if the Last Supper was indeed a Seder celebration – see Matthew 26:27-28, Mark 14:23-24, & Luke 22:20; though Matthew 26:26 & Mark 14:22 both note that this toast actually took place “while they were eating”). The fourth and final cup was the “cup of praise” (a cup seemingly absent from the Gospel accounts as well),
12Though it remains unclear as to when the Seder tradition of drinking from four cups (or four times from the same cup) began, the four primary phrases found in Exodus 6:6-7 (“I will bring you out”, “I will deliver you”, “I will redeem you”, & “I will take you as my people”) are the very four phrases participants utter (one per cup) before imbibing therefrom.
13The Law demanded that wine be offered with each daily sacrifice (see Exodus 29:40-41), with every offering of first-fruits (see Leviticus 23:13), and with a number of other mandated sacrifices as well (see Numbers 15:5-10).
14NOTE as well the “cup” Jesus mentions later in the Garden of Gethsemane (see Matthew 26:39, Mark 14:36, & Luke 22:42); namely, the “cup” of willing self-sacrifice that he was about to wholeheartedly embody during his pre-arranged crucifixion.
15While there is a minority view among practicing Christians (called transubstantiation) that claims to literally abide by Christ’s words here (thereby believing that the wine at every Eucharist offering literally becomes the blood of Jesus Christ before it is imbibed), this is understandably a view very rarely expressed (seeing as how Jesus in the Gospels would never ask anyone to do such a patently immoral thing, and seeing as how he was also extremely fond of using such shocking speech to metaphorically illuminate his message therein – see Matthew 5:13, Matthew13:18-23, John 6:35-51, John 8:12, John 10:7-14, John 11:25, John 14:6, John 15:1-5 et al, & ultimately John 16:25’s “I have said all these things to you in figures of speech, though the hour is one day coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures, but will tell you plainly about the Father ”). As such, the “memorial view” (see Luke 22:19b’s “Do this in remembrance of me”) is by far the more appropriate one – namely, the view suggesting that Jesus was simply using symbolic analogy to more powerfully express his primary point: that the “bread/body” of selfless sacrifice and the “wine/blood” of unconditional Love must both be fully embodied in order for one to enter into the state of salvational bliss known to him as “the Kingdom of Heaven” … Thus it is well worth realizing at this juncture that “blood” did indeed have a potent symbolic value in the Scriptures, with Genesis 9:4 going so far as to say “you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood”, Exodus 24:8 (see also Hebrews 9:19-22) having Moses exclaim (after the giving of the Law, no less) “See the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with these words”, and Zechariah 9:9-11’s “Shout aloud, daughter Jerusalem! For lo, your King comes to you … He shall command peace to all the nations … And because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free” … Indeed, for this reason sacrificial blood was called “the blood of the covenant” in ancient times, and was required to be sprinkled upon the altar before every offering was burned (see Exodus 24:6-8, Leviticus 1:5, Leviticus 3:13, Leviticus 5:9, Leviticus 7:2, Leviticus 8:11, Leviticus 16:18, Numbers 18:17, & Deuteronomy 12:27 et al) … Penultimately, looking at the gestalt of Jesus three-year ministry – everything he did and everything he said therein, it becomes quite clear that for Jesus “blood” represented selfless LOVE, especially Love expressed via deeds (i.e. “the body”) of humble charity for the downtrodden (see Matthew 25:35-40) &/or of unconditional kindness towards one’s neighbors (especially one’s enemies – see Matthew 5:44-48 & Luke 10:29-37). Indeed, to those who did the same – to those who truly walked his Way by “taking up their cross” and following his teachings (see Luke 9:23) – such acts became the most potent worship of the heavenly Father (see Matthew 22:37-40, where Jesus’ 2 Commandments are accurately summarized as “honoring God by gently and courageously caring for one’s enemies”) … Finally, and perhaps most definitively, Jesus never once told his disciples to drink his blood at the Last Supper, but rather told them to imbibe “my blood of the covenant” (Matthew 26:28 & Mark 14:24 – see also Luke 22:20’s call to drink “the new covenant in my blood”).
16See also Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 7:26, Leviticus 17:10-14, & Deuteronomy 12:23 – as well as Acts 15:29, where this particular prohibition is expressly refreshed as still-binding Law even after Jesus’ death.
17Though the Hebrew Bible never directly condemns cannibalism per se, there are dozens of verses therein that clearly show the practice to be regarded by the Jews as being an unethical violation & even a curse-worthy act (see Leviticus 26:29, Deuteronomy 28:53-57, Jeremiah 19:9, Lamentations 4:10, Isaiah 9:19-20, & Ezekiel 5:10 et al). This is supported by the extreme incredulity felt by his listeners when Jesus relayed a similar message in John 6 (“Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, saying ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’” ~ John 6:52).
18After all, Jesus’ “Last Supper” – just like its traditional counterpart – took place in Jerusalem, at night on the Eve of Passover (at least according to the Synoptic tellings thereof), and in a communal room with his true family members (“And pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers’” ~ Matthew 12:49). In addition, there is evidence that Jesus offered his disciples at least two of the four traditional cups of Seder wine (see Luke 22:17-20 – along with Note 68 on page 39 herein) – the latter having been imbibed after the meal, alongside a statement of thanksgiving, and just before the singing of a closing “hymn” (see Matthew 26:27-30 & Mark 14:23-26). Also true to standard Seder decorum, preparations for the meal were made “last minute”, the disciples reclined as they ate (Matthew 26:20, Mark 14:17, Luke 22:14, & John 13:23), were ritually cleansed before the meal (see John 13), and ceremonially broke bread during the meal instead of merely at its beginning …
19Again, to more fully communicate to his disciples his call for them to effectuate a final fulfillment (i.e. transcendence) of the Law (see Matthew 5:17-20, Matthew 7:12, Matthew 7:21, Matthew 9:16-17, & Matthew 15:7-9 et al).
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