The Last Supper: Jesus' body and Jesus' blood

Preparing for the Readings for March 24, 2016, Maundy Thursday

This reading is about Jesus' final Passover meal, the celebration of the Angel of Death passing over the firstborn of the Israelites back in the time of Egypt.  However, by the end of all this, that Angel of Death is going to claim the firstborn of God.

Mark 14:12-16  How irritating is it to be present for a conversation where everything seems to require inside knowledge?  For example, the boyfriend who is spending Christmas with his fiancé's family, people he’s gone off to the family abode in Vermont to see, for the first time.  The stories, the family rituals, the shorthand that goes on between people who have grown up together, how irritating can it be to the new person trying to break into the crowd?

These verses are the same way.  They assume two bases of knowledge.  One includes the practices of Passover as outlined in the laws of Moses, from Exodus 12-13 if you would like to read up on it.  But that is only half the story.  To truly ‘get it’, we’d need an understanding of how the traditions of Passover are carried out centuries after the original law was given, adapted to Jesus’ time with the use of the upper room.

It does not mean that these verses are useless to us, not by any means.  But it does mean that we need to recognize that this practice of the Lord’s Supper will be as different for us as Jesus and his disciples coming to our church to participate in the Lord’s Supper for Maundy Thursday services.

Mark 14: 17-21  We know who the traitor is.  He went to the authorities in yesterday’s reading.  Most people, even unfamiliar with the bible, still understand the metaphor that a Judas is a traitor.  But put yourself in their shoes, Jesus and his top twelve, taking in the Passover meal, when they are told one of their own, right there, is going to sell out the Savior.

Mark 14: 22-25  The Last Supper, an adaptation of the Passover meal, the Seder, for use by the Christian church all through our history.  And here it is done in three verses.  The Last Supper, the Eucharist, the Mass, Holy Communion, plain old communion, all names for this meal where Jesus talks of his broken body and spilled blood.  It is a metaphor for him hanging on the cross, spear stabbed into his side.