When the Lord sets the table
Commentary
Object:
It’s a fascinating proposition when one stops to consider it. After four centuries in bondage, it is the eve of Israel’s deliverance. So many hopes and prayers are finally reaching their culmination. The promises of God are on the verge of fulfillment. And at this auspicious moment, what does the Lord instruct his people to do? He tells them to gather around the table and have a meal.
This is not just any meal, however. The instructions are not open-ended, as though it will be equally good whether it is a snack or a feast. The idea is not merely that they are to eat. Rather, the Lord has prescribed very specifically the what and the how of their dinner. And we have that recipe recorded for us in our Old Testament passage.
We will consider below those first instructions that God gave to the children of Israel concerning the Passover meal. And we will observe that, at the conclusion of those instructions, the Lord insisted that his people continue to partake of that meal, generation after generation. And that, in turn, will bring us to our two New Testament passages.
The Passover meal was Israel’s last supper in Egypt. And 1,200 years later, the Passover meal was Jesus’ Last Supper as well. That event is the account assigned to us from John’s gospel. And in the epistle lection, the apostle Paul also recalls that event.
What the about-to-be-free Hebrew slaves sat down to eat in Egypt 3,000 years ago seems at first blush to be pretty far removed from our people and our pews. When translated through the gospel and the epistle, however, we discover how close to home all of it is. Indeed, we may see ourselves sitting at the far end of the very same table.
Exodus 12:1-4 (5-10) 11-14
The Passover event redefines New Year’s for us. In our culture, we like to make that annual holiday an occasion for fresh starts, and with some of our resolutions we hope to use the new year to make a new life for ourselves. But in Exodus, the flow goes in the other direction. The new life for Israel becomes the basis for reckoning a new year.
“This month shall mark for you the beginning of months,” the Lord declared at the start of his Passover instructions. “It shall be the first month of the year for you.” And so the people’s newness begins not with the people’s resolve but with the Lord’s gracious and powerful intervention. Happy New Year indeed!
The centerpiece of the Lord’s Passover plan is a lamb -- specifically, an unblemished lamb, whose blood becomes essential to the people’s salvation. The Lord carefully outlines the requirements for the animal to be chosen, what to do with his blood, and how to prepare the meal. And then he even explains how they should eat it.
“This is how you shall eat it,” the Lord says. The recipe for this meal is so specific that it goes beyond just the ingredients and preparation of the food. It extends also to the apparel of those who sit down to eat, and even the manner in which they eat it.
First, there is the matter of Israel’s dining attire. The Lord tells his people to eat the meal with “your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand.” They aren’t putting their feet up and eating in their pajamas, you see. No, by God’s design, they are dressed and ready to go. Just as the meal had symbolic elements, so too was there symbolism in the diners’ dress.
In addition, the Lord prescribes the manner of their eating: “you shall eat it hurriedly.” I have several children whose eating I need to slow down. If they are served first, I discover that they are nearly finished by the time the last one has finally been served. One wonders if they have employed their teeth at all. Yet contrary to our sense of good manners -- and healthy habits -- the Lord wants his people to eat this meal in a hurry. Wolf it down.
The unleavened bread that accompanies this meal -- and in fact, that characterized the whole holiday week later associated with this meal -- was a kind of bread-in-a-hurry. If there had been leaven, then the people would have to wait for the bread to rise. As it was, however, this bread could get from bowl to table much more quickly.
And speed is the issue here, of course. After so many decades of waiting, languishing in bondage, now the moment is at hand. “Gentlemen, start your engines!” The long wait is over, and now it’s time to go!
Finally, we see at the conclusion of the Lord’s instructions that the big event was not limited to just one night. Rather, that one night and its big event -- namely, the deliverance of God’s people -- are to be remembered for all generations to come. And so the meal will serve as an ongoing, meaningful reminder to the people of what God did for them.
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
The great importance of the Last Supper is subtly implied by the way the apostle Paul introduces this brief passage. “I received from the Lord,” he wrote, “what I also handed on to you.” What a remarkable thing for Paul to receive from the Lord.
We know, of course, that Paul was not among the followers who sat around the table with Jesus that night. We might wonder, therefore, where he got the information that follows about the Last Supper event. And we discover that it did not come to Paul from Peter or any of the other disciples who were there. Rather, he received it from the Lord.
Paul does not offer us a comprehensive catalog of what things were revealed directly to him by the Lord. We are told a bit in Acts, and Paul pulls back the curtain on a few matters in his letter. Whatever the whole list includes, however, we would rightly attach great importance to anything on it. And evidently the occasion of the Last Supper was one of those very high-ranking matters.
All four gospel writers record the event that we know as the Last Supper. Indeed, John makes that episode the single longest story in his entire accounting of Jesus’ life, ministry, death, and resurrection. Yet for many of our people, it is Paul’s brief recollection of that event in his letter to the Corinthians that is most familiar -- for it is Paul’s language that has worked its way into so many of our liturgies.
The Passover meal that Jesus and his disciples were celebrating together had many elements, but just two persist in our Christian recollection of it. This is not selective memory on our part. Rather, we take our cue from Jesus himself, who set apart two elements from that meal to have special, additional meaning.
The bread, Jesus said, was his body. For as commonplace as it would have been to break bread at a meal, one wonders how thoughtfully, how deliberately Jesus did it on this occasion as he connected this bread to his body. And then, lest the implication of the former be lost on the disciples, Jesus associated the cup with his blood.
The centrality of the bread and the cup invite a rush of Old Testament episodes and images. Beyond the Passover meal, which is the clear basis for our sacrament, the combination of bread and wine brings Abraham’s mysterious encounter with Melchizedek to mind. Inasmuch as the cup is identified with Jesus’ blood, we are also reminded of the recurring importance and impact of blood in the Old Testament law. Blood was essential for ritual cleansing, for sanctifying, and for atoning. And finally, informed by our sacrament, we think also of the significantly labeled “bread of the presence” that was prescribed to be part of the Tabernacle.
Meanwhile, I wonder why Paul called it “the night when he was betrayed.” Many things happened that night, after all. Paul might have called it the night when the Lord washed his disciples’ feet, or the night he was arrested, or the night before he died. It was the night he promised that he went to prepare a place for them, that he would send them the Comforter, and that he could come again. It was the night he prayed for their oneness. And it was also the night the Lord gave the new commandment, which is the detail from that evening that persists in our referring to it as “Maundy” Thursday.
Of all the notable things that were part of that night, however, Paul refers to it as “the night when (Jesus) was betrayed.” And I take seriously enough the insight of the apostle to wonder why he selected that detail as the one to highlight. It is probably not how you and I think first of that night, and so we should ponder why it is how Paul thought of it.
Paul does not elaborate on his reference, but we infer that the betrayal is an important issue. It speaks to the injustice of Christ’s arrest and suffering. It reminds us of the unreliability of even those who have been called and chosen by him. And it symbolizes the human culpability in what happened on the cross.
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell the story of Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples, but their accounts are just a fraction of what John offers us. The scene that opens in chapter 13 continues at least through the end of chapter 14, at which point Jesus seems to move the group toward their next location, saying, “Rise, let us be on our way” (John 14:31). As we understand the flow of events that night, however, their next destination is the Garden of Gethsemane, and we read three more chapters of Jesus speaking with his disciples before John reports: “After Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to a place where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered” (John 18:1). It seems, therefore, that the Last Supper scene in John fills fully five chapters -- nearly a quarter of the entire gospel!
It was, of course, a pivotal night. We noted above in our consideration of the epistle lection the variety of significant things that happened that night. And John gives us yet one more layer of insight into the watershed quality of that night, saying that Jesus “knew that his hour had come.”
The coming of a certain hour is a prominent theme in John. At the wedding in Cana, Jesus tells his mother that his hour has not yet come (2:4), and the narrator reiterates that fact at two later moments in the story (7:30, 8:20). He tells the woman at the well about an hour that is coming with respect to true worship (4:21, 23). He explains to the Jews about the coming of the hour when the dead would hear his voice (5:25, 28). He also warns his disciples about an approaching hour when they will be persecuted (16:2, 4, 32). In terms of Jesus’ own hour, however, it is in the midst of the Palm Sunday event that he tells his disciples, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”
In the midst of the pageantry and festivity of Palm Sunday, of course, one might be tempted to think that that was his glorification. In the conventional way our world operates and understands things, that sort of triumphant, center-of-attention reception would certainly seem like glorification. Yet in the next breath, Jesus speaks of a grain of wheat falling into the earth and dying. And a moment later, he refers to the instinct to pray for the Father to “save me from this hour.” So something more is at stake than just waving palm branches.
In our pericope, the “hour” was when Jesus would “depart from this world and go to the Father.” That has the same positive sound as the aforementioned glorification. Yet we know that what follows this episode is his arrest, suffering, and execution, which resonates more with the grain that dies and the hour from which one would want to be saved. And so we ask “Which is it?” And the undeniable answer comes back, “It is both.”
Such is the paradoxical nature of the gospel. God so loves a world that hates him. Happy are those who mourn. The first shall be last. And the one they call “Lord” takes on the role of a servant.
That Jesus takes on the role of a servant here makes this moment a microcosm of his larger life. He told the disciples that he had set an example for them, and that they in turn should “do as I have done to you.” The instruction should not be interpreted narrowly, however, to mean only footwashing. Rather, he had already taught them that whoever aspired to be first must become the servant of all (Mark 9:35). And his expressed example had been not to be served but to serve (Matthew 20:28).
Then, in the climax of our selected passage, Jesus makes the point more emphatic. “Just as I have loved you,” he told his disciples, “you also should love one another.” The example that they were to follow was not merely in servitude, but more completely in love. And what they were to do was not merely to wash one another’s feet but to love one another. This was his example, and his example became their commandment. And ours.
This is not just any meal, however. The instructions are not open-ended, as though it will be equally good whether it is a snack or a feast. The idea is not merely that they are to eat. Rather, the Lord has prescribed very specifically the what and the how of their dinner. And we have that recipe recorded for us in our Old Testament passage.
We will consider below those first instructions that God gave to the children of Israel concerning the Passover meal. And we will observe that, at the conclusion of those instructions, the Lord insisted that his people continue to partake of that meal, generation after generation. And that, in turn, will bring us to our two New Testament passages.
The Passover meal was Israel’s last supper in Egypt. And 1,200 years later, the Passover meal was Jesus’ Last Supper as well. That event is the account assigned to us from John’s gospel. And in the epistle lection, the apostle Paul also recalls that event.
What the about-to-be-free Hebrew slaves sat down to eat in Egypt 3,000 years ago seems at first blush to be pretty far removed from our people and our pews. When translated through the gospel and the epistle, however, we discover how close to home all of it is. Indeed, we may see ourselves sitting at the far end of the very same table.
Exodus 12:1-4 (5-10) 11-14
The Passover event redefines New Year’s for us. In our culture, we like to make that annual holiday an occasion for fresh starts, and with some of our resolutions we hope to use the new year to make a new life for ourselves. But in Exodus, the flow goes in the other direction. The new life for Israel becomes the basis for reckoning a new year.
“This month shall mark for you the beginning of months,” the Lord declared at the start of his Passover instructions. “It shall be the first month of the year for you.” And so the people’s newness begins not with the people’s resolve but with the Lord’s gracious and powerful intervention. Happy New Year indeed!
The centerpiece of the Lord’s Passover plan is a lamb -- specifically, an unblemished lamb, whose blood becomes essential to the people’s salvation. The Lord carefully outlines the requirements for the animal to be chosen, what to do with his blood, and how to prepare the meal. And then he even explains how they should eat it.
“This is how you shall eat it,” the Lord says. The recipe for this meal is so specific that it goes beyond just the ingredients and preparation of the food. It extends also to the apparel of those who sit down to eat, and even the manner in which they eat it.
First, there is the matter of Israel’s dining attire. The Lord tells his people to eat the meal with “your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand.” They aren’t putting their feet up and eating in their pajamas, you see. No, by God’s design, they are dressed and ready to go. Just as the meal had symbolic elements, so too was there symbolism in the diners’ dress.
In addition, the Lord prescribes the manner of their eating: “you shall eat it hurriedly.” I have several children whose eating I need to slow down. If they are served first, I discover that they are nearly finished by the time the last one has finally been served. One wonders if they have employed their teeth at all. Yet contrary to our sense of good manners -- and healthy habits -- the Lord wants his people to eat this meal in a hurry. Wolf it down.
The unleavened bread that accompanies this meal -- and in fact, that characterized the whole holiday week later associated with this meal -- was a kind of bread-in-a-hurry. If there had been leaven, then the people would have to wait for the bread to rise. As it was, however, this bread could get from bowl to table much more quickly.
And speed is the issue here, of course. After so many decades of waiting, languishing in bondage, now the moment is at hand. “Gentlemen, start your engines!” The long wait is over, and now it’s time to go!
Finally, we see at the conclusion of the Lord’s instructions that the big event was not limited to just one night. Rather, that one night and its big event -- namely, the deliverance of God’s people -- are to be remembered for all generations to come. And so the meal will serve as an ongoing, meaningful reminder to the people of what God did for them.
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
The great importance of the Last Supper is subtly implied by the way the apostle Paul introduces this brief passage. “I received from the Lord,” he wrote, “what I also handed on to you.” What a remarkable thing for Paul to receive from the Lord.
We know, of course, that Paul was not among the followers who sat around the table with Jesus that night. We might wonder, therefore, where he got the information that follows about the Last Supper event. And we discover that it did not come to Paul from Peter or any of the other disciples who were there. Rather, he received it from the Lord.
Paul does not offer us a comprehensive catalog of what things were revealed directly to him by the Lord. We are told a bit in Acts, and Paul pulls back the curtain on a few matters in his letter. Whatever the whole list includes, however, we would rightly attach great importance to anything on it. And evidently the occasion of the Last Supper was one of those very high-ranking matters.
All four gospel writers record the event that we know as the Last Supper. Indeed, John makes that episode the single longest story in his entire accounting of Jesus’ life, ministry, death, and resurrection. Yet for many of our people, it is Paul’s brief recollection of that event in his letter to the Corinthians that is most familiar -- for it is Paul’s language that has worked its way into so many of our liturgies.
The Passover meal that Jesus and his disciples were celebrating together had many elements, but just two persist in our Christian recollection of it. This is not selective memory on our part. Rather, we take our cue from Jesus himself, who set apart two elements from that meal to have special, additional meaning.
The bread, Jesus said, was his body. For as commonplace as it would have been to break bread at a meal, one wonders how thoughtfully, how deliberately Jesus did it on this occasion as he connected this bread to his body. And then, lest the implication of the former be lost on the disciples, Jesus associated the cup with his blood.
The centrality of the bread and the cup invite a rush of Old Testament episodes and images. Beyond the Passover meal, which is the clear basis for our sacrament, the combination of bread and wine brings Abraham’s mysterious encounter with Melchizedek to mind. Inasmuch as the cup is identified with Jesus’ blood, we are also reminded of the recurring importance and impact of blood in the Old Testament law. Blood was essential for ritual cleansing, for sanctifying, and for atoning. And finally, informed by our sacrament, we think also of the significantly labeled “bread of the presence” that was prescribed to be part of the Tabernacle.
Meanwhile, I wonder why Paul called it “the night when he was betrayed.” Many things happened that night, after all. Paul might have called it the night when the Lord washed his disciples’ feet, or the night he was arrested, or the night before he died. It was the night he promised that he went to prepare a place for them, that he would send them the Comforter, and that he could come again. It was the night he prayed for their oneness. And it was also the night the Lord gave the new commandment, which is the detail from that evening that persists in our referring to it as “Maundy” Thursday.
Of all the notable things that were part of that night, however, Paul refers to it as “the night when (Jesus) was betrayed.” And I take seriously enough the insight of the apostle to wonder why he selected that detail as the one to highlight. It is probably not how you and I think first of that night, and so we should ponder why it is how Paul thought of it.
Paul does not elaborate on his reference, but we infer that the betrayal is an important issue. It speaks to the injustice of Christ’s arrest and suffering. It reminds us of the unreliability of even those who have been called and chosen by him. And it symbolizes the human culpability in what happened on the cross.
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell the story of Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples, but their accounts are just a fraction of what John offers us. The scene that opens in chapter 13 continues at least through the end of chapter 14, at which point Jesus seems to move the group toward their next location, saying, “Rise, let us be on our way” (John 14:31). As we understand the flow of events that night, however, their next destination is the Garden of Gethsemane, and we read three more chapters of Jesus speaking with his disciples before John reports: “After Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to a place where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered” (John 18:1). It seems, therefore, that the Last Supper scene in John fills fully five chapters -- nearly a quarter of the entire gospel!
It was, of course, a pivotal night. We noted above in our consideration of the epistle lection the variety of significant things that happened that night. And John gives us yet one more layer of insight into the watershed quality of that night, saying that Jesus “knew that his hour had come.”
The coming of a certain hour is a prominent theme in John. At the wedding in Cana, Jesus tells his mother that his hour has not yet come (2:4), and the narrator reiterates that fact at two later moments in the story (7:30, 8:20). He tells the woman at the well about an hour that is coming with respect to true worship (4:21, 23). He explains to the Jews about the coming of the hour when the dead would hear his voice (5:25, 28). He also warns his disciples about an approaching hour when they will be persecuted (16:2, 4, 32). In terms of Jesus’ own hour, however, it is in the midst of the Palm Sunday event that he tells his disciples, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”
In the midst of the pageantry and festivity of Palm Sunday, of course, one might be tempted to think that that was his glorification. In the conventional way our world operates and understands things, that sort of triumphant, center-of-attention reception would certainly seem like glorification. Yet in the next breath, Jesus speaks of a grain of wheat falling into the earth and dying. And a moment later, he refers to the instinct to pray for the Father to “save me from this hour.” So something more is at stake than just waving palm branches.
In our pericope, the “hour” was when Jesus would “depart from this world and go to the Father.” That has the same positive sound as the aforementioned glorification. Yet we know that what follows this episode is his arrest, suffering, and execution, which resonates more with the grain that dies and the hour from which one would want to be saved. And so we ask “Which is it?” And the undeniable answer comes back, “It is both.”
Such is the paradoxical nature of the gospel. God so loves a world that hates him. Happy are those who mourn. The first shall be last. And the one they call “Lord” takes on the role of a servant.
That Jesus takes on the role of a servant here makes this moment a microcosm of his larger life. He told the disciples that he had set an example for them, and that they in turn should “do as I have done to you.” The instruction should not be interpreted narrowly, however, to mean only footwashing. Rather, he had already taught them that whoever aspired to be first must become the servant of all (Mark 9:35). And his expressed example had been not to be served but to serve (Matthew 20:28).
Then, in the climax of our selected passage, Jesus makes the point more emphatic. “Just as I have loved you,” he told his disciples, “you also should love one another.” The example that they were to follow was not merely in servitude, but more completely in love. And what they were to do was not merely to wash one another’s feet but to love one another. This was his example, and his example became their commandment. And ours.
