¹⁴ And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. ¹⁵ And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. ¹⁶ For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” ¹⁷ And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. ¹⁸ For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” ¹⁹ And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” ²⁰ And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. ²¹ But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table. ²² For the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!” ²³ And they began to question one another, which of them it could be who was going to do this. – Luke 22:14-23 ESV

As Jesus and the disciples gathered in the second-floor room of a borrowed home, all the familiar sights and smells associated with the Passover meal would have greeted them. Peter and John had been busy making preparations for this commemorative celebration, preparing the room, and making sure they had all the food required for this annual event.

For the disciples, this meal would have had a certain sense of nostalgia associated with it. They would have celebrated this annual festival every year at the same time over the course of their lives. It was a high holy day and, in a sense, a holiday for the Jews. On this day they celebrated God’s deliverance of their ancestors from their captivity in Egypt. The book of Exodus records the words Moses spoke to the people of Israel when he shared with them God’s plans for the first Passover meal.

“This is a day to remember. Each year, from generation to generation, you must celebrate it as a special festival to the Lord. This is a law for all time.” – Exodus 12:14 NLT

Moses went on to explain to them the meaning and the mandatory nature of the two festivals of Passover and Unleavened Bread.

“Celebrate this Festival of Unleavened Bread, for it will remind you that I brought your forces out of the land of Egypt on this very day. This festival will be a permanent law for you; celebrate this day from generation to generation.” – Exodus 12:17 NLT

Then Moses reminded the Israelites that this celebration was to celebrated annually throughout all their generations.

“Remember, these instructions are a permanent law that you and your descendants must observe forever. When you enter the land the Lord has promised to give you, you will continue to observe this ceremony. Then your children will ask, ‘What does this ceremony mean?’ And you will reply, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt. And though he struck the Egyptians, he spared our families.’” – Exodus 12:24-27 NLT

On this night, the disciples would have gathered around a table that held all the elements of a typical Passover meal, including the carefully prepared sacrificial lamb. And Peter and John would have faithfully followed the instructions given by Moses centuries earlier.

“The animal you select must be a one-year-old male, either a sheep or a goat, with no defects. Take special care of this chosen animal until the evening of the fourteenth day of this first month. Then the whole assembly of the community of Israel must slaughter their lamb or young goat at twilight. They are to take some of the blood and smear it on the sides and top of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the animal. That same night they must roast the meat over a fire and eat it along with bitter salad greens and bread made without yeast.” – Exodus 12:6-8 NLT

All over Jerusalem that night, families had gathered together to share this sacred meal. And in that borrowed upper room, Jesus reclined around a table with His little family of 12 disciples as they prepared to celebrate Passover together for what would be the last time. And Luke indicates that the first words out of Jesus’ mouth were both an expression of joy and sorrow.

“I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” – Luke 22:15-16 ESV

His mention of suffering must have caused a pall to fall over the normally festive proceedings. This was not the first time Jesus had talked of the suffering awaiting Him in Jerusalem, and His disciples would have reacted to it much like they had before: With shock and sorrow. Yet, strangely, Jesus expressed how much He had been anticipating this moment. He told His disciples that He had been looking forward to it. And yet, He knew that, at that meal, one of them was going to betray Him. He was also fully aware that, by the end of the evening, all of them would end up abandoning Him. And the ever-faithful Peter, out of fear for his life, would close out the night by denying he even knew Jesus.

But Jesus knew the significance of this occasion. It would be His last chance to instruct His disciples and prepare them for all that was about to happen in the hours ahead. It was no coincidence that Jesus used this highly symbolic meal to illustrate the nature of His pending suffering and death. After all, He was the ultimate pascal lamb and was about to offer up His body and blood on their behalf. But His death would not release them from physical bondage to the Romans. It would provide them with freedom from the bonds of sin and the penalty of death that hung over their heads.

There was so much that the disciples didn’t know and even what they did know, they failed to understand. When Jesus mentioned not eating the Passover meal again until it was fulfilled in the kingdom of God, they had no idea what He was talking about. It’s most likely that they understood Him to mean that He was about to set up His earthly kingdom. After all, that was what they had been longing for Him to do for three years.

But what they failed to understand was that Jesus was about to lay down His life as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:20). He was going to offer Himself as the sinless substitute, selflessly enduring the sentence of death that God, the righteous judge, had decreed as the just and holy punishment for mankind’s rebellion against Him. Not long after they completed the Passover meal, Jesus would go to the cross, where He would take on man’s sin debt and satisfy the just demands of His Holy Father. And, in doing so, God would graciously “pass over” the sins of all those who placed their faith in the selfless sacrifice of His Son. All that Jesus was about to do would be in fulfillment of the prophecy found in the book of Isaiah.

But he was pierced for our rebellion,
    crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
    He was whipped so we could be healed.
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
    We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
    the sins of us all. – Isaiah 53:5-6 NLT

And the book of Revelation reveals that, for His efforts, Jesus would be recognized for His inestimable worthiness.

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!” – Revelation 5:12 ESV

But as the disciples shared the Passover meal with Jesus, they remained oblivious to all these things. So, when Jesus took the cup and told them to divide it among them, they would have thought nothing about it. To them, it was just another part of the Passover ceremony. And when Jesus stated, “For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes” (Luke 22:18 ESV), their hopes must have risen. Once again, they would have likely understood that Jesus was about to set up His earthly kingdom. 

But then, Jesus took bread and broke, telling His disciples, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19 ESV). Their minds would have raced back to that day when Jesus had declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35 NLT).  They would have remembered the two different occasions when Jesus had broken bread before and miraculously fed thousands of hungry people. But there was no way for them to understand His statement, “This is my body, which is given for you.” And when He took the cup and said, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20 ESV), they had no way of grasping the significance of His words. Perhaps their minds went back to the words of Moses when he had ratified the covenant between God and the people of Israel.

Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.” – Exodus 24:8 ESV

Or it could be that they recalled the words of God recorded by the prophet Jeremiah.

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” – Jeremiah 31:31-34 ESV

But even as their minds reeled with confusion, Jesus interrupted their thoughts by announcing, “But here at this table, sitting among us as a friend, is the man who will betray me. For it has been determined that the Son of Man must die. But what sorrow awaits the one who betrays him” (Luke 22:21-22 NLT).

Yet, rather than seek clarity from Jesus about what He meant about dying, they began to debate amongst themselves, questioning which of them would be responsible for His betrayal. They remained clueless about the fate that awaited Jesus. And they had no way of understanding what the cup and the bread had been meant to signify. Jesus was on the way to the cross, but they were still hoping He would soon be sitting on the throne of David.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.