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“Thursday: What Does the Last
Supper Really Mean?” |
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On May 29, 2000, I walked down the Mount
of Olives to the Garden of Gethsemane. In the garden are very old olive trees
with gigantic, twisted trunks. Who knows if they witnessed the passing of
Jesus, but it is not hard to imagine that they did. Soon, I crossed the Kidron Valley and walked along the walls of the old city of Jerusalem to the Dung gate. I continued my walk southwest along the outside of the wall to the Zion Gate, which got its name from Mt Zion on which it stands. It was difficult, but eventually I found what I was looking for. I climbed some very old stone steps to the roof of a building lining the narrow street. I entered a doorway into a large empty room. As I stood off to the side in silence, groups came and went. Some stopped to pray – or sing a hymn – or take quick communion. The Israeli government doesn’t want Christians worshipping there because it would slow down the flow of tourists, but – why is so much veneration given to one empty room? It is a chapel built to commemorate Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples. This site was identified more than 350 years after the actual event, and so Bible scholars and archeologists cannot be certain that this is the actual location of the supper. This room is also thought to be the same place where the disciples gathered to worship at Pentecost as described in the 2nd chapter of Acts. But I am glad I saw it – and I could, for a moment or two, imagine the scene of the Last Supper – if not there, then at least in a roof top room like that one. According to the gospel of Mark, on Sunday, Jesus led an anti-imperial parade into Jerusalem. (We call it Palm Sunday.) On Monday, Jesus briefly shut down the temple in a religious demonstration. On Tuesday, Jesus came back to the temple and publicly taught about the kingdom of God in a way that made the chief priests and scribes look foolish. On Wednesday, the temple rulers decided to look for a way to arrest Jesus with the help of Judas. And then, Mark says, on Thursday, Jesus and his disciples once again returned to Jerusalem to celebrate the Jewish holy festival called the Passover. This time, there was no marching in the streets or gathering crowds in a public forum. This experience was to be quiet – secret – intimate. The tension has been building for five days. Each day has become more dangerous for Jesus. It is as if he knows what is going to happen. (see Borg and Crossan, 2006, p.111) His arrest is inevitable. But, on that last night, Jesus made arrangements for the thirteen of them to have their dinner in an upper room of someone he knew. Eating with Jesus was a significant part of his ministry. Meals with him were not a sip of something to wet the tongue and a crumb or two to make you salivate. Meals with Jesus were generous slabs of bread and chunks of fish and jugs of water and the best wine – robust and filling food fit for a day laborer. In many of Jesus’ parables, food is an important element: borrowing food from a neighbor for an unexpected guest; or a big party for a prodigal son who has come home; or a king who brings in street people for a wedding banquet – you can probably think of others. When Jesus talked about the kingdom of God, he often referred to it as a heavenly banquet that doesn’t run out of food and the table is big enough to include everybody. And look at whom he ate with. Jesus was criticized for eating with tax collectors and sinners. His meals pushed beyond socially acceptable boundaries and became a model for the kingdom he was telling people about. Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan suggest that “the Last Supper continues and culminates in Jesus’ emphasis upon meals and food as God’s justice.” (p. 114) The reason Jesus and the disciples were eating together this time was to commemorate the event when God rescued the Hebrew people who were slaves of Pharaoh’s government in Egypt. Do you know the story? The Hebrew people “finally got their freedom … when some of the blood from the Passover lamb was put on the doorposts of (their) houses … as a marker when the angel of death passed over those houses and did not kill the firstborn of those who lived within them … Each family then ate their Passover lamb for dinner and got ready to leave (for the Promised Land)… The lamb was then also food for (their) journey – and was part of their ‘Last Supper’ in the land of bondage.” (Borg and Crossan, p.116) Centuries later – in Jesus’ day – the Jews still gathered with their families to reenact the eating of the lamb, and preparing for the journey, and re-telling the story, and reminding the family: “All of us have been liberated by God … Thus, the Passover lamb had a twofold purpose: protection from death and food for the journey.” (Borg and Crossan, p.117) During the eating of their meal, Jesus interrupted and did something quite unexpected. Mark says that he “took,” “blessed,” “broke” and “gave.” These four verbs are the same as Mark used to describe the feeding of a crowd of more than 5,000 people. (Mark 6:41) (Borg and Crossan, p.114) (Read Mark 6:41; Read: Mark 14:22) When Jesus fed the crowd, he took what they had among them, and it became enough for everyone with baskets full left over! In this kingdom – God’s-kingdom-on-earth – there is enough for everyone – and plenty left over. At the Last Supper, Jesus took what was on the table (what they already had), blessed and broke the loaf, and gave it to them. He also took a cup, blessed it (and you can’t break a cup), and then also gave it to them. The early Christians who read Mark’s gospel would have seen the connection clearly. Can you? The Last Supper, as Mark has told it, was not only a continuation of the meal practice of Jesus – and it was not only a celebration of the Jewish Passover feast – and it not only was a reminder of the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus gave it still yet a deeper meaning by what he did and said. How could we not but think of Jesus’ impending death when he said, “Take; this is my body?” How could we not but think of Jesus’ impending death when he said, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many?” This “language of body and blood points to (his) violent death.” (Borg and Crossan, p. 118) In the upper room, Jesus made sure that “all of the Twelve (including Judas) actually partake of the food and drink – they all participate in the bread-as-body and wine-as-blood. It is as it were, a final attempt to bring all of them with him through execution to resurrection, through death to new life … And we, like they, are invited to travel with Jesus through execution to resurrection. The Last Supper is about bread for the world, God’s justice against human injustice, a New Passover from bondage to liberation, and participation in the path that leads through death to new life.” (Borg and Crossan, p.120) After I returned to my apartment in Bethlehem that night in May of 2000, I wrote a prayer in my travel journal. I ask that it might now be our prayer for this day. Let us pray. Dear Lord, it has been a memorable day. Thank you for the opportunity to make Jesus’ last days so real – to see some of the things he might have seen and be in places that he might have been – to think about the inner struggles of his last days. God, I look at my life and realize how hard it is to even consider suffering or sacrifice for the poor and the oppressed. And yet, O forgiving One, is that not Jesus’ challenge to us? Forgive us for not risking enough. Make us catalysts – to be Christ’s footprints – living ones – on this earth. In his name we pray it. Amen. |