The Journey of Holy Week: Thursday

Mark 14:12-72 

On this morning, Jesus instructs Peter and John to go into the city to a mysterious "upper room." They are to have the Passover meal prepared by sunset, at the very beginning of the fourteenth of Nisan, the day when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb. Passover is to be a day of celebration, but for the disciples it seems more like a funeral than a celebration, the end of an era rather than the beginning of a new one.

At sunset, Jesus and the disciples enter the city and go to a large house, where they walk upstairs and come into a spacious upper room. They see Peter and John here, finishing the preparations. This upper room will be their new home.

It is in this room that the king who rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey gives the disciples a glimpse of the new kingdom that, despite their doubts, is already dawning. In an astonishing display of intimacy, the king washes their feet as an example of this new politic—a hierarchy of servants rather than masters. Perhaps using the holy water for this final cleansing, Jesus wipes the disciples' feet—filthy and blistered from nearly a week of constant walking—including the feet of a nervously impatient Judas, who has one last opportunity, as Jesus tenderly strokes his feet, to repent.

They are now ready to eat the Passover. The Passover meal Peter and John prepared earlier that afternoon consists of bitter herbs with flat, stale bread. It is forbidden in the Torah to use new flour until Sunday, the second day of Unleavened Bread, when the new barley harvest will begin and fresh unleavened bread will be baked. Normally tonight's meal would have taken place tomorrow evening, after the lambs have been sacrificed at the temple.

But in this atmosphere of distress, doubt, and fear, Jesus opens their eyes to a new understanding of Passover. He is now the Passover lamb, slain to free his people. The unleavened bread and the wine are now his flesh and blood. The firstborn of the Father is laying down his life so that the firstborn of Israel—and now of Egypt and the whole world—will live. During this last supper, the old covenant is subsumed and transformed, through Christ's body and blood, into a 'new covenant' in which animal sacrifice, with its regulations, is no longer needed. From now on, in the breaking of bread and the pouring of wine, every day will be Passover and Unleavened Bread, until the coming of his Father's kingdom.

This kingdom has a new mandate: Love. It is the oldest of commandments, eternally written in the human heart, but now transformed by its living embodiment. This is a love so deep that it will lay down its life for its friends. And now the eternal life of this new kingdom would be found not in financial or political security, but solely in knowing and loving God, as creatures made in his image, whose very nature and being is Truth and Love.

Since it is now two weeks after the new moon, a bright full moon shines overhead. As they leave the house, they pass along the vines that crawl up the southern wall of Jerusalem, which is lit by the moon's silvery glow. Jesus speaks to the disciples of peace in the midst of trouble, joy in the midst of grief, glory in the midst of shame, and victory in the midst of defeat—even as they are about to scatter and desert him. Now more than ever, they are confounded by his words. As the disciples near the Garden of Gethsemane at midnight, their heads aching with sorrow one of them is still missing.