When, exactly, did the Last Supper take place? The synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) have Jesus and his disciples eating the Last Supper as the Passover feast, before he suffers, so that the Day of Passover should be the day of his crucifixion. In John’s Gospel, the timing of the Last Supper occurs twenty-four hours earlier, before the Passover supper, and Jesus dies as the Passover lambs are being slaughtered, just in time for the Passover supper. There are sound theological reasons for each of these interpretations: the synoptics stress that the Last Supper is a Passover, while John stresses that Jesus is the paschal lamb being sacrificed. The bottom line, the Catholic church, as do most Christian faiths, follows the chronology set by John in their Triduum celebrations.
Throughout the life of Jesus, but especially in the narrative of the Passion, the fulfilment of Scripture is important. The most ancient tradition of the Church, seen in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5, was clear that Jesus died “according to the scriptures” and rose “according to the scriptures”. This event, the “Hour” of Jesus, was the climax of Israel’s history, to which the whole thrust of the scripture was focused. Therefore, it is stressed by many quotations from the scriptures that it was bound to be so. As an example, the thirty silver pieces for which Jesus was sold likely was an allusion to Exodus 21:32, the compensation for a slave gored by an ox. Many details of the narrative have their chief point in showing the fulfillment of scriptural text.
The festival on which Passover was based originally was a nomad festival celebrating the move of the flocks from winter pastures in the plains to summer pastures in the hills. A fine lamb was offered to placate the gods, so that they would not harm the rest of the flock; it was eaten at the first full moon of spring, after the spring equinox. Blood on the doorposts of the tents was a sign that the offering had been made. Water was scarce for nomads, so the lamb was roasted, not boiled, since the cooking pots were packed with the nomads’ belongings. This primitive festival was taken up by the Hebrews to commemorate the great move from Egypt through the desert, and – most of all – the covenant made in the desert of Sinai, when God made Israel his own people. It was celebrated each year, and the blood of the lamb was sprinkled over the altar (representing God) and the people signified their union in the covenant.
This feast was taken up by Jesus as the occasion for him to make his own new covenant, fulfilling the promises made by the prophets of a new covenant to replace the old covenant so definitively broken at the time of the Babylonian Exile. Whether Jesus celebrated it on the traditional evening (Friday), or the day before (Thursday) is unclear. If it was not the traditional day, he must have taken this last opportunity to make it his own Passover Festival with his community. Paul gives us the story of this meal, which he himself had received hardly a dozen years after the Last Supper, well before when the Gospels were written.
Jesus himself is the lamb who is to be sacrificed, and his new covenant is sealed, not in blood sprinkled, but in his own blood consumed. It is a ‘memorial’, that is, an effective re-enactment, actually renewing the act of dedication and union. In today’s reading Paul rebukes the Corinthians for re-enacting this significant moment thoughtlessly, as though it was an ordinary festal meal; they had lost the intention and the seriousness. They were no longer proclaiming the death of Jesus, no longer engaging themselves in the new covenant.
Jesus’s extraordinary gesture recorded in the Gospel of John shows us the full meaning of what he was doing. The narrative stresses that Jesus knew what was to come. He was showing his disciples the meaning of the events. By the act of rising from the table and performing the demeaning act of stripping down and washing the feet of his followers, his guests, he was showing the meaning of the dire events to come. Peter’s horror says it all, but there was far worse to come. It was a pre-enactment of his great act of serving his community, the new family which he was binding to himself by this new covenant. It was the foundational act of service in the Church.
May God Bless You and Grant You His Peace!