Maundy Thursday: if you want to know what it is go here.
John 13:21-32; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; Psalm 116:1-2,12-19; Exodus 12:1-14
When Jesus and his disciples gathered together on the eve of his crucifixion and death, they were gathered for the most important feast in Judaism: the Passover meal. This meal, and the associated festival, commemorates 2 things: the final plague in Egypt that led to Israel’s release from captivity, and that God “passed over” Israel’s firstborn during that same plague, even while killing the firstborn of all the rest of the people in Egypt. Here’s how it happened: <Read Exodus 12:1-14>
A few thousand years later, Jesus gathered with his closest friends and celebrated this meal. He tried to give his disciples rather large hints about what was to come, but they seemd to have trouble really getting it. Even when being so obvious as to say, “One of you is going to betray me … the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish,” then handed the bread to Judas Iscariot, the disciples still didn’t get it.
It wasn’t until Judas showed up with a small army and arrested Jesus that the disciples started to know what was going on. They knew Jesus was going to die, and that there was a good chance his followers would die with him if they weren’t careful. So they ran, and Jesus was left to die more or less alone. Of course we all know what happened later, but we’ll talk about that on Sunday.
Backing up, when Jesus was hosting the Passover meal, he does something a little strange. He takes bread, breaks it, and gives it to his disciples, saying “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” The meal continued, and at the end he took the final cup, gave thanks and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
Now for the disciples, they might have remembered back to the feeding of the five thousand, when Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.
At this Passover meal, which we celebrate tonight, Jesus instituted what we know as Holy Communion, where we receive Jesus’ body and blood — and with it the forgiveness of our sin and eternal life in Him.