The First Supper
Mark 14:12-25
Thursday of the Last Week finds Jesus at table with his disciples. His actions at the table that night still speak to us of the meaning of his death and the promise of the new creation.
One of the most common human impulses, no matter the culture, is to mark important events with meals. Birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, holidays—all of them call us to the table, and it’s the memories of those meals that stick with us over time. When I was a kid, for example, Thanksgiving at my grandma’s house was always something to look forward to. It was always a feast, but what I remember most is that we always had special hours d’oeuvres before the meal—peanut butter in celery sticks. My wife gets a kick out of the fact that I get so excited when we have them at our house. The taste reminds me of that special time in my childhood with people who are mostly now all gone.
I’ve had a memorable meal with a Korean family in Seoul where very few words were spoken and I could not identify what was on my plate (but I ate it with enthusiasm out of respect for my quietly dignified hosts). I’ve eaten goat in a Maasai village in Kenya, which was a rare feast for those tribesmen offered in honor of guests. I’ve had Turkish coffee and biscuits with an Arab trader in Jerusalem and, most meaningful of all, I’ve spent many family birthdays at Chipotle with Jennifer and the kids. Such meals say more than we could ever put into words. They not only feed our bodies, those special meals actually say something in and of themselves and they do something within us—these are the meals that mark us, give us a sense of belonging, and open the world to us.
The Passover and the Last Week
The great Jewish feasts all function this way—they are not only meals with special menus but they are meals that retell Israel’s story. The most important of those meals is Passover, which begins with the youngest member of the family asking, “Why do we celebrate on this night?” The patriarch of the family answers by telling the story of how God liberated Israel from slavery in Egypt—the story of the Exodus of which we got a taste earlier. In Jesus’ day, though, it wasn’t only the story and the meal that marked Passover, it was also how they ate it. They didn’t sit on chairs or stand. In that world, free people reclined at the table on cushions or couches. Not only the meal itself but the way they ate it was a political act—a sign of freedom. Even though they were still under Roman occupation, the way the Jews in Jerusalem ate the Passover meal on that Thursday night of the last week was a statement: “Despite appearances, we are God’s free people.” The Passover meal was thus a statement of faith in God, loyalty to God, and a promise of hope that God’s people would one day be truly free.
We get a heightened sense of the political nature of the meal when we read the beginning of the Gospel lesson. It almost reads like a spy thriller—follow your contact, a man carrying a water jar, to a secret location and there prepare for the meal. These little details tell us that this meal was going to be different than any that these Jewish disciples had ever had before. Jesus knows that the end is coming very soon and the secret location means the meal won’t be interrupted as Jesus offers them a meal they will never forget.
All these two disciples following the man with the water jar know is that they’re to prepare all the special elements of the Passover feast – the paschal lamb whose blood saved the Israelites, the bitter herbs that remind them of the bitterness of slavery, the unleavened bread—all of this and more reenacts the story of Israel’s liberation. But if the strange preparations for this meal are any indication, this will be a Passover like no other. Indeed, it will be a surprise party for the disciples—one of sadness, we learn from the Gospels, but also one that will become a celebration for generations of those who follow Jesus.
For some time now, Jesus had been telling his disciples that his own death was imminent. They scratch their heads trying to figure out what it means. Around the table that night, Jesus would finally tell them what it means, but he will not do that with so many words—he will do it with an action. This is a Passover meal with a difference. It’s a meal that will explain, more than words could ever do, what the events of the next day will mean—that day when Jesus will march to the cross and die. This is the meal that will enable Jesus’ followers, then and now, to make meaning of Jesus’ death—to take it into their own lives, to draw strength from it, to see it as a pattern of living, and to remember it again and again. If we want to understand what happens at the cross, the meal is the place to start.
All the symbols are arranged at the table. Here is Jesus, surrounded by twelve disciples—a symbolic reconstruction of the twelve tribes of Israel. Here is Jesus at the head of the table, the greater Moses who will go ahead of them and ahead of the world into a clash with a slave master who is far greater than Pharaoh, into terrors greater than walking through the sea, to lead them to real freedom—ultimate freedom from slavery. The chains of slavery that he will break, however, are the chains that hold us all—the chains of slavery to sin and death.
Jesus offers a new kind of Passover
Jesus would have sat at the head of the table that night as the host (the head of the table being on the left in the triclinium, with one space to the right for the most honored guest-the space the disciples fought over). As the host, Jesus would have told the story of Israel again as Jews have done for thousands of years, but this time, Jesus would not only say the familiar words that linked the bread and the wine back to the Exodus, he also said words that looked forward to the final liberation of Israel—indeed, to the liberation of the whole world. “Take this, my body,” he says as he breaks the bread. “This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many,” he says as he passes them the wine. In saying those words, Jesus links the meal to the death he would shortly die, and to the coming kingdom of God that would be brought about by that death.
You know, there are lots of theories about what Jesus’ death means—atonement theories that try to explain how Jesus’ death cleanses us from sin and puts us in right standing with God. There are endless debates about those theories and churches have split over taking one position or another.
When you read the Gospels, however—and read them deeply—you will notice that Jesus himself never offers a theory, never offers a fully comprehensive explanation, never develops bullet points that describe what his death will mean for his followers. Instead, he gives them an explanation that goes beyond words. He gives them a meal. We live in a rationalistic world where we expect to have an answer for everything—an answer that can be published in a paper or laid out on Powerpoint. But there are some meanings that cannot be put into words—they can only be put into action. A kiss conveys love more than words can, a sunset speaks of beauty more than any poem, a meal with family gathered around the table says more about togetherness than anyone can capture. Sharing at the Lord’s table is an action beyond words. Paul says essentially that in 1 Corinthians 11 when he says, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (11:26). It’s the action that does the proclaiming and the action speaks louder than words.
Traditionally, the meal Jesus shared with his disciples that night is called the “last supper” because it took place during the last week. But maybe that misses the point. In fact, when you think about the actions Jesus did that night around the table in a secret room with his closest friends (and even with those who would betray him) maybe it would be better to call this the first supper—the first meal of a new age, a new Passover, a new covenant with God, a new promise of God’s kingdom inaugurated when Jesus took on all the evil the world can muster by dying on a cross and then rose again to new life, the foretaste of the liberation we can all expect when his kingdom comes in full—when we can recline at the table with Jesus as people who are truly free.
This is the “mystery of faith” we proclaim in the communion liturgy each week: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. Past, present, future, all come together when we break the bread and drink the cup. It’s a great mystery—one that is beyond words—we taste the bread and juice and then we go from this place with that taste still in our mouths—we not only think it, we feel it, we participate in it. The taste of bread takes us back to that Thursday night and it takes us forward to that great day when we will feast with Christ in his kingdom. In the meantime, we feast together as the Body of Christ—this is what centers us, touches us in our bodies, causes us to know deep in our bones in ways that words cannot express that Christ has died for us, made us part of his new family, delivers us from slavery to sin and death, and invites us into God’s new world that is already breaking in around us.
After Jesus rose from the dead, Luke and John tell us that one of the first things he did was have a meal with his disciples. John sets the meal on the seashore, with Jesus roasting some fish and bread over a fire. Luke tells us that the risen Christ met two disciples on the road to Emmaus. They didn’t recognize him at first, but Luke says that he became known to them when he broke the bread at the table—the action speaking more powerfully than the words. It’s little wonder that when the early church gathered, they always did so around a meal, with the Lord’s supper at the center of it. It was this action, more than any sermon or hymn or anything else, that connected the church to Jesus and the promise of his kingdom.
The need for constant communion
This is the reason we began having communion every week at our church. I am convinced that the weekly celebration of worship must include both Word and Table (indeed, that’s what our services are officially called in the Methodist tradition—Service of Word and Table). When we have Word and Table we not only hear the world proclaimed in reading, sermon, and song, we also taste it, experience it, bring it into ourselves. When we take the bread, when we dip it in the cup, when we feel it on our lips and tongue, when our knees sink into the altar rail, then our worship and understanding goes beyond words and becomes the Word made flesh in us. The table is what brings us together with Christ as the host and, because of that, all are welcome. We share it every week because this is our family meal—the meal that gives us meaning and memory, a sign that all of us, even those who, like those first disciples gathered around the table that night, are sinners and Christ-deniers, are still welcome to come, to have our sins forgiven, to be nourished, to be welcomed in again as part of the family. In the sermon we might hear about Jesus, in the music we might sing about Jesus, in the prayers we might speak with Jesus, but at the table we participate in Jesus as members of the Body of Christ. It’s here that we proclaim the Lord’s death, the death that save us and redeems the world, until he comes.
You know, some meals are more memorable than others. A Thanksgiving feast at grandma’s house usually means more to us than fish sticks in front of the TV. But the one thing in common that all meals have is that we need them to survive. Without regular nourishment, we starve. Jesus seemed to know that his disciples would spiritually starve if they did not regularly gather at the table together to feast on the bread and the cup—the constant nourishment of Christ’s love, his grace, and his promise of the kingdom. It became the meal they not only looked forward to—it was the meal that they needed. I think the same is true for the church today.
John Wesley believed that the people called Methodists should take communion as often as they can: First, because Jesus commanded us to “do this” but also because the benefits of coming to the table are so great. Said Wesley, “Whatever way of life we are in, whatever our condition be, whether we are sick or well, in trouble or at ease, the enemies of our souls are watching to lead us into sin. And too often they prevail over us. Now, when we are convinced of having sinned against God, what surer way have we of procuring pardon from him, than the “showing forth the Lord’s death;” and beseeching him, for the sake of his Son’s sufferings, to blot out all our sins?”
We may never understand all the words, we may never know the reason for everything, but we can come to the table.
Mark tells that after the meal Jesus and the disciples sang a hymn and then they went out—out to Gethsemane where Jesus would wrestle with the cup of suffering being given to him. Jesus would then go out to trial and out to the cross while his disciples fled. Thursday of the last week ends in despair and disappointment.
And yet, we know how the story ends: Sunday is coming. Sunday comes for the wayward, the broken, the sinner, the confused, the frightened and offers a new life—a life of freedom.
Oh yes, Sunday comes every week. And the table will be ready.
Source: N.T. Wright, Mark for Everyone, p. 192-196.