The Final Meal - Mark 14:12-26; Luke 22:24-46
“Yet not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42)
The night before he died, Jesus presided at a customary Passover meal for him and his closest followers. He explained the traditional Jewish significance of the various plates of food. And then Jesus added to them. The bread was his body, broken for them. The wine was a new promise founded in his own blood, poured out for them.
Jesus explained that he would become the servant of all of them – even unto his death – and that they were to become like him. The disciple’s response? They started arguing amongst themselves as to who was the greatest. After all this time, even on the final night, they still didn’t get it. Jesus, one imagines with his head in his hands, left to go and pray.
As Jesus knelt to pray on the Mount of Olives, he felt evil approaching. He looked death in the eye. He was about to offer himself as a sacrifice to carry all the sin of the world down to death with him. As he considered the sheer horror of what he was about to do, his anguished sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. Spiritual vertigo gripped LOVE’s human heart. Death didn’t scare Jesus. Separation from LOVE was a fate much worse than death. LOVE faced being ripped apart so that we might be united together.
As we pray today, take time to thank Jesus for dying for us, paying our full moral debt so that we can know forgiveness and a new, clean start in life. Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to show us if there is anything we have done wrong that we can say sorry for and turn away from. Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to fill us and enable us to live for Jesus in the free, full life he has won for us, passing on that blessing to everyone we meet.
“For the joy that was set before him [Jesus] he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” (Hebrews 12:2-3)
