17 Now on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying to Him, “Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?”
18 And He said, “Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, “My time is at hand; I will keep the Passover at your house with My disciples.” ’ ”
19 So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them; and they prepared the Passover.
20 When evening had come, He sat down with the twelve. 21 Now as they were eating, He said, “Assuredly, I say to you, one of you will betray Me.”
22 And they were exceedingly sorrowful, and each of them began to say to Him, “Lord, is it I?”
23 He answered and said, “He who dipped his hand with Me in the dish will betray Me. 24 The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.”
25 Then Judas, who was betraying Him, answered and said, “Rabbi, is it I?”
He said to him, “You have said it.”
26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”
27 Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. 29 But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.”
30 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Introduction
For over a year we have been going through Matthew’s Gospel, walking through chapter after chapter of Jesus’ ministry to Israel for months. In the last few chapters, after spending His entire ministry in the outskirts of Israel, Jesus finally made it to Jerusalem. And from here, the pace of the story starts to quicken. He enters the temple, being publicly rejected by the heads of the people of Israel, then He spends the next two chapters prophesying against that place and that city. From there the die has been cast. Jesus is going to die. Judas has sold him to the chief priests and elders. Jesus is going to His doom.
Beginning of the unleavening (v. 17-19)
Matthew starts by telling us in v. 17 that literally it was “the first of the unleavened.” Now, we can take this as meaning the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, as it gets translated here. It is correct, it is Passover after all. And at Passover, Israel was commanded to rid their house of leaven. The symbolic meaning of this we discussed months ago with the parable of the leaven, but it is worth rehashing here. In the ancient world, you did not have packets of yeast to leaven your bread. Bread was raised by spores that were in the air. That is what leavened bread means—sourdough. And you keep leaven, by retaining a little bit of dough with each batch, which matures the dough and adds to the flavor of the bread over time. The point of leaven is continuity. There are some sourdough mothers which are hundreds of years old. But Israel, was to break that continuity ever year. Just as she left the leaven of Egypt in Egypt, so was she to leave the previous year’s leaven behind and begin anew.
But there is a different kind of unleavening taking place here than just the yearly Passover for Israel. This isn’t a normal Passover. Not just any lamb is going to be slaughtered and feasted on by Israel. No, The Lamb is going to sacrificed for them. His blood will cover the doorposts when the avenging angel comes to destroy. The leaven that is being left behind is the old world, the old covenant, the leaven of the Pharisees. A new loaf is being formed, with new leaven. And this leaven will leaven the entire world.
There is deep symbolic significance with Passover and Unleavened Bread, and it is a mistake to assume this is unintentional. Nothing in the Bible is coincidental.
Because the feast was beginning, the disciples wanted to know what Jesus wanted to do. They came there to participate in the feast and now needed to make preparations. Jesus tells them what to do. There is a man, apparently known to them, they were to go to and tell them “the Teacher” sent them. But not only that, but that “My time is at hand.” He is again, subtly pointing out that He is going to be killed. They did what He told them, and set up the Passover meal. Bread, wine, lamb roasted with bitter herbs.
Betrayal (v. 20-25)
Jesus sits down with His men to eat the Passover once evening comes and tells them during dinner that one of them will betray Him. The response from the disciples is extreme sadness. They are heartbroken to hear this. And each of them began to ask “is it me?” Have you ever wondered why Jesus did this? He already knew Judas was the one who betrayed Him. Why did He subject the other eleven to this? Think about what happened in Gethsemane. It is true that only one of the disciples sold Jesus to the chief priests and elders for money. But when they showed up to take Jesus, did the other eleven stay with Jesus, proudly going to the cross with Him? No. They abandoned Him. They ran away. They even denied that they knew Him. No, their betrayal obviously did not rise to the level of Judas, but it was betrayal nonetheless. Their loyalty to Jesus stopped at the point of losing their lives for His sake.
The Last Supper (v. 26-30)
After Jesus acknowledges to Judas that He knows, He institutes the Lord’s Supper. That’s not something we can separate from the feast. It is the feast of a king being betrayed to His death by His friend. It is the feast of a king about to go to war for His people.
It is important that we look at the details. First Jesus takes bread, blesses it and breaks it, and gives it to His disciples, telling them “take, eat; this is My body.” And then separately, just as the body of the sacrificial animal was always drained of its blood, He does the same thing, taking the cup, saying a second prayer giving thanks for it, and giving it to them saying: “drink from it all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”
There are a few things to point out here. The Bible is filled with carefully designed rituals and rites. The job of the priest was to know Leviticus well, to know the process by which you did the sacrifices. God gave you those instructions to do them exactly as He prescribed. You didn’t get to change the order or add or subtract things you think are cool. In fact, when a couple priests did that, God consumed them with fire from the altar. There are not nearly as many rites in the New Testament as in the Old. This is not because God does not care about the rituals He establishes, but because the sacraments of the New Covenant are the culmination of the rites of the Old Testament. All the feasts have their end in this feast. All the sacrifices of the Old Testament meet their end here. So the order and the manner which Jesus did this, and which Paul re-iterates in 1st Corinthians, matters. Bread and wine are separate. There are two separate prayers that precede each.
And that phrase that Jesus uses “the blood of the covenant” is not a new one. This is precisely the same phrase that Moses uses in Exodus 24:
24:1 Now He said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar. 2 And Moses alone shall come near the Lord, but they shall not come near; nor shall the people go up with him.”
3 So Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments. And all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words which the Lord has said we will do.” 4 And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord. And he rose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel. 5 Then he sent young men of the children of Israel, who offered ascensions and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. 6 And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins, and half the blood he sprinkled on the altar. 7 Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has said we will do, and be obedient.” 8 And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, “This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you according to all these words.”
What does this mean for Jesus to use it? A covenant like the one made with Moses is being made between God and His people now. It means unlike the Old Covenant which was sealed in the blood of bulls and goats, the new one is established in the blood of Jesus. Jesus is drawing upon this to show the depth of the New Covenant, to show that it is built upon the Old one.
Finally, the last thing that Jesus does is make a Nazirite vow. In Numbers 6, God explains a vow that is undertaken for a specific amount of time, where you do not drink wine or alcohol or cut your hair. It set you apart as a holy warrior. There are quite a few Nazirite vows in the Bible, Samson and Samuel were Nazirites from birth. As was John the Baptist. Paul took a Nazirite vow in Acts and offered His hair in the temple after He returned to Jerusalem. Here Jesus is taking a Nazirite vow, marking Himself out as a holy warrior. Marking Himself out as the holy warrior. And finally, after they ate, the holy warrior band went up to the Mount of Olives singing a hymn.
Conclusion
For us, we must keep the feast. For us, it is not a feast of betrayal, of a man sold out by His friend to be butchered, it is the feast of a victorious king. Christ’s Nazirite Vow has been fulfilled. Priests could not drink wine while serving in the Tabernacle. Kings were not to drink wine while judging on their thrones. But priests and kings at rest could enjoy the fruit of their labor. The priest-king Noah, whose name means rest, set down his robe of authority, and went to the tent to rest with his wine. On this side of the Resurrection and Ascension, the Lord’s Supper is the feast of a victorious king drawing His children to His table and celebrating with them. He gives us His body broken and blood poured out. He communicates grace to His people, assuring you that I am your Savior and your King, that you belong to Me, that I will never leave your nor forsake you. I may be forsaken and betrayed by all, but I will never betray you or forsake you. That is what He is communicating to us in His supper.
It is the supper that we eat each week that the leaven of the New Covenant works its way through the loaf. That lump of leaven was first kneaded there at the same table Jesus and Peter and Judas and the rest ate. Each week the leaven of the New Covenant is passed on and spreads. It is this leaven, the leaven of Christ, that we are being filled with. So as you go, remember that you belong to Jesus Christ and you belong at His table. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.