The Last Supper 

Jesus and John Mark had a day alone in the hills. During this time, they came to an understanding that Jesus wanted to have one last meal undisturbed with his apostles. However, he feared that if Judas knew their meeting place, he would arrange to capture Jesus.

The following day, Thursday, April 6, 30 CE, all of the apostles and disciples learned about the hasty flight of Lazarus from Bethany. This was the same day that the Jewish rulers made plans to exterminate Jesus and his teachings.

During the afternoon, Philip reminded Jesus about the approaching Passover and asked about his plans for its celebration. The Passover supper was due to be eaten on Friday evening. It was customary to begin preparations for the celebration no later than noon the preceding day. However, Jesus announced that they would celebrate the Passover one day early. Some apostles thought that Jesus knew he would be placed under arrest before the time of the Passover supper on Friday night.

To avoid the crowds passing through the Kidron Valley back and forth between Gethsemane Park and Jerusalem, Jesus and the twelve walked over the western brow of Mount Olivet and paused to look down on Jerusalem in silence as Jesus did not wish to pass through the city until after sunset.

Jesus then warned his apostles about the impending destruction of Jerusalem, urging them to be cautious but not to attempt to defend him physically. He reminded them that they had already entered eternal life in the kingdom of heaven, with many divine abodes awaiting them. Jesus encouraged them to complete their earthly work and endure coming tribulations, promising that they would eventually join him in his Father's spiritual realm.

When they arrived in the city after dark, only three apostles knew where they were going. The crowds jostled them, but no one recognized them nor knew that the Son of God was passing by on his way to the last mortal rendezvous with his chosen ambassadors of the kingdom.

John Mark followed them all the way into the city. After they had entered the gate, he hurried on another street so that he was waiting to welcome them to his father’s home when they arrived.

After receiving a warm welcome from the father and mother of John Mark, the apostles went immediately to the upper chamber. Jesus lingered behind to talk with the Mark family. It had been understood beforehand that the Master was to celebrate this occasion alone with his twelve apostles. Therefore, no servants were provided to wait upon them.

When the apostles had been shown upstairs, they beheld a large chamber. The bread, wine, water, and herbs were all in readiness on one end of the table. The rest of the long table was surrounded by thirteen reclining couches, just such as would be provided for the celebration of the Passover in a well-to-do Jewish household.

Just inside the door, pitchers of water, basins, and towels had been provided for washing their dusty feet. However, since no servant had been provided to render this service, the apostles began to look at one another as soon as John Mark had left them.

They expected the Master to appear at any moment, but they couldn't decide whether to seat themselves or wait for him and rely on him to assign them their seats. While they pondered, Judas crossed to the seat of honor, to the left of the host, and indicated that he planned to recline there as the preferred guest.

Judas' actions instantly sparked a heated debate among the other apostles. Judas had barely taken the place of honor when John Zebedee claimed the next preferred seat, the one to the host's right. Simon Peter was so enraged by Judas and John's choice positions that he marched clear around the table and took his place on the lowest couch, at the end of the seating order and directly opposite that selected by John Zebedee.

With the highest and lowest positions occupied, the remaining apostles selected locations, some near Judas and others near Peter, until all were found. On these reclining divans, they were situated in the following order: on the right of the Master, John; on the left, Judas, Simon Zelotes, Matthew, James Zebedee, Andrew, the Alpheus twins, Philip, Nathaniel, Thomas, and Simon Peter.

They were still engaged in voicing angry accusations when the Master appeared in the doorway, where he hesitated a moment as a look of disappointment slowly crept over his face. He moved to his seat without saying anything and did not disturb their seating arrangement.

For a moment after the Master had taken his place, everyone remained silent. Jesus looked around at them all and, with a smile that eased the tension, said, "I have greatly desired to eat this Passover with you. I wanted to eat with you once more before I suffered, and realizing that my hour has come, I arranged to have this supper with you tonight, for, as concerns the morrow, we are all in the hands of the Father, whose will I have come to execute. I shall not again eat with you until you sit down with me in the kingdom which my Father will give me when I have finished that for which he sent me into this world."

After they mixed the wine and water, they brought the cup to Jesus. He received it from Thaddeus (James Alpheus) and held it while he gave thanks. When he finished, he said, "Take this cup and divide it among yourselves and, when you partake of it, realize that I shall not again drink with you the fruit of the vine since this is our last supper. When we sit down again in this manner, it will be in the kingdom to come."

In Jewish custom, the host would wash his hands after the first cup of Passover wine. Later, after the second cup, all guests would wash their hands as well. The apostles knew Jesus didn't observe this ritual hand-washing, so they were curious about what he would do when he got up from the table after the first cup. They watched as he walked silently to where the water pitchers, basins, and towels were placed near the door. They were amazed when he removed his outer garment, tied a towel around his waist, and began pouring water into one of the basins.

The apostles had recently refused to wash each other's feet and had been arguing about their positions at the table. They were astonished to see Jesus, their Master, kneel down like a servant to wash Simon Peter's feet. As Jesus knelt, all the apostles stood up in surprise, respect, and utter amazement. Even Judas forgot his infamy for a moment and stood up with his fellow apostles.

Simon Peter looked down at Jesus and said, "Master, do you really mean to wash my feet?" And then, looking up into Peter’s face, Jesus said: "You may not fully understand what I am about to do, but hereafter you will know the meaning of all these things." Then Simon Peter, drawing a long breath, said, "Master, you shall never wash my feet!" And each of the apostles nodded their approval of Peter’s firm declaration of refusal to allow Jesus thus to humble himself before them.

Jesus said, "Peter, I declare that, if I do not wash your feet, you will have no part with me in that which I am about to perform." When Peter heard this, he realized that Jesus' act of service was significant and determined one's connection with the Master's work. Peter agreed to let Jesus wash his feet and impetuously said, "Then, Master, wash not my feet only but also my hands and my head.

As Jesus prepared to wash Peter's feet, he said, "He who is already clean needs only to have his feet washed. You who sit with me tonight are clean - but not all. But the dust of your feet should have been washed away before you sat down at meat with me. And besides, I would perform this service for you as a parable to illustrate the meaning of a new commandment which I will presently give you."

Jesus went around the table in silence, washing the feet of all twelve apostles, not even skipping Judas. When he was done, he said:

"Do you really understand what I have done to you? You call me Master, and you say well, for so I am. If, then, the Master has washed your feet, why was it that you were unwilling to wash one another’s feet? What lesson should you learn from this parable in which the Master so willingly does that service which his brethren were unwilling to do for one another? Verily, verily, I say to you: A servant is not greater than his master; neither is one who is sent greater than he who sends him. You have seen the way of service in my life among you, and blessed are you who will have the gracious courage so to serve. But why are you so slow to learn that the secret of greatness in the spiritual kingdom is not like the methods of power in the material world?

"When I came into this chamber tonight, you were not content proudly to refuse to wash one another’s feet, but you must also fall to disputing among yourselves as to who should have the places of honor at my table. Such honors the Pharisees and the children of this world seek, but it should not be so among the ambassadors of the heavenly kingdom. Do you not know that there can be no place of preferment at my table? Do you not understand that I love each of you as I do the others? Do you not know that the place nearest me, as men regard such honors, can mean nothing concerning your standing in the kingdom of heaven? You know that the kings of the gentiles have lordship over their subjects, while those who exercise this authority are sometimes called benefactors. But it shall not be so in the kingdom of heaven. He who would be great among you, let him become as the younger; while he who would be chief, let him become as one who serves. Who is the greater, he who sits at meat, or he who serves? Is it not commonly regarded that he who sits at meat is the greater? But you will observe that I am among you as one who serves. If you are willing to become fellow servants with me in doing the Father’s will, in the kingdom to come you shall sit with me in power, still doing the Father’s will in future glory."

The Alpheus twins brought out the bread and wine, along with the bitter herbs and dried fruit paste, for the next course of the Last Supper. The apostles ate in silence for a few minutes, but Jesus' cheerful demeanor soon drew them into conversation, and the meal proceeded as if nothing unusual had happened to disturb the good cheer and social harmony of this exceptional occasion.

After some time had passed during the second course of the meal, Jesus surveyed them and said, "I have told you how much I desired to have this supper with you, and knowing how the evil forces of darkness have conspired to bring about the death of the Son of Man, I determined to eat this supper with you in this secret chamber and a day in advance of the Passover since I will not be with you by this time tomorrow night. I have repeatedly told you that I must return to the Father. Now has my hour come, but it was not required that one of you should betray me into the hands of my enemies."

Upon hearing this, the twelve, who had already been stripped of much of their self-assertiveness and confidence by the foot washing parable and the Master's subsequent discourse, looked at one another in dismay and asked hesitantly, "Is it I?"

After all of them had asked, Jesus said, "While it is necessary that I go to the Father, it was not required that one of you should become a traitor to fulfill the Father’s will. This is the coming to fruit of the concealed evil in the heart of one who failed to love the truth with his whole soul. How deceitful is the intellectual pride that precedes the spiritual downfall! My friend of many years, who even now eats my bread, will be willing to betray me, even as he now dips his hand with me in the dish."

When Jesus spoke these words, they all began to ask again, "Is it I?" Judas, who sat on Jesus' left, also asked, "Is it I?" Jesus dipped the bread in the dish of herbs, handed it to Judas, and said, "You have said."

The other apostles didn't hear Jesus speak to Judas. After telling them about these events so that they would know he foresaw them, Jesus leaned over to Judas and said, "What you have decided to do, do quickly."

When Judas heard these words, he got up from the table and quickly left the room, going out into the night to do what he had planned to do. When the other apostles saw Judas leave quickly after Jesus spoke to him, they thought he had gone to get something else for the supper or run some other errand for the Master, as they assumed he still had the money bag.

As they brought Jesus the third cup of wine, the "cup of blessing," he stood up from the couch and, taking the cup in his hands, blessed it, saying: ""Take this cup, all of you, and drink of it. This shall be the cup of my remembrance. This is the cup of the blessing of a new dispensation of grace and truth. This shall be to you the emblem of the bestowal and ministry of the divine Spirit of Truth. And I will not again drink this cup with you until I drink in new form with you in the Father’s eternal kingdom."

The apostles all felt that something extraordinary was happening as they drank of this cup of blessing in deep reverence and perfect silence. The old Passover commemorated the release of their ancestors from a state of racial slavery into individual freedom; now the Master was initiating a new commemorative supper as a symbol of the new era in which the enslaved individual emerges from the bondage of ritualism and selfishness into the spiritual joy of the brotherhood and fellowship of the liberated faith sons of the living God.

When they had finished drinking this new cup of remembrance, the Master took the bread and, after giving thanks, broke it into pieces and instructed them to pass it around, saying: "Take this bread of remembrance and eat it. I have told you that I am the bread of life. And this bread of life is the united life of the Father and the Son in one gift. The word of the Father, as revealed in the Son, is indeed the bread of life." After they had partaken of the bread of remembrance, the symbol of the living word of truth incarnated in mortal flesh, they all sat down.

After they meditated for a few moments, Jesus continued speaking: "When you do these things, recall the life I have lived on earth among you and rejoice that I am to continue to live on earth with you and to serve through you. As individuals, contend not among yourselves as to who shall be greatest. Be you all as brethren. And when the kingdom grows to embrace large groups of believers, likewise should you refrain from contending for greatness or seeking preferment between such groups."

They ended this celebration of the old but bloodless Passover in connection with the inauguration of the new supper of remembrance by singing, all together, the one hundred and eighteenth Psalm.

Despite the Master's attempt to create a new sacrament of remembrance, those who followed him in the centuries that followed made sure that his explicit wish was undermined, and his straightforward spiritual symbolism from that final night in the flesh was diminished to specific interpretations and subjected to a nearly mathematical precision of a set formula. Of all Jesus' teachings, none have become more standardized by tradition.

Today, the traditional Catholic Mass is a series of ordered prayers centering on the Eucharist. This typically includes reading from 1 Corinthians 11:23-25. However, Jesus emphasized that the bread and wine represented spiritual nourishment and the enduring presence of truth, steering his apostles away from associating his mission with sacrificial symbolism.