Luke 22:14-18 (NIV) When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.”
After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
Jesus was acutely aware of how short His time was. He knew that He had only a matter of hours before He would be arrested, and that, from that moment on, He would only experience profoundly increasing pain and suffering until He died. So, before all of that happened, He craved this time of intimacy around the table, eating the Seder, the Passover memorial meal, with His closest followers.
This meal, as opposed to its memorial that we do in the Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion, was a real meal, a ritual feast, including lamb roasted and served with bitter herbs like onion, garlic, horseradish and parsley. It was served with unleavened bread, just as God had directed 1500 years before, when He brought His people out of Egypt (Exodus 12), and with several cups of wine.
Jesus knew that He was on His way to death. But He also knew that He was on His way to resurrection and glorification on the other side of all of the pain and suffering. He also knew that with His resurrection, living actively in the kingdom of God would become a real possibility for the people of the world. And with His ascension and glorification, when He would pour out the Holy Spirit on His people, it would actually become a reality for many.
This reality is behind Jesus’ seemingly cryptic sayings here. He was sharing the Passover with His disciples, but would not eat it again, or any of its elements, the bread and the wine, until those symbols had been made real through His suffering and death. Some have questioned Jesus saying that He would not drink any of the wine that night, or until the kingdom had come. They point to the fact that He was given sour wine while He was on the cross (Matthew 27:48). But Jesus was determined to go through all of His sufferings completely alert, without any dullness that wine would bring. That was also why he refused the wine mixed with myrrh that was offered to Him at the start of the crucifixion to dull the pain (Matthew 27:34). The sour wine that He did drink was basically wine vinegar, whose alcohol content was negligible.
So Jesus shared this special last meal with His closest followers. Included in this intimate meal was Judas. Jesus knew that Judas was moments away from betraying Him, but still did not exclude him or hold him at arm’s length. Judas would do what he was going to do, but he would never be able to claim estrangement from Jesus as justification for his actions.
Father, it is touching to see Jesus so loving toward these followers of His, most of whom still didn’t understand Him, and one of whom was even then in the midst of the most foul betrayal in human history. But, that all notwithstanding, He longed to share this last special meal with them. That kind of deep love is hard for us to get our heads around, but it is the kind of love that You shed abroad in our hearts if we will let You. Help me to love like Jesus. Help me to care for others like Him. Amen.