'Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the
passover must be killed. 8. And He sent Peter and
John, saying, Go and prepare us the passover, that we
may eat. 9. And they said unto Him, Where wilt thou
that we prepare? 10. And He said unto them, Behold,
when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man
meet you, bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into
the house where he entereth in. 11. And ye shall say
unto the goodman of the house, The Master saith unto
thee, Where is the guestchamber, where I shall eat the
passover with My disciples? 12. And he shall shew you
a large upper room furnished: there make ready.
13. And they went, and found as He had said unto them:
and they made ready the passover. 14. And when the
hour was come, He sat down, and the twelve apostles
with Him. 15. And He said unto them, With desire I
have desired to eat this passover with you before I
suffer: 16. For I say unto you, I will not any more
eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of
God. 17. And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and
said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves:
18. For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit
of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come.
19. And He took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it,
and gave unto them, saying, This is My body which is
given for you: this do in remembrance of Me.
20. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This
cup is the new testament in My blood, which is shed
for you.'--LUKE xxii. 7-20.
Paul had his account of the Last Supper direct from Christ. Luke
apparently had his from Paul, so that the variations from Matthew and
Mark are invested with singular interest, as probably traceable to
the Lord of the feast Himself. Our passage has three sections--the
preparation, the revelation of Christ's heart, and the institution
of the rite.
I. The Preparation.--Peculiar to Luke are the names of the disciples
entrusted with it, and the representation of the command, as
preceding the disciples' question 'Where?' The selection of Peter
and John indicates the confidential nature of the task, which comes
out still more plainly in the singular directions given to them.
Luke's order of command and question seems more precise than that of
the other Gospels, as making our Lord the originator instead of
merely responsive to the disciples' suggestion.
How is the designation of the place which Christ gives to be
understood? Was it supernatural knowledge, or was it the result of
previous arrangement with the 'goodman of the house'? Most probably
the latter; for he was in so far a disciple that he recognised Jesus
as 'the Master,' and was glad to have Him in his house, and the
chamber on the roof was ready 'furnished' when they came. Why this
mystery about the place? The verses before our passage tell the
reason.
Judas was listening, too, for the answer to 'Where?' thinking that
it would give him the 'opportunity' which he sought 'to betray Him
in the absence of the multitude.' Jesus had much to say to His
disciples, and needed the quiet hours in the upper room, and
therefore sent away the two with directions which revealed nothing
to the others. If He had told the group where the house was, the
last supper might never have been instituted, nor the precious
farewell words, the holy of holies of John's Gospel, ever been
spoken. Jesus takes precautions to delay the Cross. He takes none to
escape it, but rather sets Himself in these last days to bring it
near. The variety in His action means no change in His mind, but
both modes are equally the result of His self-forgetting love to us
all. So He sends away Peter and John with sealed orders, as it were,
and the greedy ears of the traitor are balked, and none know the
appointed place till Jesus leads them to it. The two did not come
back, but Christ guided the others to the house, when the hour was
come.
II. Verses 14-18 give a glimpse into Christ's heart as He partook,
for the last time, of the Passover. He discloses His earnest desire
for that last hour of calm before He went out to face the storm, and
reveals His vision of the future feast in the perfect kingdom. That
desire touchingly shows His brotherhood in all our shrinking from
parting with dear ones, and in our treasuring of the last sweet, sad
moments of being together. That was a true human heart, 'fashioned
alike' with ours, which longed and planned for one quiet hour before
the end, and found some bracing for Gethsemane and Calvary in the
sanctities of the Upper Room. But the desire was not for Himself
only. He wished to partake of that Passover, and then to transform
it for ever, and to leave the new rite to His servants.
Our Lord evidently ate of the Passover; for we cannot suppose that
His words in verse 15 relate to an ungratified wish, but, as
evidently, that eating was finished before He spoke. We shall best
conceive the course of events if we suppose that the earlier stages
of the paschal ceremonial were duly attended to, and that the Lord's
Supper was instituted in connection with its later parts. We need
not discuss what was the exact stage at which our Lord spoke and
acted as in verses 15-17. It is sufficient to note that in them He
gives what He does not taste, and that, in giving, His thoughts
travel beyond all the sorrow and death to reunion and perfected
festal joys. These anticipations solaced His heart in that supreme
hour. 'For the joy that was set before Him' He 'endured the Cross,'
and this was the crown of His joy, that all His friends should share
it with Him, and sit at His table in His kingdom.
The prophetic aspect of the Lord's Supper should never be left out
of view. It is at once a feast of memory and of hope, and is also a
symbol for the present, inasmuch as it represents the conditions of
spiritual life as being participation in the body and blood of
Christ. This is where Paul learned his 'till He come'; and that hope
which filled the Saviour's heart should ever fill ours when we
remember His death.
III. Verses 19 and 20 record the actual institution of the Lord's
Supper. Note its connection with the rite which it transforms. The
Passover was the memorial of deliverance, the very centre of Jewish
ritual. It was a family feast, and our Lord took the place of the
head of the household. That solemnly appointed and long-observed
memorial of the deliverance which made a mob of slaves into a nation
is transfigured by Jesus, who calls upon Jew and Gentile to forget
the venerable meaning of the rite, and remember rather His work for
all men. It is strange presumption thus to brush aside the Passover,
and in effect to say, 'I abrogate a divinely enjoined ceremony, and
breathe a new meaning into so much of it as I retain.' Who is He who
thus tampers with God's commandments? Surely He is either One having
a co-ordinate authority, or----? But perhaps the alternative is best
left unspoken.
The separation of the symbols of the body and blood plainly
indicates that it is the death of Jesus, and that a violent one,
which is commemorated. The double symbol carries in both its parts
the same truth, but with differences. Both teach that all our hopes
are rooted in the death of Jesus, and that the only true life of our
spirits comes from participation in His death, and thereby in His
life. But in addition to this truth common to both, the wine, which
represents His blood, is the seal of the 'new covenant.' Again we
mark the extraordinary freedom with which Christ handles the most
sacred parts of the former revelation, putting them aside as He
wills, to set Himself in their place. He declares, by this rite,
that through His death a new 'covenant' comes into force as between
God and man, in which all the anticipations of prophets are more
than realised, and sins are remembered no more, and the knowledge of
God becomes the blessing of all, and a close relationship of mutual
possession is established between God and us, and His laws are
written on loving hearts and softened wills.
Nor is even this all the meaning of that cup of blessing; for blood
is the vehicle of life, and whoso receives Christ's blood on his
conscience, to sprinkle it from dead works, therein receives, not
only cleansing for the past, but a real communication of 'the Spirit
of life' which was 'in Christ' to be the life of his life, so as
that he can say, 'I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.' Nor
is even this all; for, as wine is, all the world over, the emblem of
festivity, so this cup declares that to partake of Christ is to have
a fountain of joy in ourselves, which yet has a better source than
ourselves. Nor is this all; for 'this cup' is prophecy as well as
memorial and symbol, and shadows the new wine of the kingdom and the
marriage supper of the Lamb.
'This is My body' could not have meant to the hearers, who saw Him
sitting there in bodily form, anything but 'this is a symbol of My
body.' It is but the common use of the word in explaining a
figurative speech or act. 'The field is the world; the tares are the
children of the wicked one; the reapers are the angels,'--and so in
a hundred cases.
Luke alone preserves for us the command to 'do this,' which at once
establishes the rite as meant to be perpetual, and defines the true
nature of it. It is a memorial, and, if we are to take our Lord's
own explanation, only a memorial. There is nothing here of
sacramental efficacy, but simply the loving desire to be remembered
and the condescending entrusting of some power to recall him to
these outward symbols. Strange that, if the communion were so much
more, as the sacramentarian theory makes it, the feast's own Founder
should not have said a word to hint that it was.
And how deep and yet lowly an insight into His hold on our hearts
the institution of this ordinance shows Him to have had! The Greek
is, literally, 'In order to My remembrance.' He knew that--strange
and sad as it may seem, and impossible as, no doubt, it did seem to
the disciples--we should be in constant danger of forgetting Him;
and therefore, in this one case, He enlists sense on the side of
faith, and trusts to these homely memorials the recalling, to our
treacherous memories, of His dying love. He wished to live in our
hearts, and that for the satisfaction of His own love and for the
deepening of ours.
The Lord's Supper is a standing evidence of Christ's own estimate of
where the centre of His work lies. We are to remember His death. Why
should it be selected as the chief treasure for memory, unless it
was something altogether different from the death of other wise
teachers and benefactors? If it were in His case what it is in all
others, the end of His activity for blessing, and no part of His
message to the world, what need is there for the Lord's Supper, and
what meaning is there in it, if Christ's death were not the
sacrifice for the world's sin? Surely no view of the significance
and purpose of the Cross but that which sees in it the propitiation
for the world's sins accounts for this rite. A Christianity which
strikes the atoning death of Jesus out of its theology is sorely
embarrassed to find a worthy meaning for His dying command, 'This do
in remembrance of Me.'
But if the breaking of the precious alabaster box of His body was
needed in order that 'the house' might be 'filled with the odour of
the ointment,' and if His death was the indispensable condition of
pardon and impartation of His life, then 'wheresoever this gospel
shall be preached in the whole world, there,' as its vital centre,
shall His death be proclaimed, and this rite shall speak of it for a
memorial of Him, and 'show the Lord's death till He come.'