The gospel is recalled as the last hours of Jesus. We look poignantly at Jesus who says good-bye to his friends during dinner. Jesus strikes us as a pitiful figure who prays to the Father in the garden, while his disciples sleep after wining and dining, and while the armed servants of the high priest approach to arrest him.
Observation and Interpretation
The setting of this gospel passage is in Jerusalem during the twin Feast of Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Passover is regarded as one of the three most important feasts of the Jewish calendar, and is the oldest festival having been observed for the last three thousand years. It occurs in the spring, a time of renewal (in March or April, being a movable feast). It lasts eight days, and begins on the evening of the first day, with the Passover meal. For the next seven days, all leavened bread is taken out of the house (even crumbs are searched and thrown away), and all that is eaten is unleavened bread (hence the name of the feast). Unleavened bread reminds the people of the haste with which their ancestors left Egypt to escape the tyranny of the pharaoh. There was no time to make the bread rise as they ate their final meal as slaves of the Egyptians.
“The liberation from slavery was an historical process entailing political and spiritual dimensions of freedom. Freedom from political oppression was not an act by itself. Political freedom was the prelude, the preparation for a more total form of freedom, which is the spiritual liberation of Israel.”[1]
This saving event was later commemorated in the offering of the paschal lamb at the Temple. Thus, in this great feast, many Jews from all over Israel would go to Jerusalem to offer their lamb sacrifice in the Temple. (This is also why the Romans were extra wary during this feast since the population of Israel would swell as much as five times, and was therefore an opportune time to mount a revolt against them. Since Jesus claimed to be the new king of the Jews, hence a potential revolutionary, it was not that difficult for Pontius to dispense with him as a rebel and acquiesce for him to be crucified).
After the temple sacrifice, the Passover meal is then celebrated at the synagogue or at home. “The celebration at home is a re-enactment of the Exodus experience. The home is transformed into a sanctuary where rituals and observances change family life and where time, secular time, the time of everyday life experience, suffers a transfiguration: it becomes sacred time.”[2]
This was indeed a historic moment, and more than just a tearful goodbye for Jesus and the disciples. Jesus makes the Passover meal itself the occasion on which he explains the significance of his death to the disciples! Note the following:
- the actions of “taking the bread, blessing, breaking and distributing to the disciples” are the same actions that describes the action of Jesus in the two “multiplication of loaves” stories in Matthew. Yes, there are two such accounts in Matthew’s gospel, but the first (14:13-21) happens in Jewish land and the second (15:32-39) happen in the area of Tyre and Sidon, which are Gentile territories. Here we see the “universality of the Kingdom” theme of Matthew. God’s reign is for everyone, Jew or Gentile. Thus, what Jesus was about to do is also for everyone.
- In Jewish language, the term “body” does not refer only to the physical or flesh, but to the entire person – body, heart, mind and spirit.[3] The giving up of Jesus body (or entire being) points to His wholehearted obedience to the Father. The Father did not send Jesus to die, but to proclaim the Kingdom of God, and to do so even if the cost was to be His life. God’s Kingdom is a condition where God’s love and forgiveness reigns. Jesus proclaimed such a Kingdom through His teachings, miracles and whole life. He did so to the point that He questioned the entire value system of the Jewish religion and consequently antagonized the authorities who eventually plotted his capture and death. He showed them a different way of loving, which they rejected, but He loved them anyway even unto death.
- On the other hand, the term “blood of the covenant” recalls the covenant sacrifice of Exodus. After the animals had been slain, Moses took half of the blood and threw it against the altar (the symbol of Yahweh), and then he threw the other half of the blood upon the people, saying: “See the blood of the covenant.”[4] In this ritual, the blood of an animal symbolizes this union between God and humanity. In the last supper, Jesus declares the wine to be his blood, that is, it is Jesus himself who unites God and humanity.
Jesus therefore interprets, for his disciples, the meaning of his imminent death as the consequence of His unconditional love and commitment to the Kingdom, and that kind of love and commitment is what will unite God and all people. In other words, Jesus love and commitment was so total, He was willing to proclaim and live it, even if it meant His death.
In summary, Jesus last Passover meal was the occasion which remembers the political liberation of the Israelites, and which Jesus transformed into also containing a far more significant meaning: the liberation of the entire humanity from sin. The Passover ritual involving unleavened bread and cup of wine is also transformed by Jesus to his body and blood. We interpret this not just in terms of the sacrificial elements of Jewish sacrifices, but as also reflecting Jesus unconditional love and total commitment to the Kingdom of God. Such love is what can free us from the power of sin in the world.
Generalization and Application
The Mass is both a meal and sacrifice. It is the last supper and sacrifice of Jesus re-enacted. If the mass is a meal, and meals are shared in fellowship, then our attendance in the Mass should result to our bonding with others. We leave the Eucharist committed to be more responsible for those around us.
If the mass is sacrifice, then we should personally connect with the meaning of Jesus’ sacrifice, which is unconditional love for others and full commitment to the proclamation of God’s Kingdom. We should therefore leave the Eucharist also more committed to the values of the Kingdom: fraternal love, forgiveness, preference for those who have less, fairness, and equality. Mass comes from the Latin “missa” and “missio.” The mass should therefore inspire us with a sense of mission to live and spread the gospel values.
Guide questions:
- After going to mass, are you filled with a sense of mission or the sense of having fulfilled an obligation?
- What are the things we can do to make the celebration of the Mass more effective and life changing for us? (For example, make a concrete resolution on a specific value that is difficult for you to live.)
End
Other Ideas and Insights:
Jesus and Judas are therefore complete opposites. Jesus is the servant who delivers himself to death in order that others might gain life, while Judas delivers Jesus to death for his personal advantage. The 30 pieces of silver might appear to be a large sum of money but is actually a reference to Exodus 21:32 where 30 pieces of silver is the payment required in reparation to the master of a slave who is gored by an ox. It is meant to be demeaning: a paltry sum to be paid for the life of a slave.
Jesus is aware of the events that is about to unfold for him and links such events with several Old Testament passages, such as v. 24 “as it is written of him,” v. 31 “for it is written,” and v. 56 “and all this has come to pass that the writings of the prophets may be fulfilled. (This linking with the OT is a characteristic of Matthew in order to establish to his Jewish audience that Jesus is the messiah prophesied in the OT).
But Jesus is not simply a stringed puppet playing according to a script, but is guiding and predicting events such as the arrangements for the Passover meal, the betrayal of Judas, and the denial of Peter.
[1] Rabbi Leon Klenicki, ed. The Passover Celebration (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 1980), 1.
[2] Ibid, 2.
[3] Augustine Stock, The Method and Message of Matthew (Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1994), 400.
[4] Ibid, 400.
