The Paschal supper was observed by our Lord
in obedience to the command in Exodus 12:14; Le Exodus 23:5; Deuteronomy 16:1-8, in the following manner, so far as we are able to gather from the narrative of the gospel.
I. HE SENT PETER AND JOHN BEFOREHAND TO PREPARE THE PASSOVER. The first step in the preparation of the Passover was the purchase of the Paschal lamb. We may see the two disciples, after they had been led by the man bearing a pitcher of water to the house where the feast was to be held, providing themselves with a lamb, unleavened bread, the bitter herbs, and that other dish into which the sop was afterwards dipped; then carrying the lamb to the temple, to be sacrificed in the court. This was on the afternoon of Nisan 14. Admitted into the court of the temple, in one or other of the three divisions into which the maps of the pilgrims and residents were divided, they would have slain the lamb, and, after the blood had. been thrown on the altar by the priests, they would have carried the body to the house in which the preparations for the Master's eating the Passover were being made.
II. HE SELECTED HIS PASCHAL COMPANY. The rule was that the company should not consist of less than ten persons. In the present case it amounted to thirteen. Around him were gathered his twelve disciples, with whom "he desired with desire to eat the Passover before he suffered" (Luke 22:15).
III. HE ENTERED INTO JERUSALEM IN ORDER THAT HE MIGHT EAT THE PASSOVER IN THE PLACE WHICH THE LORD HAD CHOSEN. (Deuteronomy 16:7.) "It was probably as the sun was beginning to decline in the horizon that Jesus and the other ten disciples descended once more over the Mount of Olives into the holy city. Before them lay Jerusalem in her festive attire. All around pilgrims were hastening towards it. White tents dotted the sward, gay with the bright flowers of early spring, or poured out from the gardens and the darker foliage of the olive plantations. From the gorgeous temple buildings, dazzling in their snow-white marble and gold, on which the slanting rays of the sun were reflected, rose the smoke of the altar of burnt offering. These courts were now crowded with eager worshippers, offering for the last time, in a real sense, their Paschal lambs. The streets must have been thronged with strangers, and the fiat roofs covered with eager gazers, who either feasted Their eyes with a first sight of the sacred city for which they had so often longed, or else once more rejoiced in view of the well-remembered localities. It was the last day view which the Lord had of the holy city till his resurrection. Only once more in the approaching night of his betrayal was he to look upon it in the pale light of the full moon. He was going forward to 'accomplish his death' in Jerusalem; to fulfill type and prophecy, and to offer himself up as the true Passover Lamb—'the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.' They who followed him were busy with many thoughts. They knew that terrible events awaited them, and they had only a few days before been told that these glorious temple buildings, to which, with a national pride not unnatural, they had directed the attention of their Master, were to become desolate, not one stone being left upon the other. Among them, revolving his dark plans and goaded on by the great enemy, moved the betrayer. And now they were within the city. Its temple, its royal bridge, its splendid palaces, its busy marts, its streets filled with festive pilgrims, were well known to them as they made their way to the house where the guest-chamber had been prepared for them" (Edersheim, 'Temple Service').
IV. HE ATE THE PASSOVER MEAL IN THE CUSTOMARY MANNER, YET WITH SUCH ALTERATIONS AS MADE IT A NEW INSTITUTION. For example:
1. He began with the first cup, over which he gave thanks as usual, and then gave it to the company to drink. It is of this cup that we read in St. Luke, "And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves" (Luke 22:17).
2. Instead of the first washing of hands, he "began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded" (John 13:5).
3. The feast then continued in its usual order. The second cup, the unleavened bread (part of which was "the sop" given to Judas), the hitter herbs, and the eating of the lamb followed in order.
4. The Lord then took some of the unleavened bread, and when he had given thanks over it, or blessed it, he brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat, this is my body" (Matthew 26:26; Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24).
5. He took the third cup, called "the cup of blessing" (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:16), "and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins".
6. The fourth cup, accompanied by the "hymn," or Hallel, no doubt finished the supper in the usual manner.
V. THE PASCHAL SUPPER THUS CEASED FOR EVER, AND THE LORD'S SUPPER WAS 'INSTITUTED IN ITS PLACE. The blood of the original lambs slain in Egypt received its efficacy in covering the people of Israel and delivering them from the visitation of God's angel of wrath, by its anticipatory representation of the blood of the true Lamb of God, which was shed for the deliverance of God's redeemed upon the cross. The time had now come for that blood to he shed, and therefore the memorial and typical sacrifices offered year by year necessarily ceased, the shadow being swallowed up in the substance, the type in the antitype. In like manner, the feast on the body of the lamb, which represented the body of Christ, necessarily ceased when there was no longer a lamb to be sacrificed. The Paschal feast, if continued longer, would have bees an unmeaning form, because its meaning had become exhausted.
Yet, just as Christianity grew by God's will out of Judaism, so a new memorial of Christ sprang out of the old type. He took the bread that was before him, an accessory of the old feast, and consecrated it, together with the third cup, to represent his body and blood in the future, for a memorial, just as the body of the lamb which was eaten and the blood of the lamb that was shed had typically and by anticipation represented them in the past. Thus the dead wood of the old form, at the moment of perishing blossomed into new life.
The Passover was to be kept as "a feast to the Lord throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever" (Exodus 12:14); and any one who did not keep the feast was to "be cut off from Israel" (Exodus 12:15). In like manner, the Lord's Supper is to continue, the bread is to be eaten and the cup to be drunk, as the means of showing forth the Lord's death "till he come." The one ordinance is of as permanent a nature as the other, and the neglect of it may cause people to incur a no less penalty in the second case than in the first.
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR