Matthew 26:17-31

Jesus’ Final Passover Meal

Matthew 26:17-25     Before the Meal

The Passover was celebrated on the evening that began the fifteenth day of the month of Nisan.  The feast of Unleavened Bread began on the same evening, and lasted for the rest of the week.  To celebrate the week-long feast of Unleavened Bread, all the leavened bread in the household had first to be removed.  For the Passover to be celebrated, a lamb needed to be procured, killed in the temple and then cooked.  The rest of the items on the menu needed to be bought and prepared.  The preparation would have taken most of the day.

Matthew had the disciples do the preparation, presumably all of them (including Judas).  Jesus had, no doubt, arranged with the certain person beforehand.  They would need a room large enough to accommodate the disciples comfortably and to allow the servants to move around.  Given the formality of the meal, the diners would have reclined on couches as they ate.

Matthew was not interested in many of the details included in Mark’s story (from which he borrowed): his interest focussed clearly on the Passover celebration.  This would be the meal celebrating God’s definitive liberation of his people.

Jesus identified himself to the householder as The Master.  The man may have been a disciple; he was apparently aware of Jesus’ activity over the past week.

Jesus used the Greek word for time that indicated “a time of destiny”.  In Judas’s case, the Greek word that Matthew used for  moment meant simply an opportunity [verse 16].

Matthew gave no reason why Jesus raised the issue of his imminent betrayal.  However, it served to provide the context for the celebration of the meal.  Jesus’ act of liberation would be clearly embedded within the cold realism of sin (from which it would liberate).

Though Jesus had previously indicated that he would be betrayed, he had not specified that one of the twelve would be responsible.

No doubt, the disciples were shocked to learn that one of them would betray Jesus.  Yet their grief seemed to be focussed, not on Jesus and what was about to happen to him, but on their own desire to be seen as innocent.  Unlike the woman who had anointed him, they were not in touch with the drama of Jesus’ time of destiny.

Shared meals were understood to be indications of shared trust.  Jesus emphasised his openness to intimacy – and the fact that it had been betrayed.

Matthew quoted no specific passage of Scripture.  His conviction was that suffering was the inevitable lot of the prophets and of the just.

Jesus’ observation indicated that something bigger than Judas’s personal sin was happening, something foreseen by God: the struggle between the cosmic forces of good and evil, between the kingdoms of the earth and the Kingdom of God.  Yet, though drawn into a struggle bigger than themselves, Judas, and the leaders with whom he cooperated, did not lose their freedom, but remained responsible and accountable agents.

By raising the issue explicitly of his pending betrayal, Jesus may also have wished to give Judas opportunity to reconsider his decision.  Jesus knew.  He would not withdraw from his determination to pay the price of integrity and love.  Judas continued his deceit, feigning ignorance or innocence.  Judas’s use of the term Rabbi (unlike the other disciples who addressed Jesus as Lord), highlighted his loss of faith.  Jesus’ response, in this case, was emphatic.

Matthew 26:26-30     Jesus Redefines the Passover

Following Mark, Matthew omitted irrelevant details of the customary Paschal Meal, and focussed simply on those elements which had been preserved in the community’s later celebrations of Eucharist.

According to custom, Jesus first blessed God with an unquoted prayer of praise and thanksgiving for God’s liberating actions and presence among the People.  Then, Jesus radically broke with custom in identifying the bread as his body.  In the Aramaic language that Jesus used, the Greek word body would have meant, in this case, his living and personal self.

Jesus broke the bread before giving it to the disciples.  His gesture anticipated the violence that the agents of the kingdoms of the world would soon exercise towards him.  They would break his body.  The world’s violence would contrast with the nurturing, nourishing thrust of Jesus’ presence.

By eating his broken body, his violently murdered self, the disciples indicated (without their recognising it at the time) their solidarity with Jesus in his non-violent resistance to the aggression and brutality of the world’s kingdoms.

Jesus identified (the wine in) the cup as his blood, the blood of the covenant.  In the Hebrew mind, blood was a synonym of life.  Blood of the covenant recalled the blood that Moses sprinkled on the Hebrew people to seal their acceptance of God’s offer of love and protection, and their undertaking to live accordingly:

Through the prophet Jeremiah, six centuries earlier, God had promised to make a new covenant with his people:

• where God’s law would be learnt, not by external ordinance, but through sensitivity to their own integrity (their hearts),
• where they would know God intimately and personally,
• and where their sin and its consequences would be removed forever.

In the Hebrew context, the word many meant an indefinitely large number without restriction, as distinct from the few, which implied limitation.  Effectively, Jesus stated that he shed his blood for all.

Jesus affirmed explicitly that, through his death, he would achieve the forgiveness of sins.  In the Infancy Narrative, Matthew had already made explicit the fact that Jesus would bring about the forgiveness of sin [1:21].  During his public ministry, Jesus had already claimed to have forgiven sin [9:2].  Jesus saw his own death (and the Eucharist which recorded it) as the means by which forgiveness was achieved. 

Forgiveness of Sins

The concept of forgiveness of sins, as it is often used in the Hebrew Scriptures, is broader than forgiveness of personal guilt and the reestablishment of a loving covenantal relationship with God.

Forgiveness speaks more broadly of release or liberation.  Whereas forgiveness of guilt can be experienced as release from burdens and liberation from situations of rejection, the release and liberation from sin is more far-reaching.

The Sin of the World.  Individuals sin regularly because of the constrictive, oppressive power of the sin of the world.  In its turn, the sin of the world is situated in the social makeup of persons.  Consistently , social groupings have the effect of contributing to individuals behaving in ways they would not if they were alone.  In social situations, people unconsciously play out expected roles; they become pawns of powerful group dynamics that are fed from their unconscious depths (what is sometimes called “mob psychology”); they become defensive of the status of the group, and of what the group defines as values.  They can be manipulated by advertisers, persuaded by demagogues, co-opted unthinkingly to the values of the culture, etc..

Thoroughgoing liberation from the oppressive power of the sin of the world would mean liberation from all destructive social pressures.  It would mean, ultimately, the substituting of the values of the kingdoms of the world with those of the Kingdom of God.

The death and resurrection of the innocent Jesus would confront the world with its violence.  For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, it would awaken them to their oppressive and deceitful reality, release their desire for life to the full, and nourish the wisdom to pursue it. 

Jesus saw his imminent death relating to, indeed guaranteeing, the future Kingdom of the Father.  He would die in hope.  For his disciples, Eucharist would anticipate that future reign of God and affirm its certainty, whatever might be the present experience of the community.  Every Eucharist would be a reminder that the kingdoms of the world and their values will not last forever.

The Paschal Meal finished with the singing of the final Hallel Psalms (113-118).  The disciples went to camp out, along with the thousands of other pilgrims, somewhere on the Mount of Olives close by.

By explicitly mentioning the Mount of Olives, Matthew clearly emphasised, once more, the mountain location of what would follow.  It was his familiar way of drawing attention to the importance of what was soon to follow. 

Eucharist in the Church

• looked back to God’s original vision of liberation foreshadowed in the escape from the slavery of the Egyptian Empire;
• looked forward to complete liberation and certain fulfilment in the Kingdom of God;
• and indicated that the pursuit of liberation in the present, in a world still oppressed by sin, could well involve on the part of disciples the giving of life and shedding of blood.  If that were not the actual destiny of disciples, at least they were called to the figurative death to self involved in the task of discipleship, 

Next >> Matthew 26:31-56