Matthew 26:17-30
THE FIRST day of the feast of unleavened bread had now come and the disciples ask the Lord, “Where wilt Thou that we prepare for Thee to eat the passover?” He instructs them to go into the city to such a man and to say to him, “The Master saith, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover with My disciples.” It is noticeable that the Lord acts as the One who has authority over the place. In Mark He speaks of it as His guest-chamber. He might be rejected, yet He speaks with the calm dignity of One conscious of who He was — the rightful Messiah and Lord of all.
When the evening comes, He sits down with the twelve. Now He tells them of the deep grief of His heart. “Verily I say unto you,” He says, “that one of you shall betray Me.” His sorrow draws out the grief in the hearts of the disciples and they begin to ask, “Lord is it I?” Judas hears his own doom when the Lord answers, “He that dippeth his hand with Me in the dish... it had been good for that man if he had not been born.” Then, afraid that he might be detected if he kept silent, Judas also asks, “Master, is it I?” and the Lord tells him, “Thou hast said.”
At the close of the passover supper, the Lord institutes that which later the apostle speaks of as the Lord’s supper (1 Cor. 11:20).
“And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is My body. And He took the cup, 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.” The Lord well knew that Satan would enter into Judas to betray Him, that the leaders were plotting His death, that the multitudes whom He had healed and fed would turn against Him, that His own disciples would flee and leave Him alone. Yet nothing could stop the outflow of His love. His heart was filled with thoughts of infinite love for His own, and for man, of which these memorials of His death so simply speak.
How precious to us now that He should say, “this is My blood.. . which is shed for many.” It was in those purposes of love that we, who were outside Israel, sinners of the Gentiles, should come under the blessing of the new covenant, for in Him “we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.” Eph. 1:7.
Then the Lord tells them, “I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.” A Nazarite must not drink wine nor strong drink (Numb. 6:1-21). Here the Lord sets Himself apart as the true Nazarite. If He must give up the companionship of His disciples, it is that He might accomplish their redemption. Now He waits, and we wait too, to renew it in better and brighter scenes above—in His Father’s kingdom.
After the supper they sang a hymn together, and then they went out to the mount of Olives, where the Lord was wont to resort.
ML-02/17/1963