Were you there in the upper room?

Luke 22:7-23

This week, on our monthly observance of Holy Communion, we read the Passover story, the Last Supper story in Luke 22. Jesus asks Peter and John to go into the city and there someone will meet them and show them where to go to prepare for the meal.

Someone is in the city, working on their side, to shelter them and protect them from the deadly forces that are coming after Jesus and anyone with him.  They aren't totally alone, it seems. There are believers still standing with them to protect Jesus.

As the followers gather in the upstairs room of a house, Jesus shares with them the traditional Passover meal, which would have been celebratory in nature, Jews celebrating the time when they were spared and saved by God from annihilation, but what an atmosphere to celebrate it in.  A time when their leader is in grave danger... the story would have had a special and significant import for them this night. Can God save and spare us now?, they must have asked themselves.

But Jesus says something to change the tone. More than one thing, actually. He uses the Passover elements to demonstrate for them what is about to happen.... "the bread is my body given for you.  The cup poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood." He is trying to get them to see that saving him may not be possible . . . that his sacrifice for the new covenant may be necessary.  It may be that the powers in charge DO kill him, but he is trying to get the disciples to see that they have formed a new covenant together to bring God's love to everyone and that they must keep that mission alive. They must become the body and the blood for the path ahead, no matter what.

Then he tells them that one of them will betray him. One with his hand on the table.  Now, everyone's hands were likely on the table at this point, and so they get into a discussion over which one of them might betray him.  They get distracted from the covenant by this argument among themselves and perhaps don't digest the importance of his symbolic body and blood metaphor just a moment ago.  Or perhaps the weight of it is just too much to take and so they idly chat about this instead.  (Keep in mind Judas had already secretly gone to the chief priests and declared he would betray Jesus at this point.) 

What is Jesus trying to say to us in the elements today?  Why has this tradition carried on so long and so consistently throughout all the twists and turns of Christianity?  Why do you think Jesus tells them that one of them will betray him just after he shares the message of his body and blood in the Passover meal?  What is the relationship between the new covenant and Jesus' announcement that one would betray him?  Wonder what Judas' body posture and facial expressions were like during this time of the Passover meal?  

Thoughts? Email me at peverhart@niwotumc.org or comment below.