Editor’s Note: The following piece is part of the Holy Week Series from our Young Writers cohort. Ashley Kim reflects upon Luke 22:15-16 and the Passover.
It’s the night before Jesus’ crucifixion―the eve of his prophesied suffering and death―less than twenty-four hours before he would bear the wrath of God for the sins of humanity. How would he spend his remaining hours? Preaching one last sermon or performing one final miracle? Revealing his glory as at his baptism? Surely we would find Jesus before a crowd.
Yet instead of any of these grand acts, Jesus dines with his disciples. It is the Passover, but it is still an intimate meal with only his inner circle. As Jesus institutes the Lord’s Supper, turning the bread and wine of the Passover meal into symbols of the new covenant secured by his death and resurrection, he does so not in front of a crowd of people or the religious elite, but in the presence of the twelve men with whom he spent the last three years of his life. What does he tell them? “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.”
This meal is not only a precursor to Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection, but the fulfillment of one of Jesus’s wishes, something he has “earnestly desired.” He has longed to eat this Passover. And not just the meal itself, but he has longed to eat it “with you,” his disciples. We see the heart of Jesus on display as he longs to share a meal with the twelve: to sit around the same table, to break bread together, to share fellowship over food and drink.
These are the same disciples who would, only hours later, fall asleep in the garden even as Jesus sweated drops of blood, and then flee and hide in fear at his arrest. These are the same disciples who, even seeing Jesus and worshiping him, doubted. Yet it is these ones of little faith that Jesus wants to be with.
This is indeed the Savior who drank the cup of God’s wrath on our behalf, the Son of God sent to bear the sins of his people, the Lamb who was slain. Yet this Savior is tender at heart: a King who desires to be with his subjects, a Shepherd who longs to be with his sheep, a God who delights to be with his people. His with-ness is at the essence of redemption.
And Jesus’s love for his disciples is also for me and for you―for all who have been called to follow him. “For I tell you,” he continues, “I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” Already Jesus looks forward to the fullness of his kingdom in the new creation, when he will share another meal―the marriage supper of the Lamb―with the people he earnestly desires to be with. Today, as we remember the Last Supper, let us remember the Lord’s desire to be with his disciples while also looking forward to the final fulfillment of his earnest desire in the coming kingdom of our God.
Photo Credit: Sylvain Brison