One of the most recognizable events of Jesus’ final days in Jerusalem was the Last Supper He had with His disciples the night before his Crucifixion.
On this occasion, Jesus gave some final teachings to His closest followers and introduced what modern Christians often refer to as the Eucharist, or Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper: the partaking of broken bread to remember Jesus’ body, which would soon be hung on the cross, and the sharing of a cup of wine to remember His blood, which would be “poured out for the forgiveness of sins” (see Matthew 26:20–30; Mark 14:17–25; Luke 22:14–38; and John 13–17).
Today, these sacramental symbols are well known as emblems of Christian communion. What might not be obvious to modern worshippers, though, is that Jesus’ Last Supper — where these elements first appeared — occurred within the context of an ancient Jewish holiday called the Passover. Understanding this context and the rich symbolism associated with it brings to life the events of Jesus’ final meal and can provide profound meaning to the modern Christian sacrament that emerged from it.
The Jewish Passover had its origins in the Old Testament narrative of God’s deliverance of the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery during the time of Moses. According to the book of Exodus, Israelite families who had been enslaved for several generations were ultimately redeemed from their bondage through the power of Jehovah, the God of their ancestors.
With Moses as His mouthpiece, Jehovah demonstrated this power through a series of plagues — such as pestilence, disease and hail — that brought great destruction upon the land of Egypt. Together, these plagues were meant to show God’s “mighty hand” and convince Pharaoh “to let [his] people go” (see Exodus 6–10). After Pharaoh refused to do so, however, Moses warned that the final plague would be the most devastating — the passing of the angel of death through the region and the subsequent loss of the first-born child in each Egyptian household (see Exodus 11).
As described by the biblical account, God promised the enslaved Israelites that they would be spared from the final plague on that fateful night if they followed specific instructions given by Moses (see Exodus 12:1–7):
- In the hours before sunset, Israelite families were to prepare for a sacred meal by removing any leaven (yeast) that remained in the house as a sign of purification.
- Slaughtering a 1-year old male sheep, whose death was meant to take the place of the family’s first-born child.
- Roasting the sheep over a fire pit in the house’s courtyard.
- Spreading the lamb’s blood over the doorposts of the home.
Once the sun went down and family members gathered within their home, they would partake of the meal together. This meal consisted of the roasted meat, which was eaten in remembrance of the lamb that was slaughtered on the family’s behalf; bitter herbs, which were an unpleasant tasting root eaten in remembrance of the family’s bitter enslavement; and unleavened bread which, in the haste of God’s deliverance, would not have time to rise in the oven.
By following these instructions, Moses promised that the angel of death would “pass over” the Israelite homes and that the first-born child of each family would be spared (see Exodus 12:8–13).
The book of Exodus goes on to record that the events unfolded that night as predicted. The angel went through the land of Egypt as Israelite families gathered behind the closed, blood-marked doors of their houses to eat the ritual meal and await their deliverance. That deliverance came when the Pharaoh ultimately relented and allowed the enslaved Israelite families to depart (see Exodus 12:28-42).
What ensued was a mass exodus of the twelve tribes of Israel out of the land of Egypt, the miraculous crossing through the Red Sea on dry ground (see Exodus 13–15), and the wanderings in the wilderness for the next 40 years before the tribes settled in the land of Canaan promised to their ancestors.
This series of events served as a foundational story for later Israelites, reminding them of God’s power to save His people from their oppressors and deliver them from their burdens. As a result, subsequent generations would ritually reenact the Passover meal every spring (on the 14th or 15th of the Hebrew month of Nisan) as a way to remember God’s past intervention on behalf of their ancestors and to instill hope in God’s ability to do so again in future times of need (see, for example, Joshua 5:10–11; 2 Kings 23:21–23; and 2 Chronicles 30).
The precise practices used to observe the annual Passover meal varied across the centuries, but in the time of Jesus, Jewish families or groups of neighbors were required to make a weeklong pilgrimage from their hometowns to the Jerusalem temple.
There, in imitation of the Israelites in the Exodus narrative, they would join throngs of other pilgrims sacrificing their lambs near the temple altar. To do so, it was first necessary to purchase an unblemished lamb in the nearby marketplace and present it to a priest for inspection. Pilgrims and priests would then slaughter the lamb in the temple courtyards by cutting its throat, draining its blood, removing its skin, and separating out the pieces of meat for consumption at a local house later the same night.
Meanwhile, the homes in which the Passover was to be eaten were cleared of leaven, as the original Israelite homes had been, and were prepared for dining by either setting tables for a banquet in a triclinium (as was done among Jerusalem’s Romanized aristocracy) or by rolling mats on the floor for a more modest meal using shared cooking vessels (which was the common dining practice among the non-elite masses).
After roasting the lamb in the household courtyard and waiting for sunset, the families and their guests would have gathered in their dimly lit homes, retold the Passover story from the Hebrew Bible, and imitated the ancient Israelites by eating the lamb meat, unleavened bread and bitter herbs. By the time of Jesus, these practices were often enhanced by drinking wine and singing psalms (such as Psalms 113–118) to celebrate the joys of God’s redemptive power.
This general pattern of commemorating a sacrificial Passover meal was observed among the Jewish community every spring until the Jerusalem temple was destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70, making it an important part of the religious calendar through most of the first century. In fact, it is in the context of a Passover pilgrimage that Jesus made his final journey with his disciples from their home villages in Galilee to the crowded city of Jerusalem.
According to the synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew and Luke), the disciples spent their last day with Jesus making the necessary preparations and participating in one final Passover meal together — now known as the Last Supper.
These scriptural accounts suggest that, like other Jewish families, Jesus and the disciples gathered that night in a local home, recounted the stories of God’s deliverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage, sang psalms that recalled God’s power of deliverance and partook of the ritual Passover foods (see Mark 14, Matthew 26 and Luke 22).
What made Jesus’ final Passover remarkable, however, was the fact that he took two items from the commemorative meal — the broken pieces of unleavened bread and the poured cup of wine — and provided additional interpretation for the disciples to consider: “Take, eat; this [bread] is my body. … Drink from [this cup], for this is my blood of the [new] covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:27–28, NRSV).
By adding this new layer of meaning to the redemption symbolism of the Passover, He essentially told His disciples to eat the unleavened bread and drink the wine both in remembrance of God’s past deliverance of Israel through the death of the first-born lamb, and in recognition of their own personal deliverance through His redemptive work as the Messiah.
In other words, just as Israel was freed from Egyptian bondage by the slaughter and blood of the original Passover lamb, so Jesus’ followers would be freed from the bondage of their sins by His approaching death on the cross. Jesus, in short, would be the ultimate Passover sacrifice provided by God for the salvation of His people. (For more on the symbolic connections early Christians made between the Passover lamb and Jesus as the “Lamb of God,” see John 1:29–34 and 19:14–37; see also Exodus 12:22.) By adding these new layers of meaning to the traditional Passover meal, Jesus also seemed to be declaring to his followers that he was acting as the anticipated “prophet like Moses” (Deuteronomy 18:15–19) who would come one day to bring about a “new covenant” of forgiveness that recalled the original Exodus (see Jeremiah 31:31–34).
During subsequent generations, early followers of Jesus continued to commemorate this moment in their own communal meals. Initially, Christians gathering in house churches would enjoy fellowship dining together, at the end of which they would eat bread and drink wine in remembrance of Jesus’ actions during his final Passover meal.
Paul described one such meal as occurring among believers in first-century Corinth by recounting Jesus’ words over the bread and cup at the Last Supper (see 1 Corinthians 11:23–25). He then taught that these emblems represented “the new covenant in [Jesus’] blood,” and that as often as believers partook of them, they “proclaimed the Lord’s death until he comes [again]” (1 Corinthians 11:25–26).
Over time, the more elaborate fellowship meals disappeared in Christian practice, but the ritual partaking of bread and wine continued, gradually developing into what Christians would come to call the Eucharist or Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
Although an adaptation of the biblical Passover is still commemorated in modern Judaism through an annual seder meal, most Christian communities no longer commemorate the festival as it was observed in the time of the Old and New Testaments. However, through partaking of bread and sharing a cup in regular worship services, modern Christians have preserved a small part of the biblical festival in their own worship practices.
When partaking of these symbolic emblems, it is natural to recall the injunction of Jesus at his Last Supper to eat the bread and drink the cup in remembrance of his suffering and death. It is also appropriate to recall that this practice had its roots in a Jewish Passover meal as it was observed in the first century. As such, those partaking of the Eucharist or sacrament have a beautiful opportunity to recall God’s deliverance of Israel in the past (as celebrated in the biblical Passover), while at the same time pondering their own redemption through Jesus’ atoning acts and looking forward to the day he returns to complete his messianic mission of salvation.
— Matthew J. Grey is a professor of ancient scripture and the coordinator of the ancient Near Eastern studies program at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
