ON THE FIRST day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”
13So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. 14Say to the owner of the house he enters, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ 15He will show you a large upper room, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.”
16The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.
17When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve. 18While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, “I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me—one who is eating with me.”
19They were saddened, and one by one they said to him, “Surely not I?”
20“It is one of the Twelve,” he replied, “one who dips bread into the bowl with me. 21The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.”
22While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.”
23Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it.
24“This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,” he said to them. 25“I tell you the truth, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God.”
26When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
27“You will all fall away,” Jesus told them, “for it is written:
“‘I will strike the shepherd,
and the sheep will be scattered.’
28But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.”
29Peter declared, “Even if all fall away, I will not.”
30“I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “today—yes, tonight—before the rooster crows twice you yourself will disown me three times.”
31But Peter insisted emphatically, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And all the others said the same.
Original Meaning
THIS PASSAGE BREAKS into three scenes: the preparations for Jesus’ Passover meal with his disciples (14:12–16), the Last Supper (14:17–25), and the departure for the Mount of Olives (14:26–31). A single theme runs through each scene: Jesus’ foreknowledge of events.
Preparations for the Passover Meal (14:12–16)
MARK NOTES THAT the disciples are anxious to make preparations for the Passover meal.1 On the eve of Passover, 14 Nisan, work normally ceased at noon and the ritual slaughter of the Passover lambs began around 3:00 P.M. as the heads of the household brought their animals to the temple (see Jub. 49:10–12). The priests sprinkled the blood against the base of the altar and offered the fat on the altar. The animals were dressed with the legs unbroken and the head still attached to the carcass and returned to the worshipers. Because of the great number of people, the slaughter had to be separated from the place of eating. The only stipulation was that the lamb had to be eaten in Jerusalem, whose borders were expanded to accommodate the crowds. Worshipers returned to their homes or wherever they could find a nook or a cranny to spit the lamb on a stick for the late evening meal. This took place in the evening (after sunset) on 15 Nisan, strictly speaking, the first day of Unleavened Bread.
Jesus gives the disciples directions that may reflect some secret arrangement on his part with coded signs. A man carrying a water jar would have been an unusual spectacle since women normally fetched water. Finding the room is so similar to finding the donkey in 11:1–6, however, that the scene may be intended to show that Jesus knows everything in advance and has total control of the situation (see 14:8).2 The emphasis falls on the conclusion: “The disciples … found things just as Jesus had told them” (14:16). Owners of homes in Jerusalem were obligated to provide space for pilgrims to eat their Passover lambs within the city.
The disciples secure such a room by identifying Jesus only as “the teacher.” His authority as “the teacher” (see 1:22; 12:14) makes him deserving of special honor. The wording in the account also stresses that it is Jesus’ Passover. The disciples ask Jesus where to go to “make preparations for you to eat the Passover” (14:12). Jesus responds that they are to go to “my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples” (14:14).
The Last Supper (14:17–25)
THE UPPER ROOM was, as Barclay aptly describes it, “a smaller box on top of a bigger box.”3 It was used as a guest room, storeroom, and place of retreat. According to later rabbinic tradition, the sages met their students in upper rooms to teach (m. Sabb. 1:14; b. Menah. 41b; see Acts 1:13; 20:8).
Most popular paintings of the Last Supper depict the disciples sitting serenely around the table. Judas is usually identifiable as dark and shifty-eyed. Mark’s depiction of this meal differs significantly from these portraits. The most appropriate portrait of his portrayal of the Last Supper would paint each disciple’s face with a look of horror. They eat and drink in an atmosphere of sorrow and worry. The central question preoccupying their minds is not the fate of Jesus but who might be the one to betray him.
Jesus serves as host, and the scene begins with his grave announcement that one of them will betray him, “one who is eating with me” (14:18). All the disciples ask him one by one, “Surely not I?” (14:19). This translation captures the force of the Greek meti, which expects a negative answer: “It is not I, is it?” (see 4:21). Jesus reassures no one but gives only an ambiguous response to their questioning that essentially repeats his first declaration: “It is one of the Twelve … one who dips bread into the bowl with me” (14:20).4 This statement adds no new information but reiterates that the betrayer has infiltrated their midst and is eating with him.
The horror for Mark is that “one who is eating with me” (14:18), “one of the Twelve” (14:20a), “one who dips bread into the bowl with me” (14:20b) will hand Jesus over. Eating bread with someone barred one from hostile acts against that person. Table fellowship had more significance for Jews than simply a social gathering. Eating together was evidence of peace, trust, forgiveness, and brotherhood.5 To betray the one who had given you his bread was a horrendous act (see Ps. 41:9; John 13:18). Jesus had hosted another meal for sinners (see 2:15), but this time he utters a bitter woe for a betrayer: “Woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born” (14:21). Only then does Jesus take the bread and the wine.
Mark does not record this meal simply because it was Jesus’ last meal with his disciples, but because “he did and said something memorable.”6 He connects the elements of the meal to his coming suffering and death. Jesus has fully anticipated his death. It would be a violent death, as the imagery of broken bread and blood poured out implies. He interprets it as an atoning death (10:45). The visible union between himself and his disciples will dissolve at his death, but Jesus provides a symbol by which that visible union will be replaced by an invisible one.
The head of a family took bread eaten at every meal, lifted it up, and said, “Praise be Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who causes bread to come forth from the earth.” After the Amen response, the bread was broken and distributed, mediating the blessing to each one who ate. The same was true over the wine (see m. Ber. 6:1 on the blessing over “the fruit of the vine”). Jesus gives the traditional blessing of the bread a new twist by saying, “This is my body.” In effect, he says, “This is myself.” To a Semite, the body encompasses the whole person, not just the physical part of oneself.
Jesus’ words are symbolic and akin to what Jeremiah did when he took a long-necked pottery jar outside the gates of Jerusalem and smashed it in the presence of selected leaders (Jer. 19:1–15). Jeremiah could have said, “This is you.” When Jesus breaks the bread and distributes it to the disciples, it means that what has happened to this bread will happen to him. The broken bread given to the disciples also symbolizes that his Passion will benefit them and is an acted-out parable of his offering up his life for the many.
What is significant is that Jesus uses an article of food so simple and so universal that the disciples can never again recline at a meal, take bread, bless it, and break it without thinking of the last night that they were together with their Lord. Just as our memories are triggered by something that reminds us of the last moments we spent with a departed loved one, these disciples can never eat another meal without thinking about what Jesus did for them on the cross.
The disciples have failed to understand about bread throughout Jesus’ ministry. In the Last Supper, the reader can put the various pieces of the puzzle together. In 6:36, they implored Jesus to send the crowds away so that they could go and buy themselves something to eat. But Jesus told them to give them something to eat. Their incredulous response was, “That would take eight months of a man’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?” (6:37). No, Jesus will supply the bread. He commanded them to sit in platoons and blessed the bread, broke it, and gave it to the disciples to divide among the people (6:41). They ate and were filled with twelve baskets left over—reminiscent of the twelve tribes of Israel that would be gathered on the day of salvation. Later that night when Jesus came walking to them on the sea, they were terrified. Mark explains that were terrified because “they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened” (6:52).
The second feeding miracle occurred across the lake in Gentile territory and followed the same pattern. Jesus would not send the crowd away hungry. When he asked the disciples to feed the crowd, they exclaimed, “But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?” (8:4). Jesus took their meager supply of loaves, seven, blessed them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. Seven baskets of leftovers were gathered up (8:8), which indicated completion or universality of Jesus’ mission.
Jesus had now fed both Jew and Gentile miraculously. In 8:14, the disciples had forgotten to bring bread except that they had one loaf with them in the boat. That one loaf with them in the boat was Jesus. The disciples did not understand, as evidenced by their lament, “We have no bread” (8:16). Jesus broke up the quarrel by asking, “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember?” (8:17–18).
Bread has become a symbol of Jesus’ mission, and the disciples do not understand.7 When they take bread again after Jesus’ resurrection, they will remember that they have bread of a most unusual nature. Combined with the statement, “This is my blood,” Jesus’ presence is made possible by his death, by which God makes a new covenant.
After the blessing of the cup, Jesus gives it to them. Mark reports that after they have all drunk from the cup, Jesus announces, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many” (14:24). Years of taking communion have so conditioned us that we hardly blink an eye over this statement. Think of what that might have meant to a Jew in the first century. You have drunk from the cup, and the host says, “This is my blood.” Jewish aversion to blood is notorious. Genesis 9:4 forbade the consumption of blood, which was enjoined on all persons and was therefore more universal than the Decalogue (see Acts 15:20, 29). The law forbade the drinking of blood because it was “the life” and because it had been ordained of God as a means of atonement. Any animals killed for human consumption had to be drained of all blood before being eaten.8 Therefore, to drink blood was not only to break a universal commandment but to desecrate something that was holy.9 Consequently, Jewish scholars have argued that this word would have been impossible on the lips of a Jew.10
Taylor responded to this objection by arguing that Jesus was no ordinary Jew but one who believed himself to be the Son of Man, destined to suffer for the many. Furthermore, his words often aroused a sense of religious horror and intense opposition. And the disciples had long been in the school of Christ learning that the Son of Man had to suffer, and throughout the Gospel it had been hard for them to swallow.11
What do Jesus’ statements, “This is my body.… This is my blood” imply? (1) Wine was considered to be the blood of the grape, plucked from the vine and crushed. The blood of the sacrificial animals was poured out by the priests on the altar as a sin offering to atone for the sins of the people (Lev. 4:17, 18, 25, 30, 34). When Jesus makes his statements, he is saying that his death is a new sacrifice offered to God. No more sacrificial victims need be killed, only bread broken and shared, wine poured out and shared.
(2) Mark makes it clear that they all drank from the one cup rather than from individual cups, as was customary (14:23). Drinking the cup of someone meant entering into a communion relationship with that person, to the point that one shared that person’s destiny, good or ill (see Ps. 16:4–5, which suggests that the Lord is one’s chosen portion and my cup, not other gods). Jesus had asked James and John if they were able to drink the cup that he would drink and then assured them that they would (10:38–39). Not only did all the disciples have to overcome the offense of a suffering Messiah and begin to understand his death as an atoning death for the many, they also had to overcome the offense that they were to follow in the way of their Master and accept his destiny of suffering for themselves.
(3) Blood sealed or inaugurated a covenant. In Exodus 24:3–8, 11, Moses took the blood and sprinkled it over the people saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words” (24:8; see Zech. 9:11; Heb. 9:19–20). Jesus’ sacrificial death is also a covenant-making event. It marks a new act of redemption and begins a new relationship between God and the people—one that supersedes the old. It creates a new community gathered around his table. It is probable, although debated, that Isaiah 53:12 also forms the backdrop of Jesus’ statement about his blood poured out for the “many”: “he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many,12 and made intercession for the transgressors.”
Gloom predominates the Last Supper in Mark. But whenever Jesus speaks of his death, he combines it with a positive note of his vindication. A glimmer of joy emerges when Jesus speaks of drinking the fruit of the vine anew in the kingdom of God. The supper that begins on such a sad note ends on a note of joy. In the face of death, duplicity, and desertion, Jesus exudes confidence that ultimately he will be vindicated by God’s reign (14:28; see 8:31; 9:31; 10:33–34).
To the Mount of Olives (14:26–31) 13
JESUS HAS BEEN able to foresee all that will take place related to his Passion (e.g., the animal to commandeer, the man carrying the water jar, and the betrayal). Now he predicts that all the disciples will scatter to the winds, but he will regather them. The verb skandalizo (“scandalize”; NIV, “you will … fall away”) first appeared in the parable of the soils in 4:17. The rocky soil responds with superficial zeal but has no depth. When persecution arises on account of the word, they are scandalized and fall away. Jesus predicts, in other words, that all of the disciples are going to be like the rocky soil, and Peter will have the rockiest time of all.
Jews were expecting the nations to be scattered by mighty whacks from the Messiah; instead, Jesus predicts, his disciples will be routed when he as the Messiah is struck. Jesus has worked hard all through Mark’s narrative and now at the end has little to show for it. Even his small band will be thrown into confusion and fly in all directions. The citation from Zechariah reveals, however, that what happens is all in God’s control. This prediction seals that the disciples will fail but puts it in a biblical context of eschatological hope.
The Last Supper scene contains many allusions to Zechariah 9–14: my blood of the covenant (Mark 14:24/Zech. 9:11); that day, the kingdom of God (Mark 14:25/Zech. 14:4, 9); the Mount of Olives (Mark 14:26/Zech. 14:4); strike the shepherd (Mark 14:27/Zech. 13:7); resurrection and restoration of the sheep (Mark 14:28/Zech. 13:8–9). Marcus concludes from these allusions that Mark portrays Jesus’ last night on earth as the time of eschatological testing spoken of by Zechariah. God’s shepherd will be struck, and his people “will be tested to the breaking point.”14 The use of “I” (“I will strike the shepherd”) underscores the divine initiative behind Jesus’ death. What happens is not a travesty of justice outside God’s sovereign control. This blow lays on him the iniquity of us all (Isa. 53:6b) and initially has a devastating effect on the flock. Some will perish, but the remnant will be refined, purified, and restored as God’s people (Zech. 13:9). Jesus will reverse the breakup by regathering them.
Jesus again gives them a cheering promise, “After I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.” For the fifth time in the Gospel Jesus predicts his resurrection (8:31; 9:9; 9:31; 10:34). The future of Jesus’ movement depends entirely on God’s direct intervention, not on the disciples’ individual bravery.15 As Mark presents the story, the disciples cannot stand on their own strength until God has accomplished his purpose in Christ. Jesus therefore must go it alone. Only after his death on the cross and his resurrection by God will disciples have strength enough to take up their own cross and follow him.
Jesus will “go ahead of” them, which does not mean that he will arrive first in Galilee or walk ahead of them on the road (see 10:32). It implies that he will resume his shepherding role, leading them and calling them together.16 This promise is the key for understanding the ending of this Gospel (16:8). Readers can read in the Gospel how Jesus’ prophecy of the disciples’ failures proved true. They also learn from the angel’s announcement at the empty tomb that Jesus’ prophecy of his triumph over death is fulfilled. I would contend that the first readers of Mark’s Gospel also must have known that Jesus’ reconciliation with his disciples occurred as Jesus promised even though Mark does not narrate it in his text.17 All readers can infer that Jesus’ resurrection not only defeats the powers of death but can also overcome human failure. It heralds the chance for all to begin anew.
When Jesus speaks again of his death, Peter and the other disciples remain confident of their ability to remain faithful. Jesus is confident only in God’s faithfulness to raise him up when he is struck down. The disciples’ protest of loyalty (14:29–31) makes it clear that they are still unseeing and unready. Earlier, Peter protested Jesus’ announcement that the Son of Man must suffer according to the divine plan (8:31–33). Now, he does not shrink from contradicting Jesus’ citation from Scripture that they will all fail.18 He will prove Jesus to be a false prophet and inveighs against any suggestion that he will wilt under pressure. Peter disputes Jesus’ word in a spirit of rivalry and must regard himself as a Triton among minnows. He insists that he will prove himself more trustworthy than the rest, who, he implies, probably will fall away.
This competitive egotism, “Even if all fall away, I will not,” will never go willingly to a cross. Consequently, Peter’s failure at the crucial moment will be immortalized. Jesus does not call him to undergo the death of a valiant bodyguard, cut down in a heroic last stand. He must take up his cross and put to death the selfish ambition and self-centered purpose, no matter how sincere and noble it might appear. The scattering of the disciples, therefore, already begins when Peter speaks for himself and not for the others. He relies on his own power. The other disciples follow Peter’s lead and join in protest that they will never be false to Jesus. Tolbert perceptively observes, “If they are not sure whether or not they will betray him, how can they possibly swear faithfulness to death?”19 The problem is that their pledge of loyalty is premature and swells with vanity. They do not yet fully realize that a cross will really be involved.
Jesus now prophesies that Peter will deny him three times before the cock crows twice. The cock crow may refer to a rooster crowing or to the bugle call of the gallicinium, which signaled the beginning of the fourth watch. The second cock crow was connected to the dawn or rising sun. Jesus may simply mean “before the next dawn.”20 Peter’s head must be spinning. In 8:32–34, Jesus rebuked him because he would not accept his suffering. Now he is willing to accept the fact that Jesus must suffer and is willing to suffer with him. He is even willing to die with Jesus (14:31). To die with Jesus is necessary, but Jesus does not need knight errants to defend him. The word “to die with” (synapothnesko) occurs in Pauline literature to refer to our participation in the saving death of Jesus (see 2 Cor. 7:3; 2 Tim. 2:11; also Rom. 6:8; Col. 2:20). This statement then is grandly ironic and reflects Peter’s continued ignorance of the significance of Jesus’ death.
Bridging Contexts
O’COLLINS HAS OBSERVED that “the rise of biblical criticism led some writers to minimize drastically Jesus’ expectations about his coming death. At times they even declared his death to be something that overtook him without being accepted and interpreted in advance.”21 He cites Bultmann’s claim that we cannot know how Jesus understood his death and that his crucifixion was not an inherent and necessary consequence of his activity.
Rather it took place because his activity was misconstrued as political activity. In that case it would have been a meaningless fate. We cannot tell whether or how Jesus found meaning in it. We may not veil from ourselves the possibility that he suffered collapse.22
Bultmann and others may be criticized for ignoring the Last Supper and Gethsemane and for making a false dichotomy between the political realm and the religious. Küng asks:
Would he have been so naive as not to have any presentiment of what finally happened to him?… No supernatural knowledge was required to recognize the danger of a violent end, only a sober view of reality. His radical message raised doubts about the pious self-reliance of individuals and of society and about the traditional religious system as a whole, and created opposition from the very beginning. Consequently, Jesus was bound to expect serious conflicts and violent reaction on the part of the religious and perhaps also the political authorities, particularly at the center of power.23
Jesus firmly believed that his death was not a stroke of fate but that its purpose lay deep within the providence of God. He viewed this death as a representative death for the many. It was something that they were unable to supply for themselves but which he supplies for them, standing alone in the breach. He views his death positively, as part of his vocation, and connects it closely with the kingdom of God, which brings salvation to humans.
There is a trend in some churches today to have a Passover seder the Thursday evening of Holy Week. To my mind, this desire is misdirected and misunderstands the thrust of Mark’s presentation of the Last Supper. Aside from the fact that scholars debate whether Jesus’ Last Supper was a Passover meal,24 the Passover elements are ignored in Mark’s recounting of the meal. Mark makes no mention of the paschal lamb, the stewed fruit, the bitter herbs, the unleavened bread, or the deliverance from Egypt. Because the Passover of Israel is fulfilled in Jesus, the disciples will never need a ritual lamb again.25 The Lord’s Supper was not celebrated in the early church as an annual ritual, but each Lord’s day. Passover became a metaphor for Christ’s sacrifice (cf. 1 Cor. 5:7). For Christians to celebrate Passover subtly undermines the significance of Christ’s death and the meaning he attached to this meal. In the same way as Jesus’ death abrogated the animal sacrifices in the temple, so the Lord’s Supper has become the festal celebration of all God’s people, both Jews and Gentiles, which transcends the old.
Passover |
Lord’s Supper |
In the old age of law |
In the new age of the kingdom |
The great festival meal celebrating the birth of God’s people |
The new celebratory meal of the birth of God’s people |
Participants associated themselves with deliverance and the old covenant |
Participants associate themselves with redemption and the new covenant |
Looks back to the Exodus and forward to God’s salvation |
Looks back to the cross, which brings salvation, and forward to the final realization of God’s kingdom |
Contemporary Significance
THE PASSOVER WAS not intended to be a gratifying memento of God’s past deliverance of Israel. The celebration was meant to place each generation in touch with that event and make it a present reality. It celebrates what “the Lord did for me” (cf. Ex. 13:8–9). In the same way, the Lord’s Supper is not a memorial of something past and gone but reminds us of what the Lord has done for us and makes his death and his presence a living reality. Hunter points out that “remembering” in the biblical idiom “is not to entertain a pallid idea of a past event in one’s mind, but to make the event present again so that it controls the will and becomes potent in our lives for good or ill.”26
The Lord’s Supper works for good. It reminds us who we are, what our story is, what our values are, and who claims us as his own. In the Lord’s Supper, the gospel confronts all five of our physical senses. We see, hear, taste, smell, and touch what it meant for Christ to die for us. It also binds the past, present, and future together. We look back to Jesus’ Last Supper and experience the beginning of the new covenant with God. We experience Jesus’ death for us and the power of our sins being forgiven in the present. We look forward to the future celebration in God’s kingdom, when all will acknowledge Jesus as Lord. When Jesus distributes the wine to his disciples, he solemnly assures that he will be vindicated by God and will drink it anew in the kingdom of God. His words contain an implicit promise that those “who shared His table in the time of His obscurity, would also share it in the time of His glory.”27
Eating the bread and drinking the cup of wine is not some magic ritual, however. It brings no automatic guarantee of salvation. One does not become a beneficiary of Jesus’ redemptive death through participation in any rite. Did Judas partake of the bread and drink the cup? If he did, it had no salvific effect (Acts 1:25). Even Jesus’ stern warning has no immediate effect. Jesus lets Judas know that he is on to his conspiracy and thereby gives him one last chance to turn from his course. Jesus went as it was written of him in Scripture; but Judas was under no divine necessity to betray his Master. He voluntarily chose to ignore Jesus’ alarm and apparently left to fulfill his bargain with the priests, still unsuspected by the other disciples.
If Judas participated with the other disciples in the meal, and there is no indication in the text that he did not, then eating the bread and drinking the cup must be internalized for it to be saving. The new covenant must be written on the hearts of God’s people (Jer. 31:31–34). This sacramental aspect of the Lord’s Supper was misconstrued at Corinth. They thought that it was the food of immortality that enabled them to participate in the glorification of the Lord, which in turn made them immune from suffering and from God’s judgment (see 1 Cor. 10:3–5). Paul had to remind them that when they ate this bread and drank this cup, they proclaimed the Lord’s death until he returned (11:26). They participated in his death. The implication was that one might not partake of the Lord’s Supper and take life easy or not make sacrifices.
Mark does not present the Last Supper as a sacrament that brings blessing and assurance. The scene, filled with high tension, sweaty palms, lumps in throats, and nervous anxiety, serves as a warning to readers. They are to examine themselves in precisely the same way as these first disciples did. One of them would betray Jesus. The gathered disciples did not immediately single out Judas as the guilty party. They looked to themselves. Today, each must ask himself or herself, as these disciples did, “Surely not I?”
When the Lord’s Supper is served at the end of a worship service, people may examine their watches more than their hearts and may be worried more about dinner than how they have betrayed Jesus in the previous week or how they might betray him in the next. Mark’s account of the Last Supper should jolt us awake. Each should contemplate his or her own life and confess all the ways, big and small, that he or she has betrayed the Lord and acknowledge such weaknesses. We should all be humbly aware that if one of the Twelve could betray Jesus, every Christian has that potential. This idea of self-examination, as opposed to cross-examination, is preserved in Paul’s comments on the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:27–29), along with the idea of eating worthily. We are worthy of the Lord’s Supper when we recognize how unworthy we are. We feel its power when we also recognize that Jesus died for us and accepts us in spite of our unworthiness.
One should note, however, the danger of egocentricity that can permeate those gathered around the Lord’s table. When Jesus announces that a betrayer is in their midst, each disciple hopes Jesus will assure him that he is not the one. When he gets that assurance, he can presumably breathe a sigh of relief; he would never betray his Master. None of the disciples expresses any concern that Jesus will be betrayed; none expresses any concern for the traitor. Each focuses only on himself, wanting reassurance from Jesus that he is in the clear, and then each one wants to reassure Jesus that he would never be guilty of such a crime.
But one of those gathered at the table will be guilty of heinous treason. Judas, with ice water in his veins, bluffs his way through the meal with the rest of the disciples. But none of the disciples will be above reproach. Each will show himself to be an unfaithful servant. The contrast is striking. Jesus gives his life for others and only laments the miserable fate of the betrayer. The disciples’ response shows that they are concerned only about themselves. This same egocentricity can surface in our celebration of the Lord’s Supper, where our rupture, separation, and isolation from each other stands revealed. This Supper calls us to imitate Christ’s self-sacrificing love and should be a moment when we can heal our broken relationships.28
Throughout church history, the Lord’s Supper has been a flashpoint that proclaims the rift among Christians rather than a sign of peace that proclaims the reconciling effects of the Lord’s death. Christians even within the same confessional tradition continue to argue about the mode of observance, how it should be served, how often it should be observed, who may officiate, and who may participate. Much of the division among denominations stems from edicts and decisions that have nothing to do with the New Testament text.
Problems began when the Lord’s Supper was treated as a sacramental rite separated from the context of a meal and when church offices developed, which led to restrictions on who could preside at the celebration. If we want to capture the meaning of the Lord’s Supper as Jesus’ last meal with his disciples, in which he declared symbolically the meaning of his death and offered his assurance for the future, we should celebrate in the context of a meal in which the two, the rite and the meal, are integrated (see Acts 2:42, 46; 6:1–2; 21:7, 11).29 The action unfolds “while they were eating” (Mark 14:22).
But dangers lurk here also. The Corinthians’ celebration of the Lord’s Supper in a meal setting was also beset by schisms (1 Cor. 11:18). They apparently followed the pattern that Paul delineates from the tradition: Jesus gave thanks and broke bread, and after the supper he took the cup (11:23–25). The abuses arose during the Supper. According to Paul Winter’s reconstruction, the supper began with the breaking of bread, in which all participated. The wealthier Corinthians and those attached to a household then selfishly devoured their meals and filled themselves while the “have-nots,” who did not have the security of belonging to a household, went hungry (11:21).30 The poor then joined their fellow Christians in the cup after the meal.
Paul contrasts the Corinthians’ selfish taking (prolambano, 11:21) with Jesus’ taking bread (lambano, 11:23). Both take. The Corinthians took on their own behalf; Jesus took bread on others’ behalf. The Corinthians acted selfishly; Jesus gave to others. The Corinthians stood condemned because they showed no concern for another’s hunger or honor (11:22). They may have revered the body on the table but they did not discern the body at the table (11:29). Paul asks them to overcome their selfishness and “receive one another” (11:33), which entails sharing with those who have not.31 Winter concludes that the Corinthians could only declare their love for God by demonstrating love for their needy brothers and sisters.
To refuse to receive at the Lord’s Dinner (deipnon) in the fullest sense of the word, those whom Christ has unreservedly received, both denies the reality of the gospel to break down all barriers, and brings to light in the banquet of the new age those socio-economic divisions that belong to the age that is passing away.32
How could things have gone so awry in Corinth? The dinner conventions of the ancient world would have accustomed them to have servants stand around as they ate, and so it was easier for them to overlook the fact that some had nothing to eat. But human egocentricity again lay at the root of the calamity in Corinth, which passed under the guise of the Lord’s Supper.
The same problem can also infiltrate our Supper, particularly when we emphasize that it has to do only with individuals who have communion with the risen Christ. The presence of Christ’s saving power in the Eucharist manifests itself when we recognize our common union with one another. Churches should compare their ecclesiastical tradition regarding the Lord’s Supper critically with the New Testament witness. Perhaps they will discover that they need to develop ways to convey the presence of Christ’s saving power in new and different ways. Perhaps this can be communicated best if we return to the practice of the New Testament in observing the Lord’s Supper at a shared meal. We can celebrate our fellowship with the Lord and with one another.