Mark 14:12-25: a new covenant with an old story

What we see Jesus instituting in the middle of Mark 14 is a new covenant.  So many times we think of new and old as being antithetical.  However, while there is something distinctly new in this covenant, it is also rooted in something very old.  In fact, the context in which Jesus inaugurates this new covenant is in a celebration of the old one.  Jesus uses the celebration of God’s acting to deliver Israel in the past, to announce God’s deliverance of all mankind in the present. 

It was no accident that the Passover meal was the time chosen by Jesus to institute a reminder of the salvation wrought by God, for indeed that’s what the Passover meal already was.  The bread during a Passover meal would have been known as the “bread of affliction”.  It was a reminder of their former life in Egypt, and how they had to eat unleavened bread as they fled slavery.  Jesus takes familiar words, but then substitutes in “this is my body”, placing the emphasis not on the bread that we eat, but on his body which bore the price for our transgressions.   In his body, Jesus suffers the affliction that was meant for us.  In the Passover meal there are four cups: the cups of sanctification; judgment or deliverance; redemption; and praise or restoration.  It’s hard to say exactly which cup Jesus used to give us the memorial through which we remember his blood that was shed.  The most educated guess based on where it falls during the meal, would be the cup of redemption.  Why does Jesus use only one cup?  Maybe that particular cup carried the symbolism Jesus intended to convey.  Or, maybe his use of only one cup isn’t meant to symbolize just one of those four things; maybe the one cup is meant to symbolize the fact that Jesus is all of these things for us. 

He is our sanctification.

He is our deliverance from judgment.

He is our redemption.

He is our restoration, giving us reason to praise. 

Another way of stating this would be to say that Jesus is our Passover lamb.  The question has often been asked, if this is a Passover meal, where’s the lamb?  The main course of a Passover meal was the lamb, and yet in the account we have of the Last Supper, it is noticeably absent.  Of course that doesn’t mean they didn’t have one, perhaps they did and it simply isn’t mentioned.  Or again, perhaps there is a very good reason why it isn’t mentioned.  It’s possible that in the words of one commentator, “the lamb isn’t on the table, because the lamb is at the table.”  The words of John the Baptist ring true, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!” (John 1:29) 

Beyond asking what this meal is about, we should also ask the question “who should we eat with?”  Is Communion, the Lord’s Supper only for the near-perfect?  Is it only the Christian with no struggles, no guilt, and no sinful past?  If those were the only one’s invited to the table, then the table would remain perpetually empty.  We all struggle, we all have guilt, and we all have sins in our past, and maybe even in the present to.  It’s important to note that Jesus eats with those who are about to betray, deny, and desert Him.  Could he have in mind the words of Psalm 23:5, “you prepare a table before me, in the presence of my enemies”?  Jesus knew what Judas was going to do, it says as much in the gospel of John.  Jesus predicts for us in the gospel Peter’s denial.  The others would also leave him standing alone in his hour of need.  And yet, there he is sitting with them; a traitor, one who is scared to even admit that he knows him, and others whose fear overcomes their faith.  It makes the petty differences I have with others seem a little less important.  It also shows how incomprehensible is the love of God.

Maybe you have betrayed Jesus.  Maybe you’ve denied Him.  At some point we all have.  As bad as that is and as guilty as we feel, the message of the gospel is that there is still room for us at the table.  Take comfort in the words of the final psalm they would have sung that night, “I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord.” (Psalm 118:17)  The table reminds us of the present deliverance of our gracious God, offered to us because of the past actions Jesus Christ.  The invitation of the table is to proclaim that new-found life, to acknowledge the deeds of the Lord, in the midst of a dying world.