By Such Stripes Are We Healed
by Jack Shaver
©The United Church of Canada, 1985
All Rights Reserved
ISBN 0-88622-196-X
7M/12/85/APL
Used with Permission
Thursday
Who'd long to be at that feast?
Luke 22: 14-37
- All four gospel writers make a big thing of the last supper. They do not all record it in the same way. John is unique in his report of the washing of the disciples feet and in his recording of Jesus' long discourse and long prayer. In Matthew, Mark and Luke the action at the meal table is given central significance. It is linked with his sacrificial death and his separation from them.
- "Take, eat, this is my body broken for you...This is my blood of the new covenant which is poured out for many. I shall not drink again of the vine until that day when I drink it again in the kingdom of God."
- For all four writers the night is a watershed, a last time together before the catastrophc. But it was a troubled intimacy, marred by rejections, offence-taking and betrayal. All four evangelists record Jesus' prediction that one of them would betray him and that Peter would deny him before morning.
Luke's report includes an additional jarring note. Jesus' warning about his imminent betrayal precipitates a dispute among the disciples over who is to be the greatest. Other evangelists include the material but Luke alone has it taking place during the last supper.
We all know how hard it is to have a party go right. We can all recount horror stories of parties that went wrong. We are all familiar with how the threat of disaster works to keep entertaining tense and at a superficial level, or to cause us to avoid it altogether.
But this last supper was something special. It marked the disastrous end of Jesus' ministry. What that ministry had been about was to cost Jesus everything. He was on the eve of being utterly isolated and this was his last get-together with the only crowd he had. Nothing about the occasion indicated that anyone in that room had any understanding of what he had been about. How wrong can a party go?
Now take another look at Luke's record of the get-together. He is the only evangelist to begin the story with these words of Jesus.- "I have earnestly desired to eat this passover with you before I
suffer." - In the original Greek the above sentence is even more poignant. "With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you." The adverb is from the same root word as the verb.
Can you imagine why Jesus would have doubly desired to have the feast with that crowd at that significant moment? There can be only one explanation. He loved them.
Can you imagine the kind of love that would make Jesus want to be at that party? That's how God loves us.
Praise- Almighty God,
- Bless you for the gift of creation, and for those who open its wonder and mystery to us. How good it is to stand in amazement and delight.
Bless you for the gift of loved ones. They can be a trial to us and we to them, but how precious they are to our sight. The gift of love is the chief wonder of life and we bless you for it.
Bless you for the brave ones of the world, whom to know is to be uplifted and to be made glad that we belong to the human race.
Bless you for the host of witnesses through whom knowledge of you broke into our history.
Bless you for using such earthly human means for pursuing us with your truth and confronting us with your salvation.
Bless you, whose glory we behold in the face of Jesus Christ.
No other glory can reach us in the darkness of our souls.
No other glory has the power to give us to each other and restore us to a love of the world.- Praise be to God.
Amen