MAUNDY THURSDAY - MARK 14:12-26

I guess this was the first time that the disciples hadn't been home for Passover. They would have spent every previous celebration with their families. As the time got nearer, it would have dawned on the disciples that they weren't going home but were spending Passover with each other and with Jesus. Maybe Martha started to assume that they would be celebrating at her house but Jesus's plan was to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem with his 'family'. He asked the disciples to do the preparations - probably the first time that any of them had done this, it would have ordinarily been their parents' job. One of them would have had the task of killing the lamb - an unwitting symbolic prophetic action.

During the meal, there were four questions with four answers

1. Why is it that on all other nights during the year we eat either leavened bread or matza, but on this night we eat only matza? We eat only matza because our ancestors could not wait for their breads to rise when they were fleeing slavery in Egypt, and so they were flat when they came out of the oven.
2. Why is it that on all other nights we eat meat either roasted, marinated, or cooked, but on this night it is entirely roasted? We eat only roasted meat because that is how the Passover lamb is prepared during sacrifice in the Temple at Jerusalem.
3. Why is it that on all other nights we do not dip our food even once, but on this night we dip them twice? The first dip, green vegetables in salt water, symbolizes the replacing of our tears with gratitude, and the second dip, Maror in Charoses, symbolizes the sweetening of our burden of bitterness and suffering.
4. Why is it that on all other nights we dine either sitting upright or reclining, but on this night we all recline? We recline at the table because in ancient times, a person who reclined at a meal was a free person, while slaves and servants stood.

Dipping food into a bowl and reclining whilst eating were both special features of the Passover meal, both heavy with symbolism and both tying the present to the past. Jesus added new traditions for the future - this is my body broken for you - this is my blood poured out for you.

(unleavened bread snaps when it is broken, you can hear it breaking when it is eaten)

Jesus ruined Passover for loads of people - the mob, the Sanhedrin, the priests - they were all taken away from their homes where celebrations would have been in progress in order to confront Jesus - they would have all been full with food and drink and none of them slept that night (apart from the disciples !!) - an angry, resentful, tired, over-fed, possibly inebriated mob - the perfect storm.