Reading the Gospels Together The Story of the Last Meal – Part 1 All four gospel writers tell their reader about the last meal that Jesus shared with his disciples in Jerusalem on the night in which he was betrayed and arrested. While there are certainly similarities there are huge differences as well, especially between John and the synoptic writers. In this section we will need to consider Mark 14:12-25; Matthew 26:17-29; Luke 22:7-38; John 13:1-17:26. It will also be important for us to read 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 and John 6:52-56 and remember the story of Jesus feeding the multitude in Mark, Matthew, and Luke. Mark begins his story by telling his readers that it was now the day of preparation when the Passover lambs were being slaughtered. The killing of the Passover lambs began at noon. Jesus tells two of his disciples to go into the city of Jerusalem and make preparations for them all to eat Passover that evening. This story sounds much like the story of Jesus telling his disciples to go and find the colt for him to ride as he entered Jerusalem earlier. The story is told in such a way to demonstrate Jesus’ ability to predict what will happen and that what Jesus says will happen does happen. The disciples go and find everything just as Jesus had told them and they prepare the meal in an upper room. Later that evening Jesus and presumably the rest of the disciples join the two. The meal begins on an ominous note as Jesus informs his disciples that one of them will betray him. The disciples are unsure of who this will be and know that each one is very capable of the act. Mark is very skillful in the way he tells the story. Jesus tells his disciples that the betrayer is one who dips into the bowl with him – but they all dip in the bowl! In Mark’s gospel Jesus does not finally identify his betrayer – all are left hanging and wondering, “Is it I?” Judas is never specifically mentioned by Mark – nor is the name of any of the others. Mark does not mention when Judas made his exit – and readers of Mark’s gospel can only presume that he made his move as the rest were on the way to Gethsemane. Having dropped this ominous prediction of a betrayer into the setting of the meal Jesus proceeds to take bread and wine and ritually transform what was the Passover meal into what Christians have come to know as Holy Communion. It is at this point that Paul’s words to the Corinthian church are important – they are not exactly the same as in Mark but close enough to be certain that from the very beginning of the Christian experience words like these were used and that Holy Communion was a very early practice of the church. As the meal ends Jesus again predicts his death by saying that he will not drink again until the kingdom has arrived. Mark’s story is really quite short and compact. We can imagine that the disciples were confused and frightened with the whole event and totally “in the dark” about what this might mean. As we will see Mark does not do much to relieve their situation – he leaves that for the imagination of his readers. If we use Mark as the basis for our discussion we can see how Matthew has built upon Mark’s story. Matthew drops out the reference to the slaughter of the Passover lambs. Why Matthew does this is not apparent from the story or from the rest of his gospel. Perhaps there is no meaning behind this omission. Matthew follows Mark quite closely in the story of how the disciples come to prepare the meal. Following Mark, Matthew tells of how Jesus informs his disciples about his betrayer but Matthew adds one important piece of information. He mentions the name of Judas. Mark had mentioned no names and Matthew mentions no others but he clearly lets his readers know that Judas was the betrayer. Matthew concludes his story using almost the same words as Mark regarding the bread and wine.