Most of us believe that the Last Supper was a Passover Meal, or Feast of Unleavened Bread—at least that’s the way it is presented in three of the four Gospel accounts.  Matthew, Mark, and Luke report it that way, but John offers a different view.  In his Gospel, Jesus is crucified the day before the Passover, the same day that the lambs got slaughtered in the Temple to become the center of the Passover feast.

From the time of the great spiritual exodus when the chosen people were set free from slavery, Jewish households brought lambs to the temple on the afternoon of the fourteenth day of Nissan (Exodus 12:6, Leviticus 23:5, Numbers 28:16).  On that day, from the courtyard of the temple on that holy mountain, blood poured down viaduct systems so that, from a distance, onlookers could see the entire city soaked in red.  This visible sacrificial sign of the bleeding temple was for all to witness; the scene reminded them of the atonement of sins according to God’s covenant.  Like the animals, Jesus, the innocent lamb of God, was slaughtered and sacrificed at the temple of the cross.  Temple protocol also required an extensive water supply for all the ritual cleansing that took place there.  Water, therefore, flowed with the blood from the holy city.  As blood and water spewed from the side of Jesus after He died upon the cross, we gain deeper insight into the meaning of the cup that Jesus shared with His disciples and the chalice we use during Mass when water is mixed with wine.

In the section of John’s Gospel that we hear every Holy Thursday to inaugurate the Triduum, the focus is not on bread and wine but on washing feet.  According to the author, instead of being a Passover meal of ritual sacrifice, it is a discourse on love.  Taking the form of a slave Jesus goes onto His knees to illustrate service to others that is compassionate, merciful, sacrificial, and loving.  The image of slavery draws attention to those who are marginalized by society or not given a place in our world.  Interesting to me, the stories of Jesus entering the world explain that there was no room for Him.  The term used in Luke’s infancy narrative for inn or guest chamber, “katalyma,” is only used twice in the entire Bible, once to describe the place in Bethlehem that did not give lodging when Christ came into the world and the other to describe the upper room, the guest chamber which He instructed His disciples to prepare as He exited this world.  Perhaps Jesus is indicating that there is no room for Him here, that He has been rejected by the world and sent away, treated as less than human from beginning to end.  The message of Holy Thursday challenges us to see the face of Christ in those who are rejected or sent away and love them with compassionate mercy and sacrificial service.  There are other noteworthy connections to Bethlehem, a word that means “House of Bread,” where Jesus was born in a barn and laid in a trough, the vessel that feeds animals.  As the story unfolds, the Holy Family got rejected and sent away to be immigrants in a foreign country.

This, too, points us to the Bread of Life that we feed upon each Sunday, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world by pouring out His blood for us.  The Last Supper was the first Mass, and it orients us toward the final Mass in God’s kingdom, the eternal banquet feast.  Though, throughout the year at any Mass, we consume His body and blood, participate in His salvific act, and are reminded of our Christian journey and destiny, Holy Week prepares us for the end of earthly life and beginning of eternal life as we contemplate the Paschal Mystery of Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection when He was rejected by religious leaders and eradicated by government officials.  As we pray through it, let us also pray for one another, especially those in our world who are rejected by societal or religious messages that there is no room for them.