There is a lot of uncertainty and unfounded dogma surrounding the Last Supper. When you try to find hard evidence for people's doctrine you find that it is largely unsupported by the facts.

The Last Supper

There are several misconceptions surrounding the Last Supper. The first one is that it is a biblical title. The name given in the Bible is the Lord's Supper (1 Corinthians 11:20). Another example that many people believe is that the painting called the Last Supper accurately demonstrates the eating conditions. It does not. Ancient Jews reclined to eat as is brought out by Mark.

The word translated sat is actually Greek:anakeimai meaning recline.  This is why John could lean back on Jesus’ chest (breast in KJV) to ask Him a question: He then lying on Jesus’ breast saith unto him, Lord, who is it? (John 13:25 [KJV]) ; Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee? (John 21:20 [KJV]). Reclining on one’s side to eat makes this perfectly natural. The furniture would have been a mat and perhaps a cushion, so assuming that you were reclining on your left side to eat with your right hand, then you had to lean back to talk to the person to your left. Being on someone's right was a position of honour and love as is captured by the relationship of Christ to the Father, But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God (Hebrews 10:12 [KJV]).

Reclining to eat also explains another otherwise awkward scene. Jesus was eating in the home of a Pharisee and a woman started to anoint his feet (Luke 7:38). If He was seated with His feet under a table, then she would have to crawl between the others and manoeuvre under the table, but the ancients did not sit upright, they reclined with their legs pointing away from the table. In that position the woman could approach Jesus from behind and begin to anoint His feet without Him being aware until she touched Him. So perhaps if we have been wrong about one thing we might be wrong about others. You might be interested to know that the whole thing forms a pattern for life.

Done by Observation

The first thing that I want to establish is the accuracy with which the Festivals were determined at the time of Christ. At that time they were still done by traditional methods which were handed down from the time Israel entered the Promised Land. You can find the quotation below under the title: Jewish religious year, caption: The Jewish calendar, sub-caption: Origin and development.

...In late Second Temple times (i.e., 1st century bce to 70 ce), calendrical matters were regulated by the Sanhedrin, or council of elders, at Jerusalem. The testimony of two witnesses who had observed the New Moon was ordinarily required to proclaim a new month. Leap years were proclaimed by a council of three or more rabbis with the approval of the nasi, or president, of the Sanhedrin. With the decline of the Sanhedrin, calendrical matters were decided by the Palestinian patriarchate (the official heads of the Jewish community under Roman rule). Jewish persecution under Constantius II (reigned 337–361) and advances in astronomical science led to the gradual replacement of observation by calculation. According to Hai ben Sherira (died 1038)—the head of a leading Talmudic academy in Babylonia—Hillel II, a Palestinian patriarch, introduced a fixed and continuous calendar in 359 ce...

Sid Z. LeimanJewish religious yearDate Published: August 03, 2018Britanicahttps://www.britannica.com/topic/Jewish-religious-yearDecember 10, 2020

So the beginning of the month was established by observation and they would count the required ten and fourteen days from there.

The significance of Lazarus

The story of Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha,  is found in John 11. When Christ got the news that he was sick He told them the final outcome.

He then remained where He was for two days (verse 5) and then told the disciples that He was going to wake him up (verse 11). They did not understand that He meant that he was dead so Christ had to say so explicitly in verse 14. Asleep and dead was the same to Christ. He also pointed out that He was glad that He was not there. It was to help them believe. When they reached Lazarus' home he had been buried for four days (verse 17). Then came the issue that eventually made Jesus cry.

They did not understand who Jesus was although they, just like we do today, claim that we do. He told them but it was too much to believe. Martha claimed to believe but she did not even understand. Martha went for Mary and they came back with mourners! He was there and had told them that Lazarus would live but they were bawling because they did not really believe who He was although He had shown them and told them. He had resurrected others before but this time He deliberately waited until the body had started to decay. He groaned in verse 33 and in verse 34 asked them where they had put Lazarus.

Jesus had waited until Lazarus was rotting to teach us that it does not matter to Him. When we are dead we are dead but He was able to reverse all of the decay in a putrefying body and bring Lazarus back to life. With our modern understanding of biology we should appreciate that miracle more than they. There is nothing too hard for Him once it is His will. He was about to put Himself through the same thing that Lazarus experienced, in part, so that we would understand that He is life, the very definition of it. When we are resurrected we will be like Lazarus in the sense that he just went on as though he was awakened from sleep. It was still him and it will still be us.

Lamb selection Day

Let us jump to the beginning of John 12. It was six days before Passover and Christ had come back to Bethany for Lazarus' party. If we drop down to verse 3 we have Mary anointing Jesus' feet. Mary understood what the others did not.

Mary knew that Christ would die. She had begun to believe Him. She had kept the perfume for a special occasion without knowing that it was this one, and now she was using it. Verse 12 speaks of the next day which would be five days before Passover. This was the day that He rode in on the colt of an ass i.e. a young ass. Now the Jews keep the Passover on the Fifteenth. This is not the place to debate whether it is correct or not but just to accept that this is what they do. You can easily check the Jewish virtual library https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/passover. Five days before that is the tenth of Nisan and that is special. It is the day that the lamb to be slaughtered was selected, and it is therefore on the day the lamb was selected that we have John 12:12-19.

So on that day Christ was selected by the people as king and selected to be killed by the council. The only person that seems to have understood and believed was Mary.

It Was the Preparation and Not the Passover

The opportunity to kill Jesus was presented a few days later. Let us clarify that it was the Preparation and not the Passover. The Jews used the fourteenth as the preparation day and this is when we have Christ crucified. As we go on there will be further evidence to support this but there are some obvious verses to consider first.

The Sanhedrin expected to eat the Passover

It was most emphatically the preparation

John says it three times. He was not mistaken. This is something that I must also emphasize. It was not the Seder! The Seder is the celebration that Jews have had for millennia. It is the Old Testament celebration of Passover and still exists today. The Seder is not what Christians have been given to celebrate and hence the symbols are not the same and do not have the same significance. The Old Testament instructions do not necessarily apply.

An outline of the events

Let me start by giving a brief rundown of what happened.

Mark puts the foot washing before the sop therefore they did not leave immediately after the foot washing (Mark 14:12–26).

Matthew puts the bread and wine after Judas asked if it was he (Matthew 26:17–30). Luke puts the bread and wine before Judas asked if it was he and in a continuous sentence with but (Luke 22:20) so we go with Luke (Luke 22:7–23). Further support for Luke’s version is that Luke said that he would write things in order (Luke 1:1-4). Luke says in verse 20 of Luke 22 Likewise also the cup after supper.

Only John mentions the foot-washing. John 13 puts the foot washing before the sop (John 13:1–30) and he puts Judas at the foot washing v11. We can therefore deduce the following order:

• The disciples asked Christ about preparing for Passover
  
• Peter and John were given instructions and went off
• The others came sometime after and they had a supper
• After the supper they did the foot washing
• Christ blessed the bread (without sop) and wine and gave them
• The issue of the betrayer was brought up and Judas was given the sop and went off
• They sang a hymn and left.

Any other order would raise questions about why Judas was not present and tip the disciples off. Modern Christianity often puts the bread and wine first because they assume that it was replacing a Seder but the internal evidence does not support that. It appears that the bread and wine were done together and were immediately followed by or immediately preceded by the foot washing and all occurred before the sop. The ceremony (footwashing, bread and wine) was all done after the meal officially ended but while they were still hanging around eating.

Now to look at some scriptures:

Matthew says that the Feast had already begun but we know that it was actually the preparation that approached. Matthew must be taken very loosely because Jewish days began in the evening and so it could not be the Feast and they were now preparing. It is also impossible because the first day is a Sabbath and they would not have been able to work. In fact, it was now after sunset on Thursday the 13^th. going into the day of the 14^th.. The disciples came to Christ; because they wanted to start preparing for Passover, He did not approach them. He did not arrange to change the timing on this special day. They wanted to know where, not when or how, and therefore the answer He gave identified just that. The rest of what they were doing was normal. People from all over would have come to the city to have lambs slaughtered and other business related to Passover. It would have been necessary to book ahead in order to find accommodation. He sent them to a man in the city. They found the man and did as they were instructed. Verse 19 indicates that they made preparations and this could include anything. Sometime after dark He sat down and they had a meal.

Mark supports Matthew in saying that it was the first day of unleavened bread but qualifies it with when they killed the Passover. The Jews killed the Passover between the evenings going into the First Day of Unleavened Bread. It was therefore not possible that Unleavened Bread had begun, because the Passover had not yet been killed. Since both Matthew and Mark did it we must assume that the expression Days of Unleavened Bread was all-encompassing and included the preparation day. We must look for specifics elsewhere as we did earlier with John. Mark adds that they were only two disciples sent. A group of disciples, maybe all twelve apostles, came and asked Him about Passover but He only sent two to prepare. V15 clarifies that we are not talking about a room that is furnished alone. The room probably had the table set and ready to eat. Why else would he make the distinction? They did not have to prepare the meal so they had time to leave and come back with Him as a group. The preparations referred to something else. According to v17, it was still evening when He reached the place and we know that they started after sunset.

Luke is more accurate and tells us that the day was approaching. It was not there yet. We now find out that the two who were to make the preparations were Peter and John (v8); therefore there could not have been much preparation by only two people in such a short space of time e.g. it is unlikely that they went and killed a lamb. These two were sent to make the preparations in readiness for when the group came. Notice also verse 15 And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer: This suggests that Christ had specially requested them to be there. This meal was a normal occurrence for them but it would have been glaringly unusual to have them eat Passover (i.e the Seder) with Him instead of with their families. This was not the Jewish Seder which would have been a Passover celebratory family meal. It was normal for them to have this meal with Him. He wanted them together for the last and would not have left it to chance. He wanted to be sure that the core team saw the changes that He was about to make.

A Night to be Much Observed

Going back to Exodus 12; God instructed the Israelites to select a lamb on the tenth of Nissan (Exodus 12:3). The family would then keep the lamb until the fourteenth day (Exodus 12:6) and then kill and eat the lamb. There is no question that the lamb was to be kept until the fourteenth, the debate is over whether it was eaten on the Fourteenth or the Fifteenth. Between the evenings can be no-mans-land as it is the bridge between two days. Christians (meaning the ones in the First Century and those who imitate them now) recognise that the death of the firstborn in Egypt corresponds with the death of the firstborn Son of God.

The connection is made through Matthew 26:45. Christ did not die at night at all, but during the afternoon, about 3:00 pm. Christ bodily died during the day of the Fourteenth but the transaction was completed on the night of the Fourteenth which biblically speaking begins the Fourteenth. The death angel came in the form of Judas about midnight. He decided whether to pass over Jesus, the firstborn, or identify Him. It was effected by the betrayal. The lamb that was killed to ward off the death angel represents Christ who died as a substitute when our sins were placed on Him. The correspondence between the death of Christ and of the Egyptians' first born is because of sin. This is not an exact repetition of what happened in Egypt but one that preserves the effect in all critical points.

The Egyptians were guilty and died because of their own sins, because they did not have the protection of the Lamb like the people of Israel. Christ was innocent and could have been their surrogate but they did not accept that substitute and hence death came as it came upon Christ. There is no corresponding substitute for Christ's single sacrifice and the memorial supper from Christianity, in Judaism either, and hence they used annual sacrifices in place of Christ's single sacrifice. For Christians the Fourteenth is the logical day that the lamb was killed and eaten. As a result Christians recognise that the lamb was killed at no-mans-land (between the evenings) at the beginning of the Fourteenth while Jews see it as no-mans-land at the end of the Fourteenth leading to their consumption on the Fifteenth.

Christ instructed Israel to celebrate on the night that the Passover occurred (Leviticus 23:5, Numbers 9:3), the same night that they were passed over. That is what v42 of Exodus 12 says. Did He obey His own instructions when He was on Earth? It appears that Israel was instructed to celebrate on that night, the one when the angel passed over, apart from whatever they celebrate as Pesach. Notice that there is no warning that they will be cut off for not celebrating. It was done solely out of obedience and obviously some did not choose to obey. The original Passover was eaten with unleavened bread even though the leaven was not yet put out but there is a big difference between that and the Christian Passover. The Christian Passover is a celebration coming before Christ, the lamb, died. Christ was not dead at the Lord’s Supper. Christians do not celebrate a dead lamb at Passover but fellowship with a living God who has power over death. Christians have a vigil demonstrating how Christ lived His life and how we must live ours. Christians do not make any sacrifice and they do not make any offering like the Jews do. We have a memorial celebration of Christ and what He went through for us. Christians have a vigil demonstrating how Christ lived His life and how we must live ours.

The Jews have:

Pesach

– the slaughtering and eating of the paschal lamb which begins in the afternoon ending the 14th. It begins with  slaughtering the lamb and continues into the evening beginning the 15th. It ends with the consumption of the lamb on the night beginning the 15th.

The Holiday of Matzot

– the seven day feast we refer to as Passover, which begins the night of the 15th.

They do not celebrate the Night to be much observed but that is what Christ made to be the Lord’s Supper. The connection with Jewish practice is made because Christ is called our Passover, but the celebration is not Passover (Pesach), it is the Lord’s Supper, His last supper before He died.

For most people the problem can be reduced to an issue with names:

Pesach

– A dead lamb.

The Lord’s Supper

– A living God with power over death.

It is an issue with names. People call the Lord’s Supper Passover which it is, and so they behave as though it is the same as the Jewish Pesach which it is not.

Unleavened bread is deemed to be required at Passover based on the scripture Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread (Exodus 23:18;34:25). There is a caution here because that scripture may not reflect the intent of the New Covenant celebration. We do not offer anything in the New Testament except ourselves. There was one sacrifice by Christ and that was the end (Hebrews 9:27-28, 10:8-11). The Passover night (the night when He was betrayed) does not fall within Unleavened Bread notwitstanding Matthew and Mark. Christ was not dead. Christ did eat this Passover in the sense that He celebrated this with the disciples, but He did not celebrate the Seder (the Jewish Passover celebratory meal for Pesach) which involves killing the lamb. If we use Exodus 12:8 [KJV] And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it, then we also have to use bitter herbs. It must however be remembered that the Lord's Supper is not the Seder, and no such trappings were recorded as having accompanied the meal, and no meaning has been ascribed to them. The full meaning is in the bread, the blood, and the foot washing. For example, how do you know that the foot washing is not in place of unleavened bread and bitter herbs? In any case it is not the same celebration. Christ was not dead and it is a memorial of that fellowship that would transcend death. Christians celebrate how He prepared for death. Christians have a vigil.

Paul records in his writing (remember that this was to be distributed to people far away) that it was on the night that He (Christ) was betrayed, not on Passover (Pesach). It would have been far easier to identify the period by a notable event such as Passover than a more obscure time as the night that He was betrayed if they both always meant the same. They do not. When the Jews spoke of Passover they meant the Seder which takes place on the first day of Unleavened Bread. What Christians recognised as Passover was the Lord's Supper. It is my belief that Paul did that in order to distinguish the Lord's Supper from the Seder (the Jewish Passover celebratory meal) because the Seder was far more famous.

Paul talked about the body and blood showing the Lord’s death (signifying that the testament was in effect) but he did not mention the footwashing. The body and blood are only a part of the memorial. The footwashing is the part that focuses our attention on how He lived in preparation for His death. There is nothing in the Seder that corresponds with that. The Christian Passover includes how His life prepared Him to be the sacrifice. It was completely in the service of His master, demonstrated by the footwashing. The Christian Passover is a repetition of the Lord’s Supper and there was no sacrifice, offering, or unleavened bread present.

Let us step back a bit and look at the institution of the observance. You will remember that we focussed on the actual Passover and not the lamb, to determine when Israel was freed and left. The lamb was a symbol, not the re-enactment of the event. The Passover occurred only once with the death angel. What was critical to survival was properly watching for it.

Notice that YLT says that it is a night of watching. According to Interlinear Scripture Analyzer the Hebrew is shmrim, the Strong's number is G8107 and is usually translated observances. Strong's does not appear to carry the full meaning of the word because when it is researched on the internet the word refers to watchers and guardians, which is more in line with YLT. Let us ask ourselves if this reflects what really happened.

Does this talk of watching on the original night remind you of anything that Christ said?

Now to Matthew with Christ on the same night but thousands of years after the original night of the Passover.

Notice from verse 41 that throughout His ordeal His mind was not only on Himself. He was concerned for them. Did Christ stop praying at midnight? That was when the death angel passed over and took the firstborn son. Notice that the turning point was v45. God actually instructed Israel to keep a night of vigil but we will come to that later.

The vigil on the original Night to be Much Observed was a matter of survival. Remember that God did not say exactly when He would strike.

It is Moses, not God, that gave that warning to stay indoors until morning, because God did not tell even him. Christ told Israel to observe the night that they came out of Egypt. What was significant about that night? It was a night of vigil.

God is teaching us to be vigilant. The Hebrews were instructed to watch but they did not know the hour. We don't know the hour either. In the case of the Hebrews the hour was midnight which is arguably the darkest hour and it all happened suddenly, at that hour. Peter, James and John did not know either. In this case it was probably midnight as well. They did not fully appreciate the importance of the treasure that was spoken of in Luke 12 earlier. Peter did not understand what lengths others (Satan) would go to in order to take that treasure away, and the sons of thunder even thought it could be obtained through favoritism. In reality they all had to suffer and fight for it. At this point none of them had the commitment to fight on. Christ had just given them the treasure i.e. the Kingdom (Himself and their fellow disciples pictured in the bread, wine and foot washing) but they did not have a clue that it was treasure worth giving everything for.

Christ did both annually

How did Judas know where they were? It was dark (true it was around full moon but still it was night) and at best people would have seen them leave town but they could not know exactly where He was going. Notice that even though Judas left before Christ did, he was confident that he would be able to find him that night. When Judas left he did not ask Christ any questions about His plans for the rest of the night because he knew what they always did.

What this scripture tells us is that Judas knew where Christ was likely to go if He wanted to be with the disciples; what it does not tell us is why Judas would expect that at that hour they would not have all gone to bed.

Judas had made arrangements with the Sanhedrin based on his knowing ahead of time where Christ would be that night. It was not a Sabbath so Christ could have gone anywhere and been back in time for Passover the following day, but Judas knew exactly where He would have been that night. This is the point that I am trying to make. In order for Judas to know it would have to be a habit that Christ took seriously.

I believe that Christ did this vigil every Night to be Much Observed / Passover. I believe that is how Judas knew exactly where He was. Remember that Christ was not a stranger to walking across water or hopping in a boat and sailing away. You cannot know where someone like that is. Christ did not eat the Passover Lamb as He was accustomed to from a child.

He could not because He was the Passover, but He did watch vigilantly during the Night to be Much Observed period. The evidence of Judas' actions regarding the night of vigil, combined with the fact that Christ habitually celebrated Passover with His family from a child, shows that he did both annually.

After The Supper and Before the Actual Foot Washing Began

Now let me emphasize again that this was before the Jewish Passover Feast but after their supper. They are not the same event. After they had completed supper/eating some surprising things occurred.

V1 says that it was before Passover (Pesach). The phrase assumes that it is the correct Passover and not a fraudulent one. V2 says that supper (not Passover) was ended. John does not seem confused. He identifies one as a supper and the other as Passover.

Now remember that the supper was ended but they were still eating. Christ added this ceremony and symbols after they had their meal. He did it with bread that was just lying on the table after the meal. It was not specially brought. Mark 14:22 makes that clear.

This would have been after the foot-washing and therefore long after supper ended. He did it with normal bread that was just lying around.

This suggests that it was not a typical supper because those finish when the eating finishes. This supper had an element of ceremony that was completed but is was the kind of occasion for staying up and talking and eating. It was after the foot-washing that Christ passed the sop to Judas. Eating after was normal otherwise passing sop to someone would have struck a nerve. Jesus did something that would not draw attention.

It appeared to them that He had sent Judas off to prepare for the coming Jewish Passover!

They all knew that it was not Passover Feast

As was mentioned earlier, all of the disciples knew that it was not the Feast of Unleavened Bread which began with the Passover Seder (Matthew 27:62, Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54, John 19:14).

Notice that they believed that Judas was going to buy things for them to use at the Passover Seder. They also intended to eat the Seder. That is obvious. If they had just finished their only celebration why then would Judas be going to buy things for it? In addition he expected to find people with stores opened for business at night not closing early for Passover; this would be especially so because Passover as it was kept, goes into the First day of Unleavened Bread. Unlike most feasts Passover was a special meal organised by individuals to celebrate as a group. It needed arrangements and unusual ingredients like bitter herbs and unleavened bread and most especially a lamb. They were not shepherds and would need to obtain one to take to the temple for slaughter.

By the time the meal was finished it was night. The actual meal probably started after dark. There is nothing stating that Passover must be after dark but the celebration to be much observed was to be at night.

I want to emphasize again that what they were celebrating was not the Passover Seder in a different form; it was a completely different feast. Yes it was Passover but it was not a replacement for the Seder. They still intended to keep the Seder as they apparently had done for the last three years. The fact that it was they who initiated the preparations and that Judas knew where to find them indicates that it was their regular practice to celebrate the watch night. The fact that they thought Judas intended to buy things for the feast (meaning the Seder) shows that they intended to keep that too. They knew what they were doing. They kept the watch night celebration as usual and expected to keep the Seder as usual. It would not make sense to keep two festivals which had the same significance one day after the other.

So why is this important? Because this feast that they were celebrating had no ritual or symbols attached to it before. The symbols are new symbols not anything borrowed from the Seder. Let me state that another way, all that stuff in the Old Testament about how to celebrate Passover applies to the Seder. The Seder still exists and is what was set up by God in Exodus. The Seder is a Sacrifice and has an offering associated with it. The Last Supper is a memorial and has no offering as part of the ceremony. We do not offer blood or meat! The only offering that we are allowed to make is ourselves and we do that at baptism, not Passover. Christ's sacrifice is complete for Passover and we cannot help or contribute any further offering or sacrifice. Hebrews 10:1-18 spells out that Christ's sacrifice is the only sacrifice that pays for our lives and we do not contribute anything. The sacrifice that we make is our lives and our hearts (Psalm 51:17, Romans 12:1, Romans 6:16, Romans 15:16, 1 Peter 2:5) and that is done at Baptism. When we drink the wine (representing His blood) we are not representing the drinking of blood because drinking blood is sin and hence representing drinking blood would be sin. God only instituted sacrifices and offerings into His worship because of the gross disobedience of Old Testament Israel.

The new covenant expects obedience and not the behaviour of the Church in the wilderness. God does not add any offerings and sacrifices to the worship that we express to Him. The Lord's Supper is not a form of the Seder because it is motivated by a completely different spirit. YOU DO NOT HAVE ANY OFFERINGS OR SACRIFICES AT THE NEW TESTAMENT PASSOVER!!!

Acknowledgements

http://ad2004.com/prophecytruths/Articles/Yeshua/lastsupper.html