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The last supper

There's something about the birth of new life that inevitably involves tearing or breaking through one thing, to get to something much better.

It's a universal truth we celebrate several times a year, as we punch through the chocolate shell of our Easter Eggs to find the sweets inside, or rip apart the Christmas wrapping paper to get at the gift.

For the Jewish people, the Passover meal marks a similar kind of celebration. In the meal, they remember the time, long ago, when they were kept as slaves of the ancient Egyptians. And they celebrate their release from slavery, when the walls of their prison in Egypt were cracked open and God led them out to freedom.

The Passover meal was the "last supper" which Jesus and his friends ate, in a scene which is still re-enacted in every corner of the world on a daily basis. This is the meal he chose, to explain to them that he was about to die, and to try and give them some sense that he was dying for a reason.

To be honest, they didn't really get it at the time.

They didn't really get that he was going to die, that this was the last supper they would eat together before he was killed, buried, and reappeared with a new body, that looked similar, but could walk through walls and disappear into thin air.

But then – who could have anticipated that?

  

About this section
On the night of his arrest, the day before he was crucified, Jesus ate a last meal with his disciples, in which they shared bread and wine.

As he gave his friends the bread, he told them, "This is my body, broken for you," and as he gave them the cup of wine, he said, "This is my blood, poured out for you."

You can find one account of this final meal in Luke 22:14-23.

Follow this link to download a free Gospel. You might like to start by reading Luke's account of Jesus. Go towards the end of any of these Gospels to find the section telling the story of Jesus' death and resurrection.

     

still from film
Equally understandably, they didn't really see how dying would constitute a good first step in Jesus' stated aim to see his kingdom take over the world.

They could only struggle to believe and understand as Jesus tore apart the bread and described it as his body "broken for them", and poured out the wine and told them, "this is my blood, which is poured out for many".

  
 
 
 

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