Mark 14:12-26; Family Meal

There is so much to think about in this section that I have a hard time keeping one train of thought. The richness of the Jewish tradition, the breadth of behind-the-scenes emotions and the cryptic Old Testament allusions all draw me in. Yet, during this reading, it was simply the question of the disciples that prevailed in my mind. “Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”

The Passover was a family meal shared in the home. The question of the disciples brings up the necessary inference of ". . . because we are all homeless." Jesus was traveling with a small group that had indeed become his family. They had no plot of land to call home but they had each other to call brother and sister. It was with these that Jesus chose to share his most significant meal.

I hold strongly to old ideas of family. My wife, children and I eat together daily, spend holidays together, travel together, etc. Yet living far away from extended family has taught me that family can be more than blood relations.

So I ask myself with whom would I share my last meal on earth? What twelve people would I ask to spend special time with me? Who has become my family in my journey here? How have I treated them? How have I influenced them? Do they know they are significant to me?

Luke 22:14-16; Excited

14-16When it was time, he sat down, all the apostles with him, and said, "You've no idea how much I have looked forward to eating this Passover meal with you before I enter my time of suffering. It's the last one I'll eat until we all eat it together in the kingdom of God."

I love how the translation of the Message reads here. "You have no idea how much I have looked forward . . . " Can you imagine Jesus feeling giddy with excitement? Imagine the creator of the world anxiously anticipating something. Did he visualize it over and over before it happened? Did it feel like the day would never come? The way a bride looks forward to her wedding day, the way a couple looks forward to a birth, the way an athlete looks forward to a high-level competition, Jesus looked forward to the night of the Passover.

That night, something that God started almost 1500 years earlier reached completion. When Moses and the people of Israel started the Passover, he could see the day when it would take on its true meaning. The day when Jesus would become the lamb for each of his children . . . and he was excited about it.