Passover, of course, is referring to the Passover in Egypt, described in the book of Exodus, where every believer in Yahweh slaughtered a lamb, took the lamb's blood, and put it on the doorframe of his house. On the night of the Passover the angel of death swept through the land of Egypt, and every house that was covered by the blood was spared. But in the houses that did not put the blood on the doorframe, the angel of death killed the firstborn.

D. A. Carson tells a wonderful story based on this night. Picture two Israelites, he says, Smith and Brown, talking in the land of Goshen the day before the first Passover. Both have slaughtered the lamb and put the blood on the doorposts. One is at peace; he trusts the promises of God. The other is a nervous wreck. He has only one son, his Charlie, and the angel of death is passing through tonight. That night the angel of death swept through the land. “Which one lost his son?” Carson asks. “And the answer of course is: neither. Because death doesn't pass over them on the ground of the intensity, or the clarity, of the faith exercised. But on the ground of the blood of the lamb.” As he put it, “It's not the intensity of our faith but the object of our faith that saves.” (D. A. Carson, “How Long, O Lord? Steadying Our Soul in the Midst of the Storm,” Bethlehem Conference for Pastors and Church Leaders, Minneapolis, January 26, 2016.)

And the same thing will be true for the Christian's Passover Lamb. Those who put their faith in the blood of Jesus Christ, those who trust in the blood, will be saved when they pass from this life into the next. So there's a reason the last meal of Jesus in His earthly ministry is a Passover meal. The very first Passover, as wonderful and as glorious as it was, was pointing to the blood of the Lamb, the saving power of the blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world.

I also want you to notice that this is the first day of Unleavened Bread, which was also instituted at the time of the first Passover. The idea is that to make nice, delicious, fluffy bread, you need a starter, a sourdough, leaven. And this leaven, this starter, is something you would have to cultivate over time, and every loaf of bread you make would start with leaven, meaning that every loaf of bread you ate came from old dough, an old batch. But at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, celebrated every year in the Old Testament, the Jewish people were called to throw out their leaven, their sourdough starter, and not make new starter for seven days.

And let me just say, there is nothing wrong with leavened bread. After all, wine itself leavens; it ferments, and that is enjoyed at Passover. But the reason God had them throw out the old leaven, and eventually start a new leaven, is to signify a new beginning. When the Jewish people left Egypt, they weren't to bring Egypt with them. Anything that began in Egypt needed to stay in Egypt. The people were starting over: a new chapter, a new year, a new season. And this is something God commanded the Israelites to do throughout the Old Testament. Once a year the people were to throw out the old leaven, the reason being that the first day of Unleavened Bread was a day to remember that God's people were called out of bondage, and were given a new start and a new identity in Yahweh.

And I do not find it a coincidence that Mark begins his account of the Lord's Supper by telling us it is the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because here at the supper is a new beginning, a new start. Jesus is calling His people out of bondage, but this time not out of Egypt. He is calling them out from the curse of the law, and from the leaders of the temple who so burdened the people. In a way, Jerusalem is the new Egypt, the new place of bondage. This is evident in Matthew's account of Jesus' birth: Herod, the king in Jerusalem, kills the baby boys of Bethlehem as Pharaoh killed the Hebrew baby boys in Egypt (Matthew 2:13–16; Exodus 1:22), and Mary and Joseph have to flee from Canaan to Egypt, because Canaan has become the new Egypt, and Egypt the new Canaan.

But anyway, here we are at the supper, and God is freeing His people and creating a new people in Himself. This is a new exodus, a new and last Feast of Unleavened Bread, a new and last Passover Lamb, offered once for all.

And so, to be clear: in Jesus' death and resurrection, we are not just removing the old leaven; we are starting a new leaven. There is a reason that in Luke 13 Jesus says the kingdom of God is like leaven that spreads. This is the Great Commission. Our new leaven is not the law but the kingdom of God, and we are to leaven the world, to spread out, to go out to the ends of the earth and make disciples.

On a surface level, Jesus is showing Peter and John that He knows exactly what is going on here. He is utterly sovereign and in control of the situation.

Here's my thought: this all seems similar to the Triumphal Entry, with the need for the donkey (Mark 11:2–3). Jesus tells them to go into the city, find a man carrying water, follow him to his house, and ask for Jesus' guest room. This is a step of faith. And of course, like the donkey, everything Jesus asks for is at His disposal and available.

This scene also reminds me somewhat of Samuel's words to Saul:

³Then you shall go on from there farther and come to the oak of Tabor. Three men going up to God at Bethel will meet you there, one carrying three young goats, another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a skin of wine. ⁴And they will greet you and give you two loaves of bread, which you shall accept from their hand.

1 Samuel 10:3–4

The reason Samuel did this was as proof of his foreknowledge: that he was a messenger of God, and that what would come next was clearly the providence of God. I believe those things are true here for Peter and John in their instructions. Jesus is showing these two that He is in control, and that these things are all a part of God's plan.

Matthew records it this way:

He said, “Go into the city to a certain man and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.’”

Matthew 26:18

So Matthew puts the emphasis on Jesus' awareness that His time has come, and Mark puts the emphasis on the fact that it is His room. But this Passover is absolutely necessary. In these careful, deliberate preparations for the Passover is a clue, an insight into just how important this moment was to Jesus.

Something I think is pretty awesome: Jesus is very specific about where He wants this Passover meal to take place. He has chosen exactly where He wants it, and He calls it His room. It has been set aside for Him and for this Passover. And I believe there is a biblical reason for that.

⁵You may not offer the Passover sacrifice within any of your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, ⁶but at the place that the LORD your God will choose, to make his name dwell in it, there you shall offer the Passover sacrifice, in the evening at sunset, at the time you came out of Egypt. ⁷And you shall cook it and eat it at the place that the LORD your God will choose. And in the morning you shall turn and go to your tents.

Deuteronomy 16:5–7

Here is Jesus. He is the I AM, the God of the Old Testament, and He is choosing where to make His name dwell, and where He wants to celebrate the Passover. And I find it very interesting that this upper room may also be the site of Pentecost (Acts 1:13; 2:1–2). It could be that He has chosen to make this site holy, consecrated to Him, and the early church knew it.

Just as a fun little factoid: there is some speculation, especially in light of Acts 12:12, that this upper room was actually in the house of Mark, the one who is recording this Gospel from Peter. That is a really fun thought. But I will say, Papias, around AD 110, suggests that Mark, who wrote the Gospel of Mark, had never actually met Jesus (Eusebius, Church History 3.39.15). So this might be the house of someone unknown.

Here Jesus has seemingly chosen the home of a wealthy person, because it could fit this large number of people in a guest room, an upper room, an extra room in the house. Just to say it out loud: the Last Supper was held in the home of the 1%. Wealth has never been inherently evil; it's what you do with your wealth. And here this family opens up their home to Jesus, to be used at His service. Great.

So Jesus has chosen where He wants the Passover feast. The disciples are supposed to ask where the room is, seemingly of somebody they've never met, and he will show them a large upper room. In Exodus 24:9–11 the elders at Sinai went up and saw God and ate in His presence. This is a new Sinai event: a meal above the ground, in the presence of God.

I can't help but think about John 14 here:

¹“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. ²In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. ⁴And you know the way to where I am going.”

John 14:1–4

Here the disciples are preparing a room for Jesus and His people, and it is a place where God makes His name known and shares a meal with His people. Now, I don't want to stretch this too hard and make today's text all about us, because it's not. It's about the Lord. But in a way it is true: this is what our volunteers do here, who set up for church every Sunday morning. They prepare a place for us to eat a meal with the Lord, a place to make His name known and to share a meal in His presence as we take Communion. And this is a beautiful thing. So I just want to pause for a second and thank all of you who help make Sunday mornings possible, who set up, clean, and watch kids, who prepare the room for the marriage supper of the Lamb. God bless you for doing a wonderful thing.

Similarly, along the same vein, I believe this applies to home fellowships, and even to our own homes. There is a way that you can have dinner with your family, a way that you can have company over, where you have prepared it as a place to make the Lord known. So please hear me: whether it is this church or your own dining room table, prepare it as a place, sanctify it as a place, where people can hear and learn of the glory of God. And this is not just a good thing to do; this is how you create an environment of life and wisdom. Proverbs 9 says:

“Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn her seven pillars. She has slaughtered her beasts; she has mixed her wine; she has also set her table.”

Proverbs 9:1–2

Do you see it? Wisdom prepares her house and her table.

“She has sent out her young women to call from the highest places in the town, ‘Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!’ To him who lacks sense she says, ‘Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways, and live, and walk in the way of insight.’”

Proverbs 9:3–6

Wisdom is calling people to her table, to speak about the things of God, of wise and right living.

“Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury. Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. For by me your days will be multiplied, and years will be added to your life. If you are wise, you are wise for yourself; if you scoff, you alone will bear it.”

Proverbs 9:7–12

So the disciples preparing a table for people to eat with the Lord, to receive His teaching, to learn of God, is to act like Wisdom in the book of Proverbs. And we can enter into the same thing.

I want you to notice that Jesus says, “Where is my guest room?” He claimed to own that room. That's His room. Here's the reality: if you're a Christian, the Lord owns the rooms in your house too. The only question is whether you let Him in.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

Revelation 3:20

Hear me, loved ones: God not only wants to be Lord of your life; He also wants to be in relationship with you. So bring Him in. When you're at your table, speak of Him. Make the dining room His room; make it a place where His name is known. When you're watching television or Netflix, or whenever you're in your living room, make the living room His room. Don't watch something that may break your communion with God.

And what I don't mean is that if it's rated R, it has to be of the devil. No. The Bible has large, epic, bloody battles, decapitations, and there are actually a few Hebrew curse words, foul words, in the Old Testament. But things can cross a line and clearly not be of God, and a hard line is nudity.

But my point is this: if you start living and thinking, like Mary who poured out her oil, that all that you are and all that you have belongs to the Lord, that radically transforms the culture of your life, your home and your family dynamics.

Jesus sent them out to look for a man carrying a water pitcher and to ask where the Teacher's room was, and they found it just as He had told them.

Exodus 12:3–4 instructs a man to gather his household for the meal, and to share with his neighbor if his household is too small to eat a whole Passover lamb. Now normally, the Passover meal, which Jesus and the Twelve are celebrating here, was celebrated not only by the men but also by women and children, so it is quite possible that women and children were here at the Last Supper. There may have been several tables, or several tables put together, but I would be willing to bet that at least the host family was present.

And we want to be clear: this tradition was written down in the Mishnah around AD 200, and was likely practiced in the first century. There was a Passover liturgy, a tradition the Jewish people likely followed. Now, whether Jesus accepted any of these traditions or not is another discussion, as He often had a problem with the tradition of the elders. But traditionally, and again we have this from texts written down around AD 200, so this may have been the liturgy in the time of Jesus, over the course of this meal a child would ask a set of prescribed questions, and one of the leaders would answer by retelling the story of the Exodus.

This was one of the ways they remembered the account of the Exodus, when God saved them out of Egypt. So when Jesus tells us, “Do this in remembrance of me,” which is recorded in Luke, He is recalling how for centuries God's people remembered the Passover. It was an intentional meal, with a liturgy.

In this tradition the meal was marked by four cups of wine. Later rabbis tied the four cups to the four “I will” statements of Exodus 6:6–7 (Jerusalem Talmud, Pesachim 10:1), and later tradition gave the cups their names: the cup of sanctification, the cup of deliverance, the cup of redemption, and the cup of praise. And really interesting: when Jesus gives the Eucharist and the disciples drink from His cup, the thought is that Jesus used the third cup of wine. He asked them to drink the cup of redemption, that His blood would redeem His people. But we will get into this more next week.

So it seems that they were having a swell time, enjoying a feast, drinking wine as they had done many times before, when Jesus reveals that one of the people in this room will betray Him.

After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit, and testified, “Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”

John 13:21

Jesus is troubled, and He shares that He will be betrayed, and that the betrayer is literally eating with Him.

John may have been lying against Jesus on one side, and it might be that Judas was immediately on His other side, similar to the two thieves on the cross: the one on one side received the Lord, and the one on the other side rejected Him. Judas, who is eating with Him, is close enough to Jesus to ask, in Matthew's Gospel, “Is it I, Rabbi?” He is close enough to share the dish with Jesus, close enough to ask Jesus a question that no one else can hear the answer to. It seems he is on Jesus' other side.

Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.

Psalm 41:9

Now Jesus doesn't call out anybody in the room here. He doesn't say, “Judas is going to betray Me.” He says, “One of you.” And this crushed the people in the room. Jesus' ambiguity created a soul-searching moment in each of the disciples.

Luke and John make clear that the disciples did have a discussion among themselves to try to figure out who it would be, but Mark doesn't record that. He focuses on the disciples' inward searching. Notice that one after another they ask, “Is it I?” I think this is very purposeful. As much as we would like to think we are good, well-intentioned, godly people, we are all capable of great evil. Here Jesus reveals that one of them is going to do something truly dreadful, and they all search themselves.

This is one of the reasons why we take a moment to repent before the Lord, to search ourselves, before we take Communion in this church: primarily because of what Paul lays out in 1 Corinthians, but also because of this text. There is an internal searching before taking the bread and the cup. And this is a practice that carried on in the earliest church communities. For example, the Didache, written around the time of the apostles, says, “But every Lord's day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure.” Breaking bread there is Communion.

This is why Communion every Sunday is a great reset. It's a time to lay yourself bare before the Lord, to be honest about your failings, to ask Him to clean up your grumblings and discontentments, and to repent of your big, ugly, obvious sins and of your seemingly little, hidden ones.

Luke records:

And they began to question one another, which of them it could be who was going to do this.

Luke 22:23

John writes:

“The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke. One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus' side, so Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, ‘Lord, who is it?’”

John 13:22–25

So as we pull all of these accounts together: Jesus announces that He will be betrayed. The disciples start asking Jesus whether they're the one who is going to betray Him; they're looking around at one another, asking who it could be; Peter gives John the eye, a motion to go ask Jesus. And so when John asks Jesus who will betray Him:

“Jesus answered, ‘It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.’ So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, ‘What you are going to do, do quickly.’”

John 13:26–27

John may be the only person at the table who knows it's Judas now, because Judas gets up and leaves, and none of the disciples understand what's happening. We read:

“Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that, because Judas had the moneybag, Jesus was telling him, ‘Buy what we need for the feast,’ or that he should give something to the poor. So, after receiving the morsel of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.”

John 13:28–30

Jesus is talking about one of the Twelve betraying Him; Jesus then tells Judas, “What you are going to do, do quickly”; and nobody suspected Judas of betrayal. Do you know what that tells me? Judas must have looked like one of the most pious, zealous, faithful followers of Jesus, even to the point that, when all signs are pointing to him as the Lord's betrayer, filled with Satan, nobody suspects him of a thing.

Here is one of the lessons. The deadliest enemy of the church, even of this church, has never been, nor ever will be, Rome, or the communists, or Iran, or the government. It's never been the man outside the door. It's the man at the table who loves the bread and wine more than the Lord. It's the pastor who is a wolf. It's a deacon or elder who is drunk on power. It's a lady wanting to take over the women's ministry, or another woman's husband. Or it's a man seeking a following and power without accountability. In every age there are those of whom 2 Timothy 3:6 speaks, or as Jude 4 says:

For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Jude 4

Today's passage is a warning that Satan enters people, or at the very least, that Satan sends people to disrupt Christ's church from within the church. But also, a warning in today's text is not to be a Judas. Do not so quickly throw away your relationship with the Lord Jesus when Satan presents the opportunity.

Charles Spurgeon told a story from his own childhood, preaching on Jonah's flight to Tarshish. When Jonah wanted to run from the Lord, he found a ship going to Tarshish. And Spurgeon said, “I remember, in my younger days, a schoolboy, who, when at play with his companions, would fly into furious passions, and would at once throw something at the person with whom he was angered; and the point I noticed was, that he always found something to throw.” (C. H. Spurgeon, “Runaway Jonah, and the Convenient Ship,” Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. 36, preached August 10, 1890.) And this is what Satan does. He knows exactly when to provide a ship to Tarshish. He knows exactly when to put a bathing Bathsheba in view, to lay a snare at your feet. Don't take the bait.

And Judas' ship to Tarshish was money. Judas loved money. It seems he had slowly been stealing money from Jesus' mission fund. And because he had not dealt with this sin, it grew. Please hear me: unchecked sins do one of two things to the believer. Either they grow and become more wicked and intertwined with us, or they become a source of great grief and sorrow.

Judas struggled with greed (and we all have struggles and temptations). But where Judas went wrong is that he left it unchecked. And because of this, now that he has been offered thirty pieces of silver, about 120 denarii worth of silver, some 120 days' wages, to betray Jesus, his unchecked sins are going to take him to a very dark place. He will betray the Son of God.

This text is such a warning. If Judas can fall, who spent so much time with Jesus, if Judas can fall, so can we. Even though we are in church, even if we look like we're starting to get it and put it all together, sin is crouching at the door, seeking to devour you. So kill your sin, or it will be killing you. Choose Christ. If sexual sin has presented itself, choose Christ. If sins of greed and jealousy have presented themselves, choose Christ. If sins of anger and bitterness have presented themselves, choose Christ. All other roads lead to hell. He alone, His path alone, is the way, the truth, and the life.

I'll likely get into this more next week, but I do want to put it here: what is the dish they are dipping into? The Bible doesn't say. But because the Passover had its set order, with its cups of wine and its set foods, the dish that Jesus and Judas were likely both dipping into, likely with matzah, would be something called haroset: a thick, tart paste of crushed fruit and spices, which later came to include nuts and wine.

The Mishnah (around AD 200) names haroset but doesn't say what it represents. The Talmud records rabbis of the 200s who said it was a reminder of the mortar of Egypt (Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim 116a). If you remember, Pharaoh forced the Israelites to make bricks without supplied straw, which was very difficult. The same passage says the spices in it recall the straw. So this was a reminder of the harshness, the unreasonableness, of Pharaoh's bondage.

So, if this bowl that Judas dipped into was haroset, he is sharing a dish with Jesus that symbolizes redemption and freedom from harsh bondage and slavery, as he is moments away from selling his Master as a slave for thirty pieces of silver. John tells us that Jesus dips into this bowl and gives the morsel to Judas. We can't know for certain that it was haroset, but if it was, it's as if He is handing Judas brick mortar, recalling how terrible life was under slavery. And Judas chooses slavery. He rejects redemption and freedom for money. He eats that morsel, Satan enters into him, and he immediately goes to hand Jesus over to the Sanhedrin like a slave.

In Matthew's Gospel we read:

Judas, who would betray him, answered, “Is it I, Rabbi?” He said to him, “You have said so.”

Matthew 26:25

It seems nobody heard Judas ask Jesus. But what is very revealing is that Judas calls Jesus “Rabbi.” In Matthew, the other disciples ask, “Is it I, Lord?” And in John's Gospel, when John asks Jesus who would betray Him, he says, “Lord, who is it?” Judas sees Jesus as a rabbi, but John sees Jesus as Lord.

Please hear me: if Jesus is just a moral teacher to you, just someone with good ideas on right living, that is not enough. He must be your Lord. And what I mean by that is this: it's not enough to intellectually read and hear the Bible and know that what it instructs is good. That is not enough. It is not even enough to know that Jesus is Lord. The demons know that. Satan knows that. I think many people who choose to identify as atheists know that. It's not enough to know that Jesus is Lord; we also need to follow Him: keep His commandments and endure to the end. And Judas did neither.

Jesus here twice calls Himself the Son of Man. “Son of Man” comes from a famous passage in Daniel chapter 7, about one who ascends to the Ancient of Days, to the Father, and is given all dominion and glory and kingdom. And on the eve of His crucifixion, this is how Jesus identifies Himself. In just a few hours Jesus is going to be betrayed, arrested, and killed. And this is not the moment of His defeat; this is the moment of His glorification. Because He was faithful to the end, because He was the perfect sacrifice, and because He was absolutely obedient to the Father, He is crowned as worthy of all praise. He is given dominion and glory and kingdom forever and ever.

It's not just that Jesus is making some threat. He knows exactly what is going to happen to Judas, and just how terribly it will end for him. He will be deeply sorrowful; he will hang himself; and he will eventually fall and burst open. Only to then be greeted by eternal judgment.