The Upper Room – ‘this is my body’

It was Thursday night. For Jesus and his twelve disciples it was their Passover meal – a special meal that enabled the people of God to remember how God led them out of slavery through the water to freedom. It was an upstairs room, around a low table, candlelit, and with the guests reclining on couches. They had celebrated a meal like this many times in their lives – and at least twice with Jesus himself – but tonight in Jerusalem, this year, this week, it was different. Here is the table all set; with the lamb, the bitter herbs, the salt water and the special bread. Read or listen to the story recorded in Exodus:

Exodus 12:3-11 (NRSV)

³ Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. ⁴ If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbour in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. ⁵ Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. ⁶ You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. ⁷ They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. ⁸ They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. ⁹ Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. ¹⁰ You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. ¹¹ This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the Passover of the Lord.

Death passed over them because of the blood on the doorposts all those years ago. Death would pass over them again because of Jesus’ death on a wooden post. Jesus is broken like the bread so that in the end death will not be able to break us. He must die so we can live.

What is it that Jesus longs for you to understand about the meaning of his life?

What do you long for in your relationship with God?

I wonder…
… who is the greatest?
… where are we going?
… how can we know the way?
… how will Jesus show himself to us and not the world?

After they sang a hymn they went out and it was night.