Jesus invites his disciples

"On the first day of the unleavened bread, when the passover was sacrificed, his disciples said to him : Where do you want us to make the preparations for you to eat the passover ? Then he sent two of his disciples and said to them : Go to the city ... His disciples went out, went into the city, and found everything as he had told them ; and they prepared the passover." Mark 14. 12-16

The gospels tell us several invitations to Jesus. But for the last Passover he is going to live on earth, it is Jesus who invites his disciples into a room at his disposal on the upper floor of a house in Jerusalem. In the story, nothing is left to chance circumstances, everything underlines the control of Jesus on events.

This meal is very special. One point of the story deeply touches every Christian : it is the institution of the Last Supper.

Traditionally, during the Passover meal, the head of the family explained to his family the meaning of this holiday : "This is the sacrifice of the Passover to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the sons of Israel in Egypt" (Exodus 12. 27). But that day, Jesus, who is "our Passover" (1 Corinthians 5: 7), gives this feast its true dimension and proposes a new covenant : "This is my blood, the blood of the new covenant which is poured out for many" (Mark 14:24). This sacrifice thus gives a sure salvation, because offered by God unconditionally. Jesus therefore proposes to us, before dying, to remember what he himself will accomplish. Once the Easter meal is over, Jesus and his disciples sing, according to Jewish custom, a last song, probably the last Psalm of Hallel (Psalms 113-118). A prophetic word of this psalm takes all its value here : "The stone which those who built had rejected, became the head of the corner" (Ps. 118. 22).

When we respond to the Lord's invitation, this feast, a remembrance of God's great deliverance for his people, takes on a new meaning. The Lord's Supper is, for believers, both the memory of Jesus, "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29) and the deliverance of the judgment of God against sin.

Source (Pleasing the Lord)