Snapshots of the Last Days pt4

Now we come to one final moment with all the disciples together. Before the Garden. Before the cross. The disciples gather with their master and rabbi one final time.

This event is recorded in different ways in each Gospel and this morning I want to look at Luke’s account with a brief glance at an event that is only recorded in John.

Turn with me to Luke 22:7-23.

Jesus sends Peter and John to go and get things set up. Jesus tells them the place is already prepared, they just need to go and do what He has told them to do.

Luke Comments

A man carrying a jar of water would have been most unusual, for in the first century this was considered a task for women. Jesus may not have openly told the location of the upper room due to the presence of Judas

Luke Comments

This presupposes that Jesus prearranged to celebrate the Passover there. The owner had furnished the room with cushions and other furniture needed for eating the Passover

Notice that Jesus instructions are very specific and notice they follow them right down the line.

One of the things we see as we follow Jesus longer and longer is we become more likely to trust Him and take Him at His word. We may be surprised by something He shows us or unnerved, but we slowly lose the incredulousness that He would speak to us so directly and specifically.

The disciples- especially these 2- had spent so long with Jesus that they no longer spent a lot of time questioning Him (more on that in a moment) when He told them to do something. They just obeyed.

This is what we should pray for and strive for. To jump to obedience even when the instructions seem incredible.

So jump with me to John 13:1-5 for a moment.

John is the only one who records this action.

I don’t want to get into the debate that Jesus has with Peter about getting a full bath (once again- Peter trying to tell Jesus what to do- he may have been obedient when instructed, but Peter worried about how Jesus appeared to others til the cross)

This moment is so wild because it is the role of the lowest servant in the house. (Reminder of last week and how they sat at table)

John 12–21 (1) Jesus, Judas, and Peter at the Foot Washing (13:1–11)

Instead of basking in the glow of power and authority, to use the Pauline image, Jesus emptied (kenoun) or humbled himself and adopted the form (morphē), here the posture or role, of a servant

There was no servant to wash feet. So Jesus does the job.

He lowers Himself to the lowest job, and then tells the disciples to do the same thing (vs14-15)

John 12–21 (1) Jesus, Judas, and Peter at the Foot Washing (13:1–11)

As indicated in connection with the story of the Baptizer (

Now I want you to hold that in your mind as we go back to Luke 22:14-23.

So it is here that Jesus uses the Passover meal to tell the disciples exactly what is going to happen- and why.

So the bread is eaten after the second cup of wine is drunk. The tradition has the bread broken and shared out. And that is what is going to happen to Jesus. His body is going to be broken and shared with the world.

Luke Comments

The “bread” represents the “body of Jesus” in the sense that it represents Jesus. The bread thus represents, using Johannine terminology, the “Word [which] became flesh,” not the “flesh” alone but the person who tabernacled in flesh

And then the 3rd cup- the cup of salvation is drunk. And Jesus connects that to His blood being spilled for the institution of a new covenant.

Luke Comments

The cup is understood as representing sacrificial blood that inaugurates and seals a new covenant

Luke Comments

the expression “blood of the covenant” is clearly seen as atoning for sins because they add “to atone [kopher] for the people.”

All this is happening in ways that the disciples have participated in so many times- yet the moments are filled with new meaning, as the Passover meal is about to come to fruition before their very eyes.

And they miss it.

Church this happens so often. We get distracted by something and miss the moment. God is trying to reveal something us and we get caught up in something that is not only not our concern, but something we cannot do anything about.

Look at verse 23- they are not discussing the new covenant, or the words Jesus is saying. They want to know who the traitor is.

Luke Context

Luke sought to have a collection of four disciple failures: Judas’s betrayal (

It’s a lot more fun to figure out who the enemy is than to focus on what God is trying to teach you. Because then we don’t have to focus on ourselves and what God is telling us.

That’s why it is so important to remember our role- our place- not as rulers but as servants.

Remember what happened in John 13 before all this started. Look at Luke 22:24-27.

You may remember. The disciples do not.

Luke Context

Jesus contrasted the attitude and values of the world with what it means to be great in God’s kingdom. Even as membership in the kingdom is the reverse of how the world thinks, for the last have become first and the first last (13:30), so too greatness within the kingdom is the reverse of how the world thinks. In this world the first (kings) rule and exercise their authority over the last (their subjects). Great people in this world are served by others under them. But Jesus had not come to be served but rather to serve. He came to pour out his blood in order to establish a new covenant (22:20). Thus to be great in the kingdom means to follow Jesus and to become one who serves, to think of oneself as having the least “rights,” i.e., to be the youngest.

They are fighting about who is the greatest. You can see how this would start right?

They are trying to figure out who the traitor is and that leads to people touting themselves as incapable of being the traitor b/c they are the best disciple.

Jesus then reminds them, one final time, that the pursuit of greatness is not what His Kingdom is about. It’s the pursuit of diminishing oneself that is what the Kingdom is built on.

Jesus took on the role of the lowest servant in the house. He is about to take on the sins of the world. He cannot get any lower. He came to serve.

Luke Comments

But I am among you as one who serves. Although Jesus is clearly “greater” than the disciples, his behavior during his earthly ministry was one of serving them (cf.

What if that was our posture? If we went into the world looking to serve the most people. To be the kindest. The most sacrificial. The least important. What if our whole lives revolved around making sure everyone else was taken care of and taking on the worst jobs?

What if you were known for that?

The sacrifice that gave us the path to salvation is the path we are called to follow. A cross. Surrender.

Why not start today?