After the Lord Jesus enjoyed a feast in Bethany, He partook of the feast of the Passover and then instituted His supper as a replacement of the Passover (14:12-26). The Lord charged two of His disciples to prepare what was needed for the feast of the Passover (vv. 12-16). In the history of God’s economy, that was the last feast of Passover, for from that time the feast of Passover was replaced by the Lord’s table. This indicates that the old dispensation has been replaced by a new dispensation. Therefore, we today do not have the feast of Passover; instead, we have the Lord’s table, the Lord’s supper.
As we shall see, the Lord instituted His supper with bread and a cup. This indicates His death, His resurrection, the Lord Himself, and His enlargement, that is, His Body. The Lord, His death and resurrection, and His enlargement will eventually issue in the kingdom of God.
Mark 14:12 says, “And on the first day of the feast of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover, His disciples say to Him, Where do You want us to go and prepare that You may eat the Passover?” In the Jewish calendar, which was according to their Scripture, a day began with the evening (Gen. 1:5). In the night, the beginning of the last Passover day, the Slave-Savior first ate the Passover feast with His disciples and instituted His supper for them (vv. 12-25). Then He went with the disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane at the Mount of Olives (vv. 26-42). There He was arrested and brought to the high priest, where He was judged by the Sanhedrin late in the night (vv. 43-72). In the morning of the same day, He was delivered to Pilate to be judged by him and was sentenced to death (15:1-15). Then He was brought to Golgotha and crucified there beginning from the third hour in the morning, and He remained on the cross until the ninth hour in the afternoon (15:16-41), for the fulfillment of the type of the Passover (Exo. 12:6-11).
According to 14:13-16, the Lord sent two of His disciples and told them to go into the city, where they would meet a man carrying a pitcher of water. They were to follow him, and wherever he entered, they were to say to the owner of the house, “The Teacher says, Where is My guest room, where I may eat the Passover with My disciples?” Then he would show them a large upper room furnished and ready, and in that room the disciples would make the necessary preparations. “And the disciples went out, and came into the city, and found it even as He had told them, and they prepared the Passover” (v. 16).
This account of the preparation for the Passover is mysterious. It reminds us of the Lord’s word to two of His disciples concerning the colt on which He rode into Jerusalem (11:1-6). Who provided the large upper room and furnished it and made it ready? Nowhere in the Bible can we find the answer to this question. This may indicate that the Slave-Savior’s instituting of His supper was a mysterious matter.
Mark 14:18 says, “And as they were reclining at table and eating, Jesus said, Truly I tell you that one of you will deliver Me up, one who is eating with Me.” This was the eating of the Passover feast (v. 16), not the eating of the Slave-Savior’s supper, which is in verses 22 through 24. The one who delivered up the Lord Jesus was Judas Iscariot.
Verses 19 and 20 say, “They began to be sorrowful and say to Him one by one, Is it I? And He said to them, One of the twelve, the one who dips with Me in the dish.” After Judas Iscariot was exposed, he left (John 13:21-30) before the Slave-Savior’s supper (Matt. 26:20-26). Judas did not participate in the Slave-Savior’s body and blood, because he was not a real believer in Him, but a son of destruction (John 17:12), considered by the Slave-Savior even a devil (John 6:70-71). Luke 22:21-23 seems to indicate that Judas left after the Lord’s supper, mentioned in the preceding verses (Luke 22:19-20). However, Mark’s record shows that Judas was pointed out by the Slave-Savior as His betrayer in 14:18-21 before He instituted His supper in verses 22 through 24. Mark’s record is according to historical sequence, whereas Luke’s is according to the sequence of morality. The sequence in Matthew’s record matches that of Mark.