12 On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”
13 So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. 14 Say to the owner of the house he enters, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ 15 He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.”
16 The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.
17 When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve. 18 While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me—one who is eating with me.”
19 They were saddened, and one by one they said to him, “Surely you don’t mean me?”
20 “It is one of the Twelve,” he replied, “one who dips bread into the bowl with me. 21 The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.”
22 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.”
23 Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it.
24 “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,” he said to them. 25 “Truly I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
26 When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Mark wants us to understand Jesus' death through the lens of the Passover. During this feast, the Jews recreated the story of their deliverance from Egypt. During the final plague, the one that convinces Pharaoh to free the Hebrew slaves, the Israelites are told to put the blood of a slain lamb on their doorpost. This mark tells the angel of death to "passover" their homes as the first born sons of Egypt are slain.
Mark's story will also have the death of a lamb, the lamb of God. His blood will be a mark and a promise that the faithful will be delivered from slavery to mindless religious ritual to the freedom of a new life with God. Interestingly, Mark connects the story also with the death of the first born. God identifies with the Egyptians who lose their children not due to their own sin, but because of the systems of sins and government that sit above their lives.
The story begins by sounding remarkably similar to the passage describing the acquisition of the colt for Jesus to ride into Jerusalem. "Where will we eat the Passover?" the disciples ask. They continue to be observant Jews even as Jesus has discredited the temple and its duplicitous and voracious activity. We often fail to see the essential Jewishness of Jesus, but this passage reminds us that the roots of the Christian tradition are deeply sunk in the loam of Judaism. Jesus tells the disciples where to go and what to say to acquire the room for a Passover meal (a meal that is typically observed by families--signifying perhaps that the disciples and Jesus have formed a new family). The room will be in such and such a place and here is what to say Jesus tells them. Despite the crowds in Jerusalem, (miraculously?) there is a place for them to gather and share supper. Mark seems in this and the passage about the colt to want to make it clear that Jesus is in control and that God has already prepared his path.
When the disciples sit down with Jesus for the meal, it starts with the recognition that the betrayer is with them. Did Jesus know that Judas had already agreed to sell him to the religious leaders? Was Judas without a choice in the matter? Or if he had not played the role would one of the other disciples? These are interesting questions, but the most important one to me is: what does it mean that Jesus serves Judas even as he has made plans to betray him? What does this act say about God? It is of course service to the betrayer with a warning, that turning against Christ results in judgment.
The formula that Jesus uses to serve the bread and cup are strongly reminiscent of the passover meal, but Jesus reinterprets it. The bread becomes his body and the cup his blood. The bread is broken in prophetic action predicting his death. The cup is the blood of the new covenant poured out for many. Like the lamb's blood that marked the door post, the cup marks believers and is a sign of a new promise between God and humanity.
Jesus pronounces that he will not drink again until the new Kingdom of God is established. It is like the "little apocalypse" in chapter 13, a warning and a promise. It is a statement that holds in tension the death/resurrection of Jesus.
They cannot stay at the meal celebrating their freedom forever, so they sing a hymn and go out to the Mount of Olives, where Jesus freedom will be taken away.
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