The Last Supper and Gethsemane

If you knew you had one evening left with your closest friends, how would you spend it? What would you want to say to them?

Jesus faced exactly that night. He had already told his disciples three times that he was going to die (Luke 9:22; 9:44; 18:31–33), so he walked into his last evening with his eyes open. Luke slows the story right down here, almost hour by hour. In Year 7 you looked at what Jesus did, and in Year 8 at who Jesus is. This term asks a bigger question: what did Jesus' death and resurrection actually achieve, and what happened next? It starts at a dinner table and ends in a garden.

What you'll learn

• How Jesus used the Passover meal to explain his coming death
• How Jesus treated friends who were about to betray, argue and boast
• What "the cup" means in Gethsemane, and why Jesus was in such anguish

A Passover with a difference

Jesus' last meal was a Passover meal. Passover remembered the night God rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt (Exodus 12). Each family killed a lamb and painted its blood on the doorframe, and God's judgement passed over the homes under the blood. Every year families ate the meal again, and the children asked what it all meant. The food told the story of the rescue.

At this Passover, Jesus explained the food in a startling new way:

"And He took the bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is My body, given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’" (Luke 22:19)

"In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you.’" (Luke 22:20)

The bread and the cup now point to him. A new rescue is about to happen, and Jesus is at the centre of it. The "new covenant" is the promise God made through Jeremiah to forgive sins and change hearts (Jeremiah 31:31–34), and Jesus says his own blood will seal it. Later, Paul calls Jesus the Passover lamb who has been sacrificed for us (1 Corinthians 5:7).

Notice the words "for you", twice. Jesus doesn't see his death as an accident or a tragedy. He sees it as something given for others. Christians still remember this meal today. Different churches call it different things (the Lord's Supper, Communion, the Eucharist, Mass) and understand it in different ways, but all of them go back to this night.

Around the table

The people around that table were not heroes. Look at how they behaved, and how Jesus treated them:

Jesus knows the worst about his friends, and he still gives himself for them. With Peter, he even plans the comeback before the fall: "when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers" (Luke 22:32). Both Judas and Peter failed Jesus badly that night. One of them came back.

Gethsemane: the cup

After the meal, Jesus went to the Mount of Olives to pray, as he often did. There he prayed one of the most honest prayers in the Bible:

"‘Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me. Yet not My will, but Yours be done.’" (Luke 22:42)

Here's a hard question. Many people have faced death calmly. The philosopher Socrates drank poison without fuss, and later Christian martyrs sang as they died. So why is Jesus in such agony? Was he less brave?

The answer is in the word cup. In the Old Testament, "the cup" is often a picture of God's judgement on sin:

"Awake, awake! Rise up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of His fury; you who have drained the goblet to the dregs— the cup that makes men stagger." (Isaiah 51:17)

(See also Psalm 75:8 and Jeremiah 25:15–16.) Jesus isn't only facing pain and death. He is facing something no martyr ever faced: God's judgement against sin, when he had never sinned himself. That explains the anguish.

Gethsemane shows two things about Jesus at once:

• He is truly human. He feels dread, and he asks if there is another way. Fear is not sin.
• He is truly obedient. "Not My will, but Yours be done" is a choice. Nobody forces him to the cross (John 10:17–18).

And his friends fall asleep. He faces it alone.

Two cups

Put the evening together and you get two cups:

Jesus hands his friends the cup of blessing, and drinks the cup of judgement himself.

Key words

• Passover: the yearly meal remembering God's rescue of Israel from Egypt, when judgement "passed over" homes marked by a lamb's blood.
• Covenant: a binding promise that sets up a relationship. The new covenant is God's promise to forgive sins and change hearts.
• Gethsemane: an olive garden on the Mount of Olives where Jesus prayed on his last night.
• The cup: in the Old Testament, often a picture of God's judgement on sin.

How this points to Jesus

The whole Passover story was a preview. A lamb died, its blood marked the house, and the people inside were safe from judgement. On his last night Jesus says, in effect, "This meal was always about me." He is the Lamb, his blood seals the new covenant, and the next day he would drink the cup of judgement so that others could receive the cup of blessing.

Think about it

Take it further

Jesus was completely honest with his Father about his fear, and still said, "your will be done." This week, when something feels hard or frightening, try praying the way he did: say honestly what you feel, then say what you're trusting God for. If you're not sure what you believe about God, notice what this prayer shows about Jesus.

A prayer you can pray if you want to:

Father, thank you that Jesus knew what it would cost, and still chose to go. Thank you that he was honest about his fear and still said "your will be done". Help me to trust you like that when life is hard. Amen.

Your worksheet helps you compare the first Passover with the Last Supper and look up what "the cup" means in the Old Testament.