One Last Meal

If you knew you could have one last meal, what would it be? Who would invite? What kind of food would you eat? What kind of atmosphere would you want? What would you say? And whom would you tell it? 

John, the author of the Gospel of John, is writing to early Christians, and he is recording the choices Jesus made for his last meal. The meal was Passover, a Jewish celebration meal that dated back to the night before the children of Israel's Exodus out of Egypt. Present with Jesus were his closest disciples, his friends. They had spent nearly three years together and walked over 3,125 miles of dusty roads working together to fulfill Jesus' ministry. There is a banquet room atop someone's house in Jerusalem; the group sat around a table. The band of misfits, unlikely converts, simple fishermen, and educated elites observed, looking for signs of what would come next for them and Jesus. 

Jesus did not disappoint. What He did next revealed to them powerfully just who He was. You must understand what Jesus did next to realize who Jesus was. 

For his last meal, Jesus chose to eat with His friends. He decided to celebrate the Passover God's miraculous deliverance from bondage. He decided to use this meal to show His followers just precisely who He was.

James 4:1-3

"What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."

From the street, you can see a small crowd gathered in a dwelling. Warm orange and yellow radiance spilling out into the street from the glow of oil lamps. Jesus lovers gathering again to fight and talk deep into the night about their Messiah, death and being raised from the dead. About their king and how he is coming back to overthrow Rome. Inside, one man sits in front, a wealthy businessman. Behind him citizens, merchants, and landowners. In the back are the poor, the sick, the lower class. 

They are, after all, still Romans, much like the people you would see at the Saepta or the great Circus. In their midst are as many vices as there are people. Like all other Romans, they dress in the garments of peace, but there is no peace among them. Each one would, for a small gain, bring any other of them to ruin. After all, not one of them can profit anything except by the loss of another. They smile and grudgingly bear the strong, all the while oppressing the small. They are all fueled greedily by diverse lusts, and everyone would wreck the dreams of another for the slightest bit of pleasure. Like a gladiator school, they fight with and are willing to kill the same people they live with. They are like a cage full of wild beasts, except the beasts will not bite the master who feeds them. These men are like all other men. One accuses his brother falsely, another steals from his father, yet another informs against a man for committing the same crime he is guilty of. The rabble takes the side of the guilty man against the innocent. 

Come stop for a second and listen to the faint voice coming from the house to hear what the followers of Jesus discuss so late into the night. 

"What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet, but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."