LUKE: YEAR OF OUR LORD (WEEK 46): YOUR TABLE IS READY. COME THIS WAY

On Thursday of the final week of Jesus’ life, he and His disciples would share a special meal together. This meal was special because it celebrated the Jewish feast known as Passover. It was a very special time for the Jews - a time of remembrance, a time of celebration.

It was a meal the disciples had celebrated with Jesus before - but this time it would be different.  There has been a suggestion that Jesus didn’t specify publicly where the meal was to take place because he didn’t want distractions. Didn’t need the crowds. Perhaps didn’t want to tip his hand so that Judas could inform the Jewish leaders to help facilitate the arrest that would take place later that night… And that makes sense - what is happening here becomes a very intimate occasion for Jesus and His disciples; it is a time for final instructions, for spending quality time, and all that.

Everything is set, and it was quite a production to get ready for the Passover meal - kind of like our present-day Thanksgiving meal. Lots to get done. But the problem of procuring a place had been taken care of. And when Jesus and the disciples arrive, you could just imagine the man who was furnishing the upper room might say: “Jesus, party of 13? Your table is ready. Come this way.”