Was the Mystical Supper a Passover Meal?
The Divine Liturgy did not appear ex nihilo
(out of nothing). It came from somewhere. The question is, from where?
Its origins are traced in the Jewish worship of the day, but which
worship? Specifically the question often asked is: Was the Mystical
(Last) Supper a seder (a Passover meal) or a chabûrah
(a friendship meal)? There is a short and a long answer. The short
answer is, neither! The long answer follows. But first, an explanation:
What is a seder meal, and what is a chabûrah meal? A
seder is a Passover supper the Jews had on the anniversary of the
Passover, to commemorate the passage of the angel of death over the
homes of the Jews, leaving unharmed their first-born, and destroying
every first-born of the Egyptians, from their children to their animals
(see Ex. ch. 12). The chabûrah meal, on the other hand, was a
formal supper, at which friends and relatives gathered, usually bringing
their contribution—similar to our pot-luck meals, but very formal.
The Mystical Supper could not have been a Passover meal because the bread used was not unleavened (azyma), but leavened (artos).
However, the question, “Which kind of bread was used at the Mystical
Supper,” may or may not be settled by this simple, matter-of-fact
statement. The question, “What kind of meal was the one that gave origin
to the Eucharistic meal,” requires some further studying. We narrow
this study to point out the newness of “the Lord’s Supper” (1 Cor. 11:20), and the elements in it that set it apart from anything else that preceded it and resembles it.
The
Divine Eucharist was instituted by our Lord, God and Savior Jesus
Christ, on the night before His Passion (that is His suffering). The
events are narrated in all four gospels. According to the scholars, the
three synoptic gospels clearly show that the Lord had a Passover meal
with His disciples, because they narrate the meal as taking place on the
night of the “unleavened bread” (Mt. 26:17, Mk. 14:12, Lk. 22:7).
Also the synoptic writers mention repeatedly (three times each!) that
the meal they were going to prepare was a “Passover” meal, and even the
Lord Himself says, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with
you before I suffer” (Lk. 22:15). Besides, there were some signs of a seder
supper of Passover present, like the breaking of bread and the drinking
of the Cup. It would therefore seem beyond question that they must have
had a Passover meal in mind. However, there is more to consider.
In the first place, it is very obvious that this meal could not have been a seder, a Passover meal, because it took place not on Friday evening, the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath, but on Thursday
evening. This is clear from the narratives of the holy Evangelists
Matthew and Mark. They both place it on the night of the Lord’s betrayal
and arrest, because they both say that after the meal “when they had
sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives” (Mt. 26:30, Mk. 14:26) where the arrest took place (Mt. 26:50, Mk. 14:46). The Lord had dismissed Judas, saying to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly” (John 13:27). “He immediately went out; and it was night” (John 13:30). Later on he appeared with the soldiers for the arrest (John 18:3). On the following day, Friday, “when day came… they led Him away to their council” (Lk. 22:66).
St. John the Evangelist notes that the Jews who led the Lord from
Caiaphas to the praetorium did not want to go in, “so that they might
not be defiled, but might eat the Passover” (John 18:28). St. John even marks the day and the time the Lord appeared before Pilate: “It was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about the sixth hour” (John 19:14). They then rushed to crucify and bury the Lord Jesus, because of the impending Passover (see John 19:31 and 42).
How then are we to explain the specific mention that the Mystical Supper took place “on the first day of Unleavened Bread”? (Mt. 26:17, Mk. 4:12).
The erudite and holy Archbishop Theophylact of Bulgaria solves this
issue, saying that, “‘The first day of Unleavened Bread’ means Thursday,
the day before the feast of Unleavened Bread. For the unleavened bread
was eaten on Friday.” This explanation is confirmed by the learned
Archimandrite Kallinicos, who also quotes a Christian scholar of Jewish
descent, to the effect that since the people began the preparations of
collecting the bread and preparing the unleavened bread, it was called
the first day of unleavened bread. Another Western scholar writes, “The
reasonable conclusion is, that, in a popular way of speaking, a day
before the legal day had acquired the name of ‘First day of Azyma’ and not unfitly, if on that day early arrangements were commenced for the complete exclusion of leaven from the houses.”
Consider
also the following: many preparations were made for the Mystical
Supper, but no mention is anywhere made of any lamb. It does not seem
that they had the traditional and mandatory lamb for a Passover meal.
How could they, since no lambs were allowed to be slaughtered on the day
before the Passover. In addition the disciples were not a household (Ex. 12:4),
so they did not qualify to share a lamb together, which had to be eaten
by a single family, or perhaps shared with another family (Ex. 12:4).
A further consideration is that they did not have the prescribed topic
of conversation, which was supposed to be about the (historic)
deliverance of Israel by God from the bondage of slavery in Egypt (Ex. 12:26-27). All these elements surrounding this meal (including the artos eaten, mentioned above) point to the conclusion that this was not a typical Passover meal. Was then the Mystical Supper a chabûrah meal? Hardly. The sacrificial language used, the talk about a broken body… and poured out
blood, are not becoming for a friendly meal. Also the talk about a
Covenant has no place with such meal either. Both the talk and the
action of eating Christ’s broken body, and drinking His poured out
blood, were totally out of place in such a meal. If anything, these
elements were signs of a Passover meal: the blood (Ex. 12:13), the Covenant (Ex. 12:14), and the prescription to keep a memorial of it (Ex. 12:14.24), belonged to a Passover meal. Confusing? Understandably so, since this meal was neither a seder nor a chabûrah. What was it then?
The Lord’s Supper was a startling new kind of meal, because the food He offered in its course was something totally new under the sun. Indeed it was a Passover meal: not the old Passover, but the new
Passover. “Our Lord Himself took a specific Jewish worship practice,
one that had been revealed by God, filled it with the new meaning of the
New Covenant, and transformed it into Christian communion. He had
become The Passover Lamb, ready to be sacrificed for the deliverance of
God’s creation.” In this new Passover the sacrificial lamb was the Lord Himself, a “lamb without blemish” (Ex. 12:5), the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. Christ and His disciples, down to us, constitute the new family, which the Lord called “His Church” (Mt. 16:18). The meal instituted, and its remembrance, was that of a new Passover, by which man is delivered from the slavery of evil, ignorance, sin, the devil, and death. The bread they ate was the new “bread of life which came down from heaven” (John 6:53). The wine they drank was the new wine Christ would drink with them again “new in the Kingdom of God,” after His Resurrection.
Christ and His disciples were not following the Old Covenant (Ex. 24:1-8), which was a memorial of the deliverance of their ancestors from Egypt, but, as Christ had foretold (Jer. 31:31-34), they were following “the New Covenant” (1 Cor. 11:25), by which He made the Old Covenant obsolete (Heb. 8:13). Christ based His New Covenant, His new relationship with men, in His blood, which became “the new and living way” (Heb. 10:20).
He shed His blood out of His love for man. Therefore the New Covenant
is based on love. Christ died on the Cross for us. “Greater love has no
man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). This we proclaim at the celebration of every Divine Eucharist. Christianity is the new religion that needs new ministers: “new wine is for fresh skins” (Mk. 2:22. cf. Lk. 5:38). The new Faith calls for a new form of worship, a new
kind of sacrifice, offered on the first day of the week, which for the
Jews memorialized the first day of creation. The Lord’s Day “is a
Christian institution,” in which we memorialize the new “day which the Lord has made” (Ps. 117(118):24), the day of our re-creation. On this day we celebrate “the miracle and the mystery of the new life” lived by the community that bears His name. Indeed “old things have passed away; behold all things have become new” (2 Cor. 5:17).
Original source of above article: http://orthodoxwitness.org/was-the-mystical-supper-a-passover-meal/
