It’s 1996, and a group of 20 climbs the steps to a second-floor room. The tour guide explains that the room is called the Cenacle, a Latin word that means “dining room.” This particular dining room has been important to Christians on pilgrimages to Jerusalem for 1,600 years or so because it’s said that this is the same upper room where Jesus and his disciples celebrated the Last Supper.
But this room—that is on every Holy Land Bible tour—can hardly be the same room where Jesus once invited his disciples to “Take and eat…take and drink.” Although the foundations for the building seem to go back to the third century, the upper room you visit today is a massive room with Gothic arches, which is the style of the arches here in our church. This is nothing like the architecture of Jesus’ day. Archaeologists and historians tend to agree that it was likely constructed by crusaders, perhaps sometime around 1200 AD. That 1996 group of 20 that included a number of Grace members still appreciated the visit and tried to at least envision the Last Supper there in Jerusalem.
For Christians like us who gather for worship on Maundy Thursday, there is a strong interest, not in the Upper Room itself, but in what happened there. That’s what is on our minds as we gather today/this evening. Mark’s gospel is our guide as we see the details of how…
Jesus’ Final Steps Led to the Upper Room
1. A Room Planned & Prepared for Passover
2. A Room Where God’s Lamb Prepared to Die
A Room Planned
& Prepared for Passover
When you and I go back in time to the Upper Room, we go there to hear about the Supper, to hear the Lamb of God extend a gracious invitation: “Take it. This is my body.” “This is my blood of the new testament, which is poured out for many. We want to hear again how Jesus gave this visible gospel as a tangible gift for believers of every age something we can see, smell, taste, and touch.
And on this Holy Thursday, when we approach the front of church here, near the communion table, a weight as heavy as hell itself is lifted off of our shoulders by our Savior’s promise! A promise made by Jesus’ servant distributing the Lamb’s Supper when he comes past us one by one and speaks words guaranteed to be true by the Lamb’s own blood shed on his cross: “for the forgiveness of your sins.”
The Lord’s visible gospel is proclaimed in this entire service as it is centered on the Supper on preparing for it properly with our heartfelt confession of sins, in hearing Bible readings that teach us about the Supper, in actually receiving it, and in this way being restored to live a new and holy life for the Lamb who gave his life for us all!
Just as the items for this Holy Supper have been carefully placed on this table in anticipation of this special meal, the Passover meal also took time and care to prepare. The Supper of our Lord was carefully and purposefully rooted in the Old Testament celebration of Passover, and the Passover meal took hours of careful preparation
At the time of Moses, as God’s people prepared to start on the path that led out of slavery in Egypt and toward the land promised to them, the Lord gave particular instructions for the preparation of their last supper in Egypt. Those instructions were passed down generation after generation as families observed Passover. The items for the table needed to be purchased and prepared in just the right way as the Lord directed: bitter herbs, bread made without yeast, wine, and an unblemished, year-old lamb. The story of God leading his people out of Egypt would be shared throughout the meal.
Even the rooms were to be meticulously prepared. A ceremonial sweeping was done in advance of the day of the Passover celebration in order to make sure every last bit of yeast was cleaned out of every nook and cranny of the home where the meal was hosted! The absence of yeast in the bread and the rooms would be reminder of the quick escape from Egypt.
So, when Jesus told two of his disciples to go into the city and find an owner who would show them “a large upper room, furnished and ready, ” the disciples must have been relieved and happy that some preparation had been done. But probably not everything was done.
They for sure needed a lamb. And there wasn’t a Costco where you could go to the back, to the meat section, and grab a pre-roasted lamb to go. And there was no reheating yesterday’s lamb in the microwave either. No, the sacrificial lamb had to be purchased, perhaps at an inflated price because it had to pass the inspection of the temple priests. The lamb had to be slaughtered that same afternoon at the temple. Then it was to be carefully prepared and roasted before the evening meal.
So, there was much to be done and done just the right way. This all took time and effort. The other big thing was finding a room for the celebration The historian Josephus wrote that Jerusalem’s population swelled to some two million people during Passover. And everybody was looking for a room. Rooms big enough for Jesus and his disciples were likely hard to find. Furnished and ready? I’m guessing those were harder to come by!
But not for the Lamb who later reclined at the table with his disciples.
Not for the Lamb who eagerly desired to eat the Passover with them before his suffering and death (Luke 22:15-16).
Not for the Lamb who knew how vital the upper room was in God’s plan to save us and bless us.
So, God’s Lamb sent Peter and John into Jerusalem with directions that were fail-safe, even though they might seem bewildering and vague to you and me: “Go into the city, and there a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him.”
But the Son of God could see this one man among the millions in Jerusalem and then tell his disciples, “Wherever he enters, tell the owner of the house that the Teacher says, ‘Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ He will show you a large upper room, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.”
It was no accident that Jesus’ Final Steps Led to the Upper Room. Careful preparation was required to make the evening celebration happen, preparations that required the divine guidance of God’s Lamb. Jesus walked up the stairs and stepped into that room because an eternity of careful planning by our Lord went into securing it.
A Room Where God’s Lamb Prepared to Die
But it’s like there was a dark cloud hanging over the table as Jesus reclined there with his friends. He broke from the centuries-old Passover celebration-script several times as the meal went along, saying some shocking things, like when he paused and warned, “Amen I tell you: One of you will betray me, one who is eating with me. ”
Then there were his references to his coming slaughter as the Lamb of God.
In the Supper itself: “This is my blood of the new testament, which is poured out for many.”
In his stern warning to the disciples: “You will all fall away because of me.”
And then his anguished warning to Peter: “Amen I tell you: Today—this very night—before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.”
Jesus shared these vital words and more in the upper room, that secluded spot where he prepared to die
a safe place, hidden away from the crowds and unknown to his enemies,
a place where he could enjoy a few final hours of fellowship with the Twelve one last time before his cross,
a place where he could prepare to die and prepare his friends for what his death would mean,
a place where he could quietly give them a most precious gift as they celebrated the Passover.
He knew all this ahead of time, of course. That was clear in those instructions he gave his disciples, leading them to the man fetching water who in turn would lead them to an
owner who needed to hear nothing more than, “The Teacher says, ‘Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’” And so there it was an upper room, furnished and ready, the perfect place for the Lamb of God to prepare to die.
He went there because the time had come. The time for all of his final steps which had been laid out from eternity itself. They took him first to the upper room and then…
To the garden.
To the betrayer’s kiss.
To the trials.
To the scourgings.
To the stone pavement and the trial before Pontius Pilate.
To the center cross on Golgotha, where God’s Lamb would die to pay for humanity’s sin, just as he had planned.
And yet you realize, don’t you, that as he was in that room, establishing his special meal, with his approaching death in his sights, he was not only thinking of what he would endure. He was not merely thinking of his 12 closest friends. He was not simply thinking of the mass of sinful humanity out there that needed him to die. He was thinking of you. He saw you. Sinful you. Lost you.
The same Savior who could peer into a city of two million gathered for Passover and pick out a man carrying a water jug and an owner who would open up his home after merely hearing, the Teacher says, ‘Where is my guest room…?’ is the one who could look centuries forward and pick you out too. He would pay for your sins, including the ones that look all too much like those of the men at that first Supper betrayal of Jesus by sinning when we know better…denial of him by choices that serve ourselves…lack of understanding Jesus’ words… That collection of men at the table is much like the group of us at this one.
But the supper he gave to his disciples in that upper room is yours too. He offers that same covenant meal to you and me—again and again. Like today/tonight. Here we find forgiveness the forgiveness he won for us by leaving that room and going to the cross, the forgiveness that is assured because he not only defeated sin with his life and death, he defeated death with his resurrection from the grave.
The Holy Supper we celebrate has its roots there in that upper room, that place made special because it is where God’s Lamb went and prepared to die. As you think about that, remember how nothing about his passion took Jesus by surprise. He saw it all coming. It’s clear even as we hear him say to his disciples, “Go into the city, and there a man carrying a jar of water… He knew it all ahead of time. He was preparing. Some of his last steps led him there to give to us what we will receive here at this table. All of it was according to his plan. All of it done in love. All for you. Amen.
Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.