hotcoffee
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Matthew 26:17 On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”
18 He replied, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, ‘The Teacher says: My appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house.’” 19 So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover.
18 He replied, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, ‘The Teacher says: My appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house.’” 19 So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover.
I always wondered how Jesus could be at the table and arrested on the same day. The Jewish day begins at sunset and goes to sunset, while our day doesn't begin until the middle of the night and goes to the middle of the night.
Here's what one commentary has to say on the matter.
This mention of the first day of the Feast of the Unleavened Bread brings up complicated issues of the precise calendar chronology of these events. The main complicating issue is that Matthew, Mark, and Luke present this meal Jesus will have with His disciples as the Passover meal - normally eaten with lamb which was sacrificed on the day of Passover with a great ceremony at the temple. Yet John seems to indicate that the meal took place before the Passover (John 13:1), and that Jesus was actually crucified on the Passover (John 18:28).
"It is a common opinion that our Lord ate the Passover some hours before the Jews ate it; for the Jews, according to custom, ate theirs at the end of the fourteenth day, but Christ ate his the preceding even, which was the beginning of the same sixth day, or Friday; the Jews begin their day at sunsetting, we at midnight. Thus Christ ate the Passover on the same day with the Jews, but not on the same hour."
"The simplest solutionis that Jesus, knowing that he would be dead before the regular time for the meal, deliberately held it in secret one day early. Luke 22:15-16 indicates Jesus' strong desire for such a meal with his disciples before his death, and his awareness that the time was short."
One is inclined to agree with Bruce regarding precise chronological analysis: "The discussions are irksome, and their results uncertain; and they are apt to take the attention off far more important matters."
When evening had come, He sat down with the twelve: Since the Jewish day began at sundown, Jesus ate the Passover and was killed on the same day according to the Jewish calendar.
If it is true that Jesus ate this at the beginning of the Jewish day (evening), when most Jews would normally eat the Passover at the end of the day (following the night and the morning), it explains why there is no mention of Jesus eating lamb with His disciples at this meal. They ate it before the Passover lambs were sacrificed at the temple. This would correspond with John's chronology that indicates Jesus was crucified at the same approximate time the Passover lambs were being sacrificed.
ii. However, it would be wrong to say that there was no Passover lamb at this last supper Jesus had with His disciples; He was the Passover lamb. Paul would later refer to Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us (1 Corinthians 5:7).
So they had bread and wine, nuts and bitter herbs on the table at a feast before the lambs were sacrificed at the temple.
Jesus knew what was going to happen.
