James Patrick explores difficult questions around the nature of Holy Week
Problems with Passover and Matthew 12:40
In the last post we established the difference in Jewish regulations between the ’special Sabbaths’ that started and ended the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the normal Sabbaths on the seventh day of each week. Every 15th and 21st of Nisan were to be ’special Sabbaths’, and the 14th of Nisan on which lambs were to be slaughtered and yeast removed from houses was commonly known as the ‘Day of Preparation’, referred to by all four Gospels (Matthew 27:62, Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54, John 19:14, 31, 42).
If the special Sabbath on the 15th of Nisan was followed by a normal Sabbath on the 16th, this would result in the ‘three days and three nights’ predicted by Jesus in Matthew 12:40, and it would mean that Jesus was crucified on a Thursday rather than a Friday. However, if Jesus did die on the 14th, this raises questions about the ‘Passover’ meal Jesus is said to have eaten with His disciples in Matthew, Mark and Luke.
The Synoptic versions of Jesus’ last supper
To begin, it will be helpful to consider what the three ’synoptic’ Gospels say about this meal.
Matthew 26:17-20
“Now on the first of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?’ And He said, ‘Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, “The Teacher says, ‘My time is near; I am to keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.’”‘ The disciples did as Jesus had directed them; and they prepared the Passover. Now when evening came, Jesus was reclining with the twelve disciples…”
Mark 14:12-17
“On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they were sacrificing the Passover, His disciples said to Him, ‘Where do you want us to go and prepare for You to eat the Passover?’ And He sent two of His disciples and said to them, ‘Go into the city, and a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him; and wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, “The Teacher says, ‘Where is my guest room in which I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’” And he himself will show you a large upper room furnished, ready; prepare for us there.’ The disciples went out and came to the city, and found it just as He had told them; and they prepared the Passover. When it was evening He came with the twelve…”
Luke 22:7-14
“Then came the day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover had to be sacrificed. And Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, ‘Go and prepare the Passover for us, so that we may eat it.’ They said to Him, ‘Where do You want us to prepare it?’ And He said to them, ‘When you have entered the city, a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him into the house that he enters. And you shall say to the owner of the house, “The Teacher says to you, ‘Where is the guest room in which I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’” And he will show you a large, furnished upper room; prepare it there.’ And they left and found it just as He had told them; and they prepared the Passover. When the hour had come, He reclined and the apostles with Him.“
“There was evening and there was morning, the fourteenth day.”
The impression that is given in all three of these accounts is that the search for a room in which to eat the Passover began on the very day that the Passover lambs were being sacrificed. Apart from the surprising lack of foresight this would indicate in the disciples, we have the added problem that the term ‘day’ is being used to refer to different segments of time in these accounts.
Genesis 1 introduces the Jewish understanding of a ‘day’ being made up of a night followed by a day (“evening and morning”), that is, twilight to twilight. In a culture without watches, this is far more sensible than to calculate a day from midnight to midnight (night + day + night).
If we refer back to Exodus 12 and the regulations governing the Feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread, we are told that the lambs are to be slaughtered on the 14th of Nisan, before the sun sets (i.e. at the very end of the Jewish day). In addition, the Feast of Unleavened Bread is said to begin on that 14th day (Exodus 12:18), even though elsewhere the Feast of Passover (14th) and the Feast of Unleavened Bread (15th – 21st) are carefully distinguished (e.g. Leviticus 23:5-6; Numbers 28:16-17). Based on the account in Exodus, therefore, it would be perfectly correct to describe the night before the lambs were sacrificed (part of the 14th of Nisan) as part of the Day of Preparation, the ‘first day of Unleavened Bread’.
The ‘first day of Unleavened Bread’
If Jesus did indeed die on the 14th of Nisan, the Day of Preparation, this means that His meal the previous evening was also officially on that Day of Preparation, the first day of Unleavened Bread. This is the primary focus of all three synoptic Gospels – they intend to point out for the reader that the important Last Supper, instituting the sacrament of bread and wine for the Church, was eaten with the disciples as part of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. By the time of the New Testament, the ‘leaven’ (yeast) could be used to symbolise sin (1 Corinthians 5:6-7), and it was important theologically to note that the bread representing Jesus’ body was unleavened bread.
The finding of a room earlier that ‘day’ (although officially the 13th of Nisan) is only told to give the context for the meal itself, which was on the 14th. In fact, although Matthew’s account gives the most basic of descriptions about where the meal took place, Mark and Luke both highlight the fact that Jesus was far more prepared for this meal than His disciples were.
When one remembers that the Passover lambs were still to be sacrificed the following afternoon, this merely emphasises the fact that due to Jesus’ preparation, the Passover meal was all ready to be eaten a whole day earlier than the disciples had expected.
Passover meal before Passover?
Such an observation is made more prominent when we see how Luke has taken the predictions of the kingdom that Matthew and Mark had linked to the sharing of the cup, and put them at the beginning of his account of the meal, delaying mention of the betrayal until after the institution of the bread and wine. Luke begins the story of the meal (22:15-18) with Jesus saying to His disciples, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I say to you, I shall never again eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” Then taking a cup (not the cup of the new covenant, which came after the meal), He said, “Take this and share it among yourselves; for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes.”
Twice, Jesus emphasised to His disciples that He would not be sharing this meal with them again for a long time. He also explained how much He had wanted to eat the Passover with them before His suffering. Considering that the correct time for the Passover meal was the following evening, these comments are entirely consistent with what the disciples must have been asking Him – “So are we going to be doing this all over again tomorrow?” Much in the same way as friends of mine who always eat their Christmas dinner a day early, just so the whole family can be there, Jesus decided to eat the ‘Passover dinner’ a day early, to share it with His disciples.
Where is the lamb?
One further observation is essential here. If the Passover lambs were not to be sacrificed until the following afternoon, the ‘Passover’ meal eaten by Jesus and His disciples at the beginning of the 14th of Nisan would have been without meat. One can hear the disciples asking Jesus, like Isaac asked Abraham, “Behold, the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs, but where is the lamb?” And like Abraham on the same mountain two thousand years earlier, Jesus’ reply was, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the sacrifice.”
“For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast.” (1 Corinthians 5:7-8)
Exodus 12:10 makes it clear that the Passover lamb was to be eaten on the night beginning the 15th of Nisan, roasted just after it had been slaughtered at twilight on the 14th. If any was left over until the morning, it was to be burned with fire. When John mentions in John 18:28 that the high priest and his officers avoided entering the Praetorium “so that they would not be defiled, but might eat the Passover”, he is making it unmistakeably clear that the actual Passover meal was not eaten by the rest of the Jewish nation until after Jesus had died. If it had actually been eaten the night before, all that would have been left by this time in the morning would have been ashes.
As the Passover lambs were being slaughtered in the temple that afternoon, Jesus was “led like a lamb to the slaughter” (Isaiah 53:7), and as lambs’ blood was daubed on lintels and doorposts across the land, Jesus’ blood was staining the upright and cross-piece of the wooden cross. In fulfilment of that command to Moses in Egypt nearly fifteen hundred years earlier, the worthy Lamb, the firstborn Son of God Himself, was slain in order that God’s judgement of Death might ‘pass over’ those of us who shelter beneath His covenant.
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Dr James E. Patrick is a Bible scholar, theologian, and author, with a particular interest in Jewish-gentile relations in biblical times and throughout history. For example, see https://grovebooks.co.uk/products/e-187-british-christian-history-and-the-jewish-people-recovering-an-ancient-spiritual-legacy.
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