On Line Bible Study - For the Week September 10 - 16, 2012

Lesson 553 – Passion 2

The Meal …

I encourage you to go to the Gospel Parallels on line, scroll down in the Matthew column until you get to Chapter 26, verse 17.  Then click on the small blue and green books.  This will harmonize Mark and Luke with the passage in Matthew.  (The heading will read: Preparation for the Passover.)

Then, go to the fourth column – “John” – and scroll down to Chapter 13, verse 1.  The heading will be “Washing the Disciples’ Feet.

You now have before you one of the most disputed calendar dates in the New Testament.  For Matthew, Mark and Luke, the ‘Last Supper’ took place in the context of a Passover Meal.  For John, this meal is set just before Passover.  Father Raymond Brown thinks John’s Gospel got the detail right, even as he acknowledges the impossibility of proving one way or the other.[1]

This is not the only difference between the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark and Luke) and John’s gospel.  John gives us no preparation for the meal; Jesus says no ‘eucharistic words’ over bread and wine in John.  John tells of a foot washing that is found in no other gospel.  Finally, in John’s gospel Jesus offers a lengthy discourse of teachings and sayings.  This is a list of no small differences.

You might want to bookmark the Gospel Parallel page on your computer. We’ll be returning to it often.

Next time we will begin to consider ways in which the four gospels are similar, and we will begin to discuss these differences and similarities in some detail.

In the mean time, recall that Passover was the recollection of the Children of Israel’s liberation from slavery.  This is the key moment – the defining event in their history.  It plays a critical role in our Christian history as well.  If you have a chance you can re-familiarize yourself with this amazing story by reading in Exodus, beginning in Chapter 3 and reading through Chapter 15 – just two chapters each day will bring you up to speed.

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[1] Raymond Brown – The Gospel According to John, XIII-XXI, Anchor Bible, Volume 29A.  Yale University Press, ©1970 by Doubleday and Yale University as assignee from Doubleday.  Page 556.