Vicar's Bible Study

I'm teaching the Vicar's Bible Study every Thursday at noon. We're a group of about a dozen people, and we have lively discussions and an enjoyable time together. Some of us bring lunch and we eat as we talk around the table.

Right now we're discussing the Last Supper. It's a good topic for Lent, as we anticipate Maundy Thursday. That's the worship service we have during Holy Week, just before Easter, as we remember the last days of Jesus' life.

So far we've reviewed the account of Jesus' last supper with his disciples by reading about it in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They're remarkably close in their recounting of the story, and Paul's account of the last supper in 1 Corinthians 11 accords nicely with them. In all these accounts, Jesus shares a loaf of bread with his disciples and says, "This is my body". He shares a cup of wine and says, "This is my blood."

Today we read the story of the last supper as recounted in the Gospel of John, and found that it's much different. There's no mention of bread and wine, only the story of Jesus washing the disciples' feet.

We also grappled with the thorny question of the date of the last supper. Matthew, Mark, and Luke say it was a Passover meal, but John insists that it was eaten before the Passover.

We went back to Exodus 12 and read the instruction Moses gave about observing the Passover, and we decided that the meal almost was probably not a Passover meal. Since much of our weekly worship revolves around Holy Communion, which is a memorial of the last supper, these questions are fascinating to think about.

Next week, we'll talk more about the Passover meal and what Jesus and the disciples were doing.
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