Deo Gloria
April 6, 2023
Sermon for Maundy Thursday
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: Mark 14:12-17
Theme: His Final Steps Led to the Upper Room
- A room where his disciples carefully prepared for the Passover
- A room where Jesus, our Passover Lamb, carefully prepared to die
It is called the Cenacle, a word derived from a Latin word that means “dining room.” However, this particular dining room has been important to Christian pilgrims for some 1,600 years. Why? The claim is made that the Cenacle, which is located on Mount Zion, a nickname given to a portion of Jerusalem’s western hill, is the very place where Jesus and his disciples celebrated the Last Supper. Making the site even more impressive is that some claim it is built over the ancient location of King David’s tomb!
Yet this Cenacle that pilgrims still visit today is most likely not the same room where Jesus invited his apostles to “Take and eat” and to “Take and drink.” Although the foundations for the building seem to go back to the 3rd century, the Cenacle you would visit today is a massive room with soaring, Gothic ribbed vaults. It’s nothing like the architecture of Jesus’ day. And most archeologists and historians agree that it was likely constructed by crusaders, perhaps around 1,200 A.D.
Unfortunately, the location of the real upper room has likely been lost over the years, but the pull of the upper room, especially for Christians who gather together for worship on Maundy Thursday, has not been lost at all. In fact, tonight we travel there again on our Lenten journey with Jesus. Mark is our guide tonight. He tells us how Jesus’ final steps led to the Upper Room, a room where the disciples carefully prepared for the Passover, and a room where Jesus, our Passover Lamb, carefully prepared to die.
The focus of any service on Maundy Thursday is, of course, the Lord’s Supper, that special meal Jesus instituted for his disciples in the upper room so many centuries ago, a meal in which our Savior gives us his own body and blood together with the bread and wine to give us the personal assurance that our sins are forgiven and to give us peace and comfort for our souls. The sermon tonight will focus more on the setting for that special meal, which was rooted in the Old Testament celebration of the Passover.
It took hours to prepare for a Passover celebration and the dishes that were part of that elaborate meal. There was the karpas—an appetizer of a small piece of parsley, onion or boiled potato dipped in salt water. There was the matzah—unleavened bread made of nothing but flour and water. There was the charoseth—a pastelike sauce made of fruits, nuts, and wine. There was the maror—bitter herbs, usually horseradish, if you can handle that, otherwise romaine lettuce as a substitute. And there was a roasted egg, to represent the offering brought to the temple. Each course was eaten solemnly and slowly. Each course was accompanied by a script passed down through the generations, describing how the Lord had freed his people from slavery in Egypt. And don’t forget the four cups of wine that were served at certain intervals during the meal, a meal which would typically last for several hours.
And all of this was done in an elegant setting, with the finest dishes and the finest accommodations. For them this was like Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas dinner. It took a lot of preparation. 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”(v. 15), they probably breathed a sigh of relief. A lot of the careful preparation had already been done.
One thing, no doubt, they did need to prepare was the most important part, the centerpiece of the Passover meal, the lamb. That in itself meant hours more of time-consuming preparation. You see, Jesus’ disciples couldn’t just walk down the street to the nearest Jewish deli and bring home a pre-roasted lamb. The sacrificial lamb had to be purchased, most likely at an inflated price, because it had to pass the inspection of the temple priests. The lamb had to be slaughtered early that same afternoon at the temple, and then carefully roasted before the evening meal. It was a lot of work, work that sometimes boggles the mind of 21st century Americans like you and me, who get frustrated when the microwave needs an extra minute to finish heating a slice of pizza.
And I haven’t even mentioned the most daunting task of all: to find a quiet upper room. The Jewish historian Josephus tells us that Jerusalem’s population swelled to some two million people during Passover. And everybody was looking for a quiet upper room in the city, because they were not allowed to carry a lamb that had been slaughtered in the temple outside the city walls. Large upper rooms, large enough for Jesus and his disciples, were hard to find. They were a hot commodity. Furnished and ready? Good luck with that! The task seemed almost impossible.
But not for Jesus, the true Passover Lamb, who later reclined at the table with his disciples. Not for Jesus who said, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for I tell you, I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God”(Luke 22:15+16). Not for the Lamb who knew how vital the upper room was in God’s plan of salvation for you and me. So Jesus sent Peter and John into Jerusalem with very specific and fail-safe instructions, though they may seem a bit strange to you and me. “Go into the city,” he said, “and there a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him”(v. 13). That servant carrying water might as well have been wearing a blaze orange hunting vest with a target painted on his back for good measure. In those days and in that culture men didn’t fetch the water for drinking or for a special meal like the Passover. That was women’s work. But Jesus, the Son of God, could see this man among the millions of people in Jerusalem. And he could tell his disciples not only about him but also about what would happen when they followed him:
Say to the owner of the house he enters, “The Teacher asks: 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.(vv. 14+15)
Was the owner of the home a follower of Jesus? It certainly seems that way. Otherwise, why would the title, “the Teacher,” be enough to secure the upper room?
It was no accident that Jesus’ final steps led to the upper room. Hours of careful preparation by the disciples were required to make the Passover celebration possible, preparations that would have failed if not for the divine guidance of Jesus. But failure was not possible, because Jesus had been planning for this special meal in the upper room for an eternity.
Jesus’ mood was noticeably different that night. There seemed to be so much weighing on his mind; and there was. He kept interrupting the traditional Passover script with shocking statements of his own, like when he said, “I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me—one who is eating with me”(v. 18), or like the warning he gave to Peter, “I tell you the truth: Today—yes, tonight—before the rooster crows twice, you yourself will disown me three times”(v. 30).
No less shocking were the references he made to his own impending suffering and death. In the Supper itself he said, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many”(v. 24). And in the warning he gave to his disciples he said, “This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written: ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered’”(Matthew 26:31).
But it wasn’t just the shocking and foreboding words that Jesus spoke that evening in the upper room, it was also his gracious and memorable words recorded for us in John’s gospel. His words of comfort: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you”(14:1+2). His words of life: “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life”(14:6). His words of peace: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid”(14:27).
The Savior gave us all these words, and so many more, all because his final steps led to the upper room, a safe room, a secluded room, a room away from the crowds and unknown to his enemies, a room where he, the Lamb of God, could carefully prepare to die.
Jesus knew that time was coming. It was patently obvious in the instructions he gave to his disciples: “Go into the city and you’ll meet a man carrying a jar of water. Follow him. Then tell the owner of the house he enters, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’”(vv. 13+14). And viola! An upper room, all furnished and ready. Do you think that was just a coincidence?
But there is one detail left out by Mark that Matthew includes in his account of these events. Matthew records it like this: “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, ‘The Teachers says: My appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house’”(26:18). “My appointed time is near.” The appointed time, the chosen time, the time our Lord had set already eternity, was now at hand.
You could really say that for all of our Savior’s final steps—to the upper room, to the garden, to Judas who betrayed him, to the trials before the Sanhedrin and before Pilate, to the scourging and the mocking and the spitting, to the Via Dolorosa, to the center cross on Golgotha where the Lamb of God would suffer and die for the sins of the world, yours and mine included.
Let’s not forget that, friends, why all these steps, including his steps to the upper room, were necessary in the first place. It was because of our sins, our failures, our failure to live a godly life, our failure to love God with all our hearts, our failure to love our neighbor as ourselves, our failure to forgive as we have been forgiven, our failure to do the good we ought to do and avoid the evil we shouldn’t. It was because of our sins that Jesus had to take these final steps, that he had to walk this road to Calvary’s cross, that he had to suffer the agony of crucifixion and the torments of hell.
But let’s not forget the other part of that as well, that this was all part of the plan, the plan God laid out already in eternity, his plan for our salvation, his plan to defeat Satan, sin and death, his plan to deliver us from our oppressors and to give us life in the promised land of heaven. The time for carrying out that plan was near. The time for carrying out that plan was now. “My appointed time is near.”
Yes, Jesus’ final steps led to the Upper Room, but it was not simply about celebrating the Passover with his disciples. It was because he was the Lamb of God, the perfect Passover Lamb, who came to suffer and die for our sins so that we might dine with him at the greatest banquet of all in heaven. Amen.