Jesus washing the disciples feet was only recorded in the book of John. In the rest of the Gospels, Jesus’s last Passover meal is recorded before his arrest. Today, we are reading Luke’s passage of the Last Supper.
We start the passage with a very similar preparation story as the Triumphal Entry of Palm Sunday. Before Jesus enters Jerusalem, we see that Jesus sends two of this disciples to retrieve the ride that Jesus already prepared for. All they had to do was to follow Jesus’s instructions. Similarly, Jesus sends two disciples to make preparations for the Passover meal. And just like how the prepared donkey was very important to the story, we get the sense that this Passover meal is very important. Jesus prepares everything ahead of time.
The Passover is very important to the Jews. It is remembering God’s deliverance from Egypt. The very first Passover is in Exodus 12 with God’s final plague of the firstborn son. God tells the Israelites to slaughter a lamb without defect, and take some of the blood and put it on the doorframe of the house. Then they roast the lamb and eat it with unleavened bread in haste, since it is God’s Passover. He will go through the Egypt and bring judgement on all houses without the lamb’s blood. If He sees the blood of the lamb, He will pass over that house. This is the last plague that frees the Israelites from Egypt’s slavery.
Even reading the original Passover story in Exodus, we can see that this Passover lamb symbolizes Jesus. In this passage, Jesus makes it even clearer. Jesus taking the bread and the wine shares them with his disciples explaining that these represent his body and blood. His body is broken for us, and his blood is poured out for us. Jesus is getting killed, so we God will not strike his judgement against us, and we will be free from slavery, the slavery of sin and death.
So the Old Testament Passover is now the New Testament Communion. The Passover pointed forward to Jesus, and the Communion points back to Jesus. At the very center is Jesus’s death and resurrection.