“The Price of a Common Slave!”

The Last Passover Meal of The Master

It was on a Thursday evening prior to His execution the next day Friday afternoon that Jesus of Nazareth had finally arrived in Jerusalem. For throughout His very short three years of public ministry, He constantly reminded His disciples that He would be betrayed into the hands of men, and then be executed as recorded in Mark 9:31.

As reported throughout the Ancient Text, The Master arranged to eat His last earthly meal with His twelve disciples where the Passover themes of freedom and redemption are remembered and reflected upon the evening, yet this night’s meal would invoke the supreme opposite. Instead of freedom, this Last Supper would bring constraint and bondage, instead of redemption, there was to be abandonment and betrayal.

To learn more about a Seder meal, click the link below: https://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/1751/jewish/What-Is-a-Seder.htm

As The Master went through the Passover ancient rite, the Gospel of John quotes Psalm 41:9 as the ceremony was progressing by saying, “He who eats My bread has lifted his heel against Me.” [John 13:18] Shortly afterward Jesus announced that “One of you will betray Me!” [John 13:21] The beloved John who was reclining the closest to The Master asked Him what is it that He was implying? The Master stated that the one for when I shall dip the morsel and give it to him.” [John 13:26]

Throughout the Middle East, a token of intimacy to allow a guest to dip his bread in the common dish. Yet The Master while knowing the motive and evil intent of Judas His disciple, still handed him the “morsel.”

As a matter of record, it was in Matthew that he writes the actions of Judas as he had gone to the authorities before this final Seder of The Messiah, in an effort to ask what they would pay him to betray his Master. They offered the price of a common slave, thirty pieces of silver which Judas accepted!

Shortly afterward Judas came to the knowledge that his betrayal of The Master would cost Him His life, he was overtaken with grief, horror, and fear, even to the extent of attempting to return the money to the priest, as the Scripture reads, “for I have betrayed innocent blood,” and later killing himself.

This Hour and the Power of Darkness are Yours

Some 500 years prior to this last earthly Seder meal of The Master, the prophet Zechariah had symbolically acted out this very same scene with himself in the role of a “Good Shepherd,” [a title that Jesus used of Himself], and the value place on him as thirty pieces of silver. [see Zechariah 11:12-13]

Many contend that Judas’ betrayal of The Master took place after midnight on the night of the Last Supper. This is where Judas led soldiers of the Temple guard and others to Gethsemane to identify The Master to the others with a kiss.

It is within the writings of Luke that records the most importantly powerful words of The Master as we conclude this pre-Passover blog post:

“Have you come out with swords and clubs as against a robber? While I was with you daily in the Temple, you did not lay hands on Me; but this hour and the power of darkness are yours!” Luke 22:52-53

Thus after this statement in what appears to be a seemingly endless sequences of trials, evil inhuman mistreatment against The Lamb of God that would continue through the rest of the early dawn hours and into the morning til Pilate at last consented to the cries of the mob who only earlier cried out Hosanna Hosanna [Hebrew term meaning, Save Us, We Beseech Thee].

These very cries from the crowds prophetically are connected with The Messiah as King riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. [see Zechariah 9:9] yet now their cries have changed from Save Us to crucify Him!

Grace and Peace

This blog post was made possible by my rereading of the Holy Scriptures accounts of the prophecies of the Anointed One from on High and the book, Y’shua: The Jewish Way To Say, Jesus, written by Moishe Rosen