(Lk 22:14 - 23:56)

Luke 22:14 When the hour was come, he took his place at table, and the apostles with him,

Luke 22:15 and said, "I have longed to eat this Passover with you, before my passion,

Luke 22:16 For I say unto you, I will eat it no more, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God."

Luke 22:17 And he took a cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take it, and distribute it among you,

Luke 22:18 For I tell you, from this time on I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God comes."

Luke 22:19 Then he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me."

Luke 22:20 Likewise after he had supped, he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you."

Luke 22:39 And he went out, as usual, to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples also followed him.

V. 14 acts as a frame for the account of the Paschal supper within which is placed the institution of the Eucharist. It is a very dense verse, divided into three parts. The first is a very significant temporal note, which introduces the paschal narrative: "When the hour was come". The hour has come. It is the Easter supper. Here takes place the meeting and the completion-substitution of two salvific events, which are closely linked to the passion-death-resurrection of Jesus: the celebration of the Jewish Passover, the event of the liberation of Israel. The other event, complementary and substitutive of the first, are the bread and wine, essential and proper elements of the Jewish Passover, but which here, in this "hour", are re-signified, because they are representative of a new liberation, which has as its foundation a bread-body broken and a wine-blood poured "for you", where in that "for you" is found anyone who has decided his or her life for that broken bread and that poured wine. It is, therefore, an hour that constitutes the apex of salvation history, where all that has been prefigured finds its fulfilment in this hour, which ritualises in that bread-body broken and in that wine-blood poured the salvific event that becomes an offer of salvation for whoever welcomes it into their life.

The second part of v. 14 presents a Jesus taking his seat at the table. It does not speak of sitting down, but of reclining, reclining, reclining (Greek: "anepesen"), in the manner proper to the Greco-Roman world, but which had taken on for the Jew the meaning of a position that qualified the free man; while the third part of v. 14 states "the apostles with him". The apostles are those whom Jesus called with him to share his lot, the founding stock of the church. And it is precisely in this perspective that the evangelist attests that the apostles also lay down with Jesus at that table of the bread-body broken and the wine-blood poured, thus sharing his lot. It is a matter - the reclining at the table with Jesus in which his death is ritualized - of a true and proper following that in some way echoes, anticipating it, v. 39 in which it is recounted that Jesus "went out and went, as usual, to the Mount of Olives; the disciples also followed him".

V. 15 opens the pericope relating to the Jewish Passover, which here, in that "before my passion", is linked to the passion and death of Jesus; but we can also perceive how in that "before" this Jewish Passover is also the last. One can thus understand Jesus' expression ("I have longed for it"), to express his great expectation for this Passover, set at the threshold of his suffering and death. A Passover of farewell, then, but not of abandonment, since it will be precisely vv. 19-20, which in taking up the gesturality of the Jewish Passover will redeem it, becoming its perpetual reference ("in memory of me"), in which a new presence of Jesus is found in the form of bread and wine and which has its fulfilment in him, the true paschal lamb sacrificed.

Luke, in noting Jesus' great longing and expectation for this Passover, the last one he would celebrate with his own, focuses on the expression "to eat this Passover with you", so that somehow, in that Passover, the disciples are involved in Jesus' destiny. A Passover that, however, has its fulfilment only in the Kingdom of God, thus denouncing its incompleteness and, therefore, all its inconsistency and fragility. In other words, a Passover (the Jewish one) that has liberated, but is no longer liberating.

The question of the salvific value of this Passover is here addressed by Luke in the contrast between the verbs 'to eat' and 'not to eat' in v. 16, the latter verb, like the 'not to drink' of v. 18, placed in the future tense; as if to say 'never again shall I eat and never again shall I drink', thus removing from this Passover the sense of a 'liberating celebration': 'until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God', thus assigning it an eschatological dimension.

The present of the Jewish Passover, in fact, which celebrates Israel's liberation from Egyptian oppression, has in itself an unfinished meaning, which was enclosed in a repetitive memorial that finds no outlet in history except in a glorious memory, which, similar to the Wailing Wall, recalls the grandeur of Yahweh's deeds. A sterile Passover, therefore - one that does not open Israel to the future, but locks it up in its past through a rituality that does not allow it any outlets, so that the liberation celebrated in it becomes an unfinished liberation. This is why Jesus and with him his own will no longer eat, and not only because he will be killed shortly thereafter. Liberation that, however, will find its meaning and its fulfilment in that Kingdom of God, which Jesus came to reveal and to found, and which that Easter in some way prefigured, celebrating a liberation that in reality prefigured another and in which it will find its fulfilment, becoming a liberating Easter.

Jesus, therefore, will no longer eat of this Passover, and with him his disciples, because this has been transferred to a new Passover and replaced by it, in a new exodus from slavery to freedom, signified in Jesus' passage from death to life, which affects the life of each individual believer in his or her today, who by eating of this new Passover, announces in the testimony of his or her own life this passage from death to life - in the expectation of his or her return. A strong eschatological tension is thus created between the 'already and the not yet'; directing the whole of believing humanity towards a goal beyond space and time, where the unfinished today finds its fulfilment and meaning, and where unfinished time becomes fulfilled eternity.

 Argentino Quintavalle, author of the books 

- Revelation - exegetical commentary 

- The Apostle Paul and the Judaizers - Law or Gospel?

Jesus Christ true God and true Man in the Trinitarian mystery

The prophetic discourse of Jesus (Matthew 24-25)

All generations will call me blessed

 Catholics and Protestants compared - In defence of the faith

 The Church and Israel according to St Paul - Romans 9-11

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