It was the hardest night of Jesus’ life. He knew what was
coming the next day. He knew he would be falsely accused, abandoned by those he
loved, and suffer the most painful death imaginable. Yet, he had one intense
desire before that happened: to have dinner with his friends.
Both the Aramaic that Jesus likely spoke and the Greek
that recorded his words use a special method to show how intensely Jesus wanted
to be with his disciples. They put a noun and verb with the same root
immediately next to each other. In a literal translation it would be: “I
desired a desire.” That sounds weird to us, but the message was: “I intensely desired…” Jesus pushed
language as hard as he could to communicate how much this last supper with his
disciple meant to him.
In verse 16 and beyond Jesus talks about how the Passover
would be fulfilled in the Kingdom of God at a future time. In many ways,
Passover was a great picture of what Jesus’ work on the cross was: The Hebrews
were slaves in Egypt when God brought freedom and deliverance. Each family
killed a lamb for one last meal before leaving Egypt and put its blood on their
doorpost so the Angel of Death would pass
over that house. The connections between Passover and Christ’s crucifixion
and resurrection are many, but we can miss something else about Jesus if we
pass by verse 15 too quickly: He wanted to be with his disciples.
Jesus loves his friends. As such, he loves to be with his
friends. Although a guarantee of eternal life is the greatest benefit of being
a Christian, let’s never forget the King of Kings wants an intimate friendship
with us.
1 comment:
Your words expounding this fact of the dimension of Jesus' love for those that are close to Him is like a 'God hug'. It's 6am, starting my day. To start the day with a 'God hug', I feel loved and accepted. I needed that. Thanks.
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