THE DAY BEFORE THE LAST SUPPER

Reading one of the Passion narratives this week, a detail around Mark 14:12-18 caught my eye.

It’s when, on the first day of Unleavened Bread, his disciples ask, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” He sends two of them into the city, telling them to find a householder who will have an upper room furnished and ready and there “to prepare for us.”

And next thing is “When it was evening he came with the twelve. And as they were at table eating,” etc.

So my question is: What was Jesus doing between day and evening? What was he doing on the day before the Last Supper?

He could have been hanging out with the other ten so that when the two who’d been sent into the city returned, all twelve could enter the city (or meet there) and go to the upper room together.

On the other hand, he might have wanted a couple of hours to himself. In particular, he might have wanted to visit with his mother. He might have wanted just to be among the people, the jostle and banter of daily life, maybe buying a piece of pita bread and some goat cheese for a snack. He might have wanted to take one last walk, knowing he was so soon to leave the earth he’d inhabited for 33 years.

He might have even wanted to visit the Garden at Gethsemane in the daytime, and to marvel at the olive trees, and to thank the Father for the beauty of the world for which, along with its people, he was about to lay down his life.

Anyway, it might be a nice reflection for Holy Week: to imagine Jesus taking one last walk. It might be rich, and a comfort and a consolation, to imagine walking with him.