Faithfullee

The Last Supper: Remembrance and Covenant

The Last Supper in Luke contains material unique to his account. Before the bread and cup, Jesus says: "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God" (22:15–16). The word translated "earnestly desired" is epithumia epithumēsa — a Semitic intensification meaning deep longing. Jesus goes to the cross not reluctantly but with the burning desire to complete what the Passover has always pointed toward.

When he takes the cup and the bread, he gives them new content:

"This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." — Luke 22:19 (ESV)

The Greek word anamnēsis — remembrance — is not mere recollection. In the context of covenant meals, it is the active, participatory re-presentation of a saving event. Darrell Bock notes that the Lord's Supper in Luke functions as the new Passover: just as Passover commemorated and made present the exodus liberation, the Supper commemorates and makes present the liberation accomplished by Jesus's body and blood (Luke, BECNT, 1994, vol. 2, pp. 1722–1724). The community that eats this meal is constituted by his death, nourished by his life, and oriented toward the kingdom's coming fullness.

After the meal, a dispute arises among the disciples about which of them is greatest. In the upper room, on the night of betrayal, the disciples are arguing about status. Jesus rebukes the ambition with the same logic as Mark 10:45 but with characteristic Lukan specificity: "I am among you as the one who serves" (22:27). He then promises them that they will eat and drink at his table in the kingdom — a final Passover of surpassing fullness.

What strikes us about this scene is the disciples' timing. They are at the Last Supper. Jesus has just said he is about to be betrayed, that his body will be broken, his blood poured out — and they get into an argument about who is the greatest among them. We wish we could say that seems distant and alien to us. It doesn't. The desire for status doesn't pause for sacred moments. Jesus doesn't shame them in anger. He teaches them again. He keeps teaching, all the way to Gethsemane.

Gethsemane, Arrest, and Trial

In Luke's Gethsemane, an angel appears and strengthens Jesus, and "his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground" (22:43–44). The physical extremity of his anguish is heightened even as his prayer remains the same: "not my will, but yours, be done" (22:42). This is the model of all prayer that Luke has been teaching since 11:2 — alignment of the human will with the divine will, pursued in the midst of genuine anguish rather than performed in its absence.

When the crowd arrives and Judas approaches with a kiss, one of the disciples strikes the servant of the high priest and cuts off his ear. Luke alone records what happens next: "But Jesus said, 'No more of this!' And he touched his ear and healed him" (22:51). In the moment of his arrest, Jesus heals. The one about to be condemned demonstrates the same saving power he has shown throughout his ministry — and he demonstrates it on behalf of the very forces arresting him.

We find it significant that Luke is the only Gospel writer to include this. A miracle in the garden, in the chaos of arrest, on behalf of the soldier who came to take Jesus away. The ministry doesn't stop. Compassion doesn't have an off switch. Right up until the moment he is bound and led away, he is healing people.

The trial before Pilate and Herod is significant in Luke because Pilate declares Jesus innocent three times (23:4, 14, 22) and Herod finds nothing deserving death. Joel Green observes that Luke's triple declaration of innocence is legally and theologically pointed: the crucifixion is not the punishment of a guilty man but the judicial murder of the righteous one, and Luke wants his readers to understand this with precision (The Gospel of Luke, NICNT, 1997, pp. 888–890). The one who dies is not paying for his own sins.

The Crucifixion: Forgiveness, Promise, and Commitment

Luke's crucifixion account is structured around three sayings from the cross that are found nowhere else in the Gospels.

First: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (23:34). The prayer for forgiveness of those crucifying him is the Sermon on the Plain enacted at its most extreme: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you" (6:27–28). Jesus does not merely teach this posture; he inhabits it in extremis. He prays for the people driving the nails.

Second: the criminal on the cross. One of the two criminals crucified with Jesus joins in the mocking. The other rebukes him: "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong" (23:40–41). Then, turning to Jesus: "Remember me when you come into your kingdom" (23:42). Jesus answers:

"Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise." — Luke 23:43 (ESV)

The Greek paradisos — paradise — transliterates a Persian loan word used in the Greek Old Testament for the Garden of Eden. It became in Second Temple Judaism a term for the blessed state of the righteous after death. I. Howard Marshall notes that Jesus's promise to the criminal is the most immediate expression of salvation in the passion narrative: a man with no time for good works, no opportunity for restitution, no possibility of religious observance — only a dying faith and a desperate request — receives the same table fellowship that characterized Jesus's entire ministry (The Gospel of Luke, NIGTC, 1978, pp. 872–873).

We keep coming back to this dying criminal. He has nothing. He has done terrible things — he says so himself. He has no deeds to offer, no church attendance, no record of service, no opportunity for change. He just turns his head and says: remember me. And Jesus says: today. Not eventually. Today. This is what grace looks like in its most unmediated form. You can't work your way to this. You can only ask.

Third: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit" (23:46), a quotation of Psalm 31:5. Where Mark gives the cry of dereliction as the last word, Luke gives a prayer of trust. Both are true to the same Psalter; Luke emphasizes the confidence that underlies even the anguish. And then: "he breathed his last." The centurion declares: "Certainly this man was innocent!" (23:47). The crowd beats their breasts and goes home. The women who followed from Galilee watch from a distance.

The Road to Emmaus and the Opened Scriptures

On the first day of the week, women go to the tomb and find it empty. Two men in dazzling apparel recall what Jesus had said about rising on the third day. The women report to the eleven, but their words "seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them" (24:11). The word Luke uses here — lēros — means nonsense, drivel, something not worth taking seriously. This is how the disciples received the resurrection announcement from the women. Peter runs to the tomb and finds only linen cloths, and he "went home marveling at what had happened" (24:12). Marveling is not yet faith.

In all four Gospels, it is women who are the first witnesses of the resurrection. In the first century, women's testimony was not accepted in courts. It held no legal weight. If anyone were fabricating a resurrection story to persuade people, they would not have chosen women as the primary witnesses. The fact that every Gospel agrees on this — despite how culturally inconvenient it would have been — says something. God chose the witnesses the world would dismiss. That pattern runs throughout Luke's entire narrative.

That same day, two disciples walk to Emmaus discussing the events of the week. A stranger joins them, and they do not recognize him. He asks what they are talking about. They explain the story of "Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people" — and then add the unbearable thing: "But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel" (24:21). Past tense. The hope is past. The stranger opens the Scriptures to them — "Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" (24:26) — and their hearts burn within them as he speaks.

At the table in Emmaus, he takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them. And then:

"And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight." — Luke 24:31 (ESV)

The anastasis — resurrection — is recognized not in the empty tomb but at a table, in the breaking of bread. The eucharistic echo is unmistakable. He appears then to the gathered disciples in Jerusalem, shows them his hands and feet, eats fish in their presence ("a ghost does not have flesh and bones," 24:39), and opens their minds to understand the Scriptures. The mission he commissions — repentance and forgiveness of sins proclaimed to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem — is the fruit of everything Luke has narrated from the annunciation onward. And he leads them out to Bethany, blesses them, and is carried up into heaven.

"And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God." — Luke 24:52–53 (ESV)

Luke's ending is the opposite of Mark's. Where Mark closes with silence and fear — "they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid" — Luke closes with joy, worship, and the disciples in the temple praising God. Both endings are honest. Both are true to what the resurrection produces in different people at different moments. We think about those two endings often. Some of us come out of it trembling and speechless. Some of us come out of it with great joy. Both responses are in the canon. Both are acceptable before God.

Last updated: March 3, 2026.