Longing for How Long?

Much has been made of the account of the meal which we call the “Last Supper.” The few things Jesus said are memorable and meaningful, beginning with, “I've been eagerly looking forward to this.” Some translations use the word “longing.”

How long had he been longing?

Had it been all day, like when one waits for a meal that's long in coming and the stomach is starting to churn? No, that would not be it.

Maybe all week, from his colt ride into Jerusalem when the crowds lauded him as messiah and king and then things started to change.

No, it had to be longer than that.

Likely he'd been longing for this meal from the beginning of his ministry, some three and a half years before. He had been going around preaching and healing, pointing people to God, encountering both acceptance and opposition . . . all the time aware of all it was leading to. Certainly, he'd been looking forward to this culmination from the beginning.

But maybe before that.

This was a Passover meal and the climactic end of what the people of God had been observing from when it was first instituted. That commemorated the time when the Hebrew slaves in Egypt put lamb's blood on their doors so the angel of death would pass over, there being believers inside. That was hundreds of years before. Was this not the completion of that?

Surely, as the Scripture says, the Lord Jesus is our Passover. His is the blood the Father sees and we pass over from death into life. This meal commemorates it. And Jesus had been looking forward to this for a very long time.