Why Consider Celebrating the Lord's Supper only Once a Year?

3) The SCRIPTURAL Argument (continued)

12On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”  13So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you.  Follow him.  14Say to the owner of the house he enters, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’  15He will show you a large upper room, furnished and ready.  Make preparations for us there.”  16The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover (Mark 14:12-16 NIV).

Verse 12 says that this was the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.  So here is how this works.  The Passover was killed on Nisan 14, on the Hebrew calendar, at sundown.  That corresponds to mid-March to mid-April on our Gregorian Calendar, which is 365 days in a year.  Each month on the Hebrew Calendar was exactly 30 days, so in other words 360 days in a year for the Jew.  The Feast of Unleavened Bread always took place from Nisan 15-21.  It was customary to refer to this whole period of time as "the Passover (season)."  It was also known as "the Days of Unleavened Bread."  Just to be safe from breaking God’s Law people usually removed all leaven from their homes a few days before the official Feast—so the "Feast of Unleavened Bread" usually started about Nisan 13.  So just after sundown (the Jewish day began at sundown not midnight so this was now Nisan 14) Jesus sat down with His twelve disciples in an upper room where they ate the Passover supper...

17When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve.  18While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, “I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me—one who is eating with me.”  19They were saddened, and one by one they said to him, “Surely not I?”  20“It is one of the Twelve,” he replied, “one who dips bread into the bowl with me.  21The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him.  But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man!  It would be better for him if he had not been born.”  22While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.”  23Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it.  24“This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,” he said to them. 25“I tell you the truth, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God.” (Mark 14:17-25 NIV)

So what we discover is that it was the first night of the Passover season that Jesus introduced what we now refer to as the Lord’s Supper.  To thoroughly understand the connection between the Lord’s Supper of the New Testament, and the Passover of the Old Testament, we need to further examine the Passover celebration in the Old Testament.  We will do just that in our next post...