We are a day early for this meal. We’ve been a day early for nearly 2000 years but that doesn’t mean that we change the date.   We just reinforce the error, making the Passover meal a Thursday event instead of on Friday where it belongs.

A day early, Jesus says to Peter and John: "Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover."  (Luke 22: 8b). This is innocent enough and timeless enough in its expression. There is no mention of the day. It doesn’t say it was Thursday but if you count back from Easter, it has to be Thursday. Peter and John don’t say, “We’ll Jesus, it’s Thursday and the Passover is supposed to be on Friday. The one thing that we’ve learned over the last few weeks is that Peter always offers an opinion. He’s always mouthing off. If Jesus was confused like I get confused sometimes, thinking it is Friday instead of Thursday; Peter would have pointed it out. Instead, they say “Where?”  As you heard, Jesus tells them to follow a man with a jar and use the large room in the house he enters. Because of the chain of events that proceed tonight, we know its Thursday. If Passover begins on Friday, then why are we one day early?

There are a number of theories. One isn’t terribly satisfactory but it’s simple. The meal was actually on Friday but the gospel writers, twenty to fifty years after the fact, moved the Last Supper from Friday to Thursday in order to make Jesus’ prophecy work. Jesus said a number of times that, “'The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.'” (Luke 24:17) Call me a sentimentalist if you like but when it comes to my red letter edition, there is nothing Jeffersonian about me. I don’t feel the need to snip out a verse here or there and suggest that Jesus got it wrong. If you don’t mind, let’s put that theory aside tonight and agree, the Last Supper was on Thursday, not on Friday. But, the question is still there. Why Thursday instead of Friday?

There is a second theory which tends to hold more promise. For lack of a better title, let’s call it, the “Easter brunch theory.” The “Easter brunch theory” says if you don’t have your Easter brunch reservation yet, you are out of luck. The only Easter brunch reservations left aren’t at brunch. You might be able to get four in the afternoon. You’ll have better luck getting Saturday night right in the middle of the Butler game and then you’d be one day early. Calling the explanation the “Easter brunch theory” is a little odd because when the Last Supper took place, Easter hadn’t happened yet.  A better title might be the “upper room shortage” theory.

During the Passover, Jerusalem grew from 200,000 to nearly one million people, all there to have this meal. Throughout the city, temporary ovens baked lamb all day long, all week long so much so that there was a dark haze of smoke hung over the holy city. The priests worked long shifts butchering unblemished lambs. The ‘upper room shortage theory’ says that you got a room when you could get a room. If this is the case, Thursday was the day that the room was available. It makes a lot of sense but I would hate to think that Jesus didn’t get his first choice of reservations for his Last Supper.  

There is a third theory which we might call the “spring break theory.” Last week, someone said to me, “Pastor, we are on spring break next weekend so we won’t get to Easter worship services.” Then he added, “I always feel guilty being on the beach instead of in Easter worship.” In the foreign land of spring break, it is evidently hard to celebrate the resurrection.

The actual name for this theory is the “Diaspora Passover theory.” In 721, the Northern Kingdom fell to Assyria. Ten tribes of Israel were sent into exile. It was extremely traumatic, so much so that as many were leaving, they made little bags of soil and carried the dirt with them so that they had a “piece” of the Promised Land to worship on.  These ten tribes become the lost tribes of Israel.

Like folks on spring break, they found it hard to keep their religious traditions in a foreign land. It was even harder because the calendar was different and during the exile, they lost a day here and there. When they settled in and began holding the celebrations, sometimes they were early but most of the time late. When they finally got it figured out, an interesting tradition developed. They held the festival “one day early” just in case they’d lost a day. They continued the tradition when they returned. Jesus was from Nazareth and recruited his disciples in Galilee, in the northern kingdom. If this theory holds up, then they didn’t think it was one day early. It was just the way Jews of the Diaspora celebrated the Passover, one day early.

The reality is it is impossible to know why we are one day early but Peter would say it is a night filled with the impossible.

The task for Peter and John was more than securing the upper room. They would have first purchased a year old lamb. They would take it to the Temple first to be certified as pure and unblemished. Then, a different set of  priests would slaughter the lamb, catching a bowl of blood to pour on the altar and giving Peter a hyssop soaked in blood to wipe on the mantle of the house. John and Peter would find one of the temporary ovens, preferably close to the location, to roast the lamb. While the lamb was roasting, they would shop for the Passover meal purchasing bitter herbs, parsley, wine and the charoset, a mixture of apples, raisins, almonds and cinnamon which symbolized the mortar their ancestors were forced to mix in Egypt. Then in another section of the market, they would purchase matzoh bread, symbolizing the bread that God provided for them throughout the wandering in the wilderness. Because of the crowds, the assignment given John and Peter was a long, grueling day. By the time of the meal, Peter was likely exhausted, and hoped that the meal would go quickly and that he’d get to bed early. The events of the evening make that impossible.

Each gospel gives a different perspective of that evening. John tells us that the twelve take their places around the table with the beloved disciple John at the right hand of Jesus and Judas to the left.  They gather around a special table called a triclinium, a low, U-shaped, three piece table, reclining face forward with feet behind you. The table would have had seven middle seats with three on each end. We don’t know where Peter reclined around the table. It may well be that he was at the end of the table, in one of the last positions because when  Jesus takes off his robes, wraps himself with a towel and begins to wash the feet of the disciples, Peter alone protests.  He says, “This is impossible.” ‘“You shall never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.’ ‘Then…not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!’” (John 13: 8-9). The “impossibles” of the evening are just getting started.

Luke tells us a dispute breaks out about who was the greatest, perhaps even while Jesus is washing their feet.  Impossible. It goes from bad to worse. Jesus predicts his betrayal. Someone around the table, one of the twelve will betray Jesus. Another impossible.  Simon Peter motions to John, sitting next to Jesus, to ask him to reveal who it is. It is the one who dips the bread in the cup, something that they all will do that evening. Indicted Judas dips the bread in the cup and then leaves the room. It’s impossible to imagine that the one sitting beside Jesus betrays him.

As the dinner comes to a close, Peter promises to follow Jesus where he is going, even to give his life for him. Jesus said, “Will you lay down your life for me? Very truly, I tell you, before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times.” (John 13:38) None of the gospels describe Peter at this moment but I am confident he is shaking his head, thinking, “That’s just impossible. It will not happen.”

You know the way the story goes. On the way to the Kidron Valley and the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus predicts again the impossible. “You will all become deserters; for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ … Peter said to him, ‘Even though all become deserters, I will not.’” (Mark 14: 27). He affirms what his heart believes. It is impossible for him to imagine abandoning Jesus.

Upon their arrival in Gethsemane, Jesus takes Peter, James and John deeper into the Garden. He asks them to keep watch while he prays.  Jesus goes away, prays for strength during his trial and returns to find the disciples asleep.  It’s understandable given the long day. But Jesus asks Peter, "Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour?” The answer is, no, it is impossible. He is too weary and Jesus finds him asleep not once, but three times.

Judas arrives, kisses Jesus and betrays him. Peter pulls a sword, “struck the high priest's slave, and cut off his right ear. Now this is the Peter we have come to expect – brash and impulsive. The slave's name was Malchus.” (John 18: 10). Hey, Peter, what about “blessed are the peacemakers?” Have you not learned anything following Jesus? You’re impossible. Jesus tells him to put the sword away and performs his last miracle before his death. Jesus heals the servant and the pace of the evening picks up.

Peter and an unnamed disciple follow the arresting party all the way through the gates of Jerusalem to the high priest’s residence. Peter enters the courtyard determined to be with Jesus in the crisis. Warming himself by the fire, he hoped he could avoid recognition but twice he was asked if he was a follower of Jesus and twice he denied the accusation. Finally, he is confronted by a woman who was related to the servant whose ear he had severed. Seized by panic, he does the impossible. He begins to curse and insist, “I do not know what you are talking about!" At that moment, while he was still speaking, the cock crowed.  The Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, ‘“Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times.’ And he went out and wept bitterly” (Luke 22: 60-62) because it was impossible to stop the events of the night. Everything was wrong about it, even the night because it was one day early. Or was it?

Fast forward a few hours to the midday of the right day, the day of Passover. At the stroke of noon, there are two events taking place simultaneously. In the Temple, a line of pilgrims present their pure and unblemished lamb to the priest to be sacrificed for the Passover even while another, pure and unblemished, is presented to be sacrificed on a cross.  While the Passover lambs bleed, so does the Lamb of God. Years later, the one who thought it impossible that he would betray and deny Jesus, who believed that night that his desertion was impossible to forgive, recognized why that dinner was on the right night.  We are ransomed, he wrote, “not with perishable things like silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.” (1 Peter 1: 18-19) Jesus was the new Passover lamb and whatever sin, whatever failure, whatever shame you or I experience, is passed over because of his death on the cross.      

The great Swedish theologian Soren Kierkegaard once said “Life must be lived forward, but it can only be understood backwards.” For the rest of his life---indeed until the present day—Peter’s name is connected with this impossible night and his personal failure. Peter learned on this night what each of us needs to embrace. It is impossible not to betray Jesus. It is the sixth principle of Peter’s life. We will betray Jesus. We all fail, over and over again. We all engage in actions which say, “I do not know the man!”  Betrayal is part of the Christian pilgrimage. It happens to every one of us.

It is why this night is the right night to remember. It is a night when everyone confronts our betrayal of Jesus, a night when we are reminded again of our failure and of the redemption that awaits us tomorrow, the day of the Passover. 

This is the right night to remember and it is why we gather. Tomorrow, the Lamb of God will bleed and as he does, he takes on the sins of the world.  On this night, the right night, we remember.

It is the right night to remember all of these “impossibles,” and one more still, the disciples’ example. ‘“Then who can be saved?’  Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.’” (Matthew 25-26).

So remember Jesus taking bread and offering it as his body, presenting wine and offering it as his blood, presenting it in anticipation of his day on the cross. They are gifts of salvation. We are saved not because of who we are – betraying, sinful ones who act as if we do not know him.  We cannot work out our own salvation; it’s impossible. We are saved because of who He is. Tonight is the right night to face that for yourself either for the first time or the hundredth time. Tonight is the right night, the night of impossible. Tomorrow however, that’s something altogether different. That’s the right day for possibility.