A Good Friday Agape Feast

Several years ago while in Jerusalem, I visited the site designated as “the upper room”, where it is supposed that the believers tarried after the Lord’s ascension until Pentecost, and, many deduce, was the same room that Jesus and His disciples shared their last Passover meal. While it is highly unlikely that the present day house that tourists parade through in Old Jerusalem is the exact location of the original upper room, it is situated in the same general area, a relatively small area in the middle of what was, and is, a bustling city. In fact, the whole time I was in Jerusalem, the one thing that struck me was the noise; people talking, hammers hammering, babies crying. Of course, today the decibel level is accentuated by bus engines, horns honking and Muslim calls to prayer that are regularly broadcast over loudspeakers, but, in Jesus day, at Passover, when the city quadrupled in size, the sounds of thousands working, doing commerce and celebrating would have mingled with the bleating and baahing of innumerable livestock waiting to be sacrificed. The noise would have reverberated off the Jerusalem stone walls of the homes late into the evening.

I walked away from my fifteen minute stay in the upper room with a completely different idea about the Last Supper. I now imagine all of the disciples flush with the excitement of a major celebration, while at the same time mildly anxious about the increasingly troubling statements Jesus had been making about His death during this Passover season. I see them gathered around a triclinium (the low lying tables that were reclined around during meals at that time) having multiple, simultaneous, emphatic conversations, as is typical at a close friends and family get together. Every once in a while something would have to be repeated due to the table noise inside or the raucous goings on outside. Interestingly, it was in this environment that Jesus identified His betrayer and instituted the ordinance of communion, to be observed through out the ages by His Church. For the past two thousand years, as believers break bread and drink wine/juice, they are called to look back at His sacrifice for their sins, look inward at the state of their heart, and look forward to His glorious return. While most modern day churches simply incorporate the bread and the wine/juice into a worship service weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly, the first century church routinely incorporated meals they called Agape Feasts (Agape means unconditional love), into the observance of the Lord’s Supper (see 1 Corinthians 11:17-34). The Agape Feasts were essentially carry in dinners at which the local church ate, fellowshipped, and, at some point during or after the meal, took the elements of the Lord’s Supper.

Every year of our young church’s existence we have had a communion service on Good Friday. This year I felt like we were to have an Agape Feast. We switched things up a little from the early church. All that was carried in was the dessert. The rest of the food was purchased by the church from the Wal-Mart deli. I wonder if there would have been a Wal-Mart in Jerusalem in Jesus’ day if He would have sent the twelve there to buy the provisions for the Passover Meal. I’m betting that the disciples could have eaten one of those savory rotisserie chickens apiece.  No matter, we had an Agape Feast on Good Friday. A nice crowd filled our fellowship hall with all of the sights and sounds normally witnessed a family reunion. The music playing softly in the loudspeakers was seldom heard for the melodious blend of table talk, kids laughing and babies crying. And right in the middle of all of it we observed Communion. I held my young son while remembering my Savior, a Son that did not consider His life something to be held onto. He gave His life for the sake of my son and me. I drank the juice from the cup that my son stirred with his fingers while I prayed. In that room, amidst the rustling of restless children and road noise from the nearby highway we took communion. And then we went immediately back to communing with one another. The sounds of life filled the room. Abundant life.

Enjoy the pictures of a feast that celebrates His love, being enjoyed by a spiritual family who has experienced His love.

God Bless

Pastor Mike