Jesus did some miraculous things in his lifetime. But no one knew (besides Jesus) that this would be His last supper on earth.
His last meal consisted of unleavened bread and wine. My last meal would be a medium-rare steak with buttered corn and mashed potatoes.
That goes to show how awesome Jesus was. Instead of a fancy dinner, He chose a simple meal for His last meal.
But what else happened that fateful night?
Below are the top 20 interesting facts about The Last Supper.
The name says it all. The Last Supper was Jesus’ last supper with his twelve disciples before he was crucified.
This supper is when the First Eucharist occurred. What a thought: First Eucharist at the Last Supper. Fascinating.
As part of Eucharist (or communion), Jesus took the bread that was on the table, broke it in half (or close to half) and told his disciples to take it and eat it.
The bread represents the body of Christ.
After taking bread, Jesus then took the wine from the table and told his disciples to drink it.
The wine represents the blood of Jesus.
The Last Supper was actually foretold in the Old Testament. A “priest from God Most High” named Melchizedek “brought out bread and wine” And David said that Jesus would be “a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.”
Jesus’ final supper was so important, Leonardo da Vinci depicted the scene in his famous painting titled The Last Supper.
The painting itself is huge. It’s about 15 feet by 29 feet (4.6 x 8.8 meters).
What’s interesting to note is there are groups of three in the painting, probably representing the Holy Trinity. Jesus’ figure resembles a triangle; three windows are seen behind Jesus; and the disciples are in groups of three.
The painting itself is in terrible shape. Less than half of da Vinci’s artwork is still on the restored painting.
The Last Supper is told in all four gospels, but there’s a different account of the supper in the book of John. He says that the gathering happened the day of Passover, while the other three synoptic gospels say that the gathering happened the day before Passover.
One theory as to why the difference in dates is because they could have used different calendars. So, we should technically celebrate the Last Supper on Wednesday; churches now celebrate the Last Supper on Holy Thursday.
To make things more confusing, Jesus may have used a different calendar than the rest.
A few other incidents happened at that table. Jesus predicted that Peter would deny Jesus’ existence three times before the rooster crowed. Guess what Peter did a few days later?
What’s better is that, during the meal, in a casual tone, Jesus said someone would betray him that night. This led to a mini-conspiracy theory for all the disciples to chew on. Turned out, Jesus knew it was Judas who would betray him.
After supper, Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray and asked God not to go through with his crucifixion.
What’s Passover? It’s a celebration to commemorate the exodus from Egypt.
Passover explains why there was wine at the table of The Last Supper. There are four cups of wine at the table during Passover, each symbolizing something different.
When Jesus went to the garden to pray, he told his disciples to stay awake and keep watch for an hour or so. They fell asleep, so Jesus yelled at them. It may have been from eating too much food at the Last Supper.
