Luke 22:7-23, Jesus and the Passover Seder

There is debate as to whether Jesus and the disciples ate the traditional “seder” meal.  The traditional liturgy was not established until after 70AD.  But we would expect some oral traditions to be in existence at the time..  I don’t consider it an important question.  What is important is that Jesus captured the “Passover” moment for His own use, making the connection between Himself and Passover.  Today’s excerpt from Meyer’s NT Commentary seeks to fit the with the NT record.

According to the Rabbis, the order of the Passover meal was as follows—(1) It began with drinking wine, before partaking of which, however, the head of the family offered up thanks for the wine and the return of that sacred day. (2) Then bitter herbs intended to represent the bitter life of their forefathers in Egypt were put upon the table, some of which being dipped in a sour or brinish liquid, were eaten amid thanksgivings. (3) The unleavened bread, the broth charoset (see on Matthew 26:23), the lamb and the flesh of the chagiga (see on John 18:28), were now presented. (4) Thereupon the head of the family took as much of the bitter herbs as might be equal to the size of an olive, dipped it in the broth charoset, and then ate it, all the other guests following his example. (5) The second cup of wine was now mixed, and at this stage the father, at the request of his son, was expected to explain to him the peculiarities of the several parts of this meal. (6) Then came the singing of the first part of the Hallel (Psalms 113, 114), another short thanksgiving by the father, and the drinking of the second cup. (7) The father then washed his hands, took two pieces of bread, broke one of them, laid the broken pieces upon that which remained whole, rolled a piece of the broken bread in bitter herbs, dipped this into the broth charoset, and ate, after having given thanks; he then took some of the chagiga, after another thanksgiving, and so also with regard to the lamb. (8) The feast was now continued by the guests partaking as they felt inclined, concluding, however, with the father eating the last bit of the lamb, after which no one was at liberty to eat anything more. The father now washed his hands, and, praise having been offered, the third cup was drunk. Then came the singing of the second part of the Hallel (Psalms 115-118) and the drinking of the fourth cup, …, with the final singing of Psalms 120-137.

Seeing that, according to this order, the feasting, strictly speaking, did not begin till No. 8 … the eating under No. 8 is the stage at which the Lord’s supper was instituted; so that the bread which Jesus took and brake would not be that mentioned under No. 7 but the particular bread with which, as they all knew, He had just instituted the supper. He would have violated the Passover itself if He had proclaimed any new and peculiar symbolism in connection with the bread before conforming, in the first place, to the popular ceremonial observed at this feast, and before the less formal and peculiarly festive part of the proceedings was reached.