“And when the hour was come, He sat down, and the twelve apostles with Him…. And He took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them…. Likewise also the cup after supper…. And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest” (Luke 22:14-30).
The disciples were around the table and Jesus at the head. Looking upon them there as, indeed, He is now looking upon us here, He saw all that was within them as well as what they actually did and said. Scripture records that during that memorable night they showed that they were men of like passions with ourselves—changeable, unreliable, sometimes impulsive in love and earnest zeal, and at other times carried away by foolish and wicked thoughts.
The disciples should have known what was before their Master. Only a few days previous, Jesus had said to the twelve, “We go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn Him to death, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify” (Matt. 20:17-19). Jews and Gentiles would unite in His crucifixion and death. He had told them on three separate occasions of His death (Matt. 16:21; 17:22,23; 20:17-19). You would have thought that their interest in and expectation of this startling event would have been quickened on that night—the Passover night. What did the blood of the lamb typify? Did it not recall the hour of judgment and death passed long ago in Egypt? Did not the Lord say when He sat down with them, “With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22:15)?
Had the apostles considered seriously what the Lord had said to them about His rejection and death, would they not have entered that room with solemn hearts and chastened spirits? Would they not have been filled with a foreboding sense of the sorrow and pain before their beloved Master? We find, however, that they were engaged in petty quarrels, struggling among themselves as to who should be greatest among them (Luke 22:24). Observing, I suppose, the disciple whom Jesus loved taking the place nearest to Him, their jealousy was aroused. Why should John be there? Why not another of them?
What a grief this painful altercation must have been to our Lord! He was contemplating the morrow when He would bear their sins in His own body on the tree—just such selfish sins as these. They could not understand His loving purpose. They were unable to enter into the grief before Him. Such lack of spiritual feeling and sympathy was the sorrowful result after His three years’ service with them. There was for Him no comforter, no sympathizer, none that cared, even among His own. Do not let us judge them too harshly; let us rather judge ourselves. Are we never guilty of the indulgence of unworthy thoughts at the table of the Lord? In the most solemn moments, when the Spirit of God is making to live again before us the hour of suffering at Calvary, thoughts may even then arise in our hearts, altogether out of harmony with the subject of the Spirit of God. We must know that often we ought to bow our heads in shame when our Lord looks round upon us as we are eating His Supper, because thoughts intrude into our hearts which ought never to be there at such a holy season.
(From The Institution of the Lord’s Supper as Recorded in the Gospels.)