And the first day of unleavened bread, when they slew the passover, his disciples say to him, Where wilt thou that we go and prepare, that thou mayest eat the passover?
The whole verse turns on timing. On the day Israel killed the Passover lambs, the disciples asked Jesus where to prepare the meal — and His answer shows who was in charge of that week.
Some have argued the Lord held His supper a day early. The date given here settles it.
The fact that it was already the first day of Unleavened Bread proves He did not keep the Passover before the appointed time, as many have thought. Matthew, Mark and Luke all give this same note of time, and Mark and Luke add that it was the day when they killed the Passover lamb.
The date matters for a second reason.
People had kept the Passover for many centuries. Those who ate it knew it marked Israel's rescue from Egypt. Few, if any, realized that it also looked forward to the death of the Messiah. Now they would eat it one last time before it was fulfilled.
The disciples had no plan of their own.
The Lord Jesus had no home of His own, but He knew exactly how to lay His hand on everything needed for the service of God. The owner of the guest room was no doubt someone who knew Him and honored Him. The disciples knew their Master was enough. They tried nothing on their own. They simply asked Him what to do, and did it. So the One who had nowhere to lay His head had no shortage of room for this last meeting with His own.
The same habit fits Christians deciding where to meet.
The disciples wanted to know His will about the preparations, so the Lord sent two of them to get the evening ready — the day began at evening. How good for us to depend on His guidance too whenever His people gather. We ought to admit that we are not able to settle this ourselves.
His answer was not a request. It was a claim.
He was going to die, yet He went there with royal, Divine rights. He had not lost His place as Messiah, though He was going to suffer as Son of man on the cross. So He takes possession as the Master, and the owner of the house agrees to His claim at once. He saw it all. He had no shortage of power to work on people's consciences and hearts. He could have turned everyone else as He bowed this man's heart. But then how would the Scriptures be fulfilled, sin blotted out, and God glorified? So He had to go to the cross — not as a victim of forces beyond His control, but as One whose only will was to do the will of His Father.
One word in Mark's account ties this room to the night Jesus was born.
The word used for the inn at our Lord's birth in Luke 2:7 appears only once more in the New Testament: the large upper room where the Lord ate the last supper with His disciples… In Mark 14:14 we find the same question as in Luke 22:11, but one word changes in the better reading of the Greek text: "Where is My guest room, where I may eat the Passover with My disciples?" Yes — it was His guest room, His disciples, and His supper.
John's Gospel places the last meal "before the Feast of the Passover." Some take that to mean the Lord ate it a day early. One writer answers from Jewish custom.
We can be confident that the Lord and His disciples ate that first meal at much the same time as the rest of the Jews… Once you allow for Jewish custom, nothing in John 18:28 conflicts with Mark 14:12, and John 19:14 only fixes the day and hour of what Mark describes. The "mistake" critics have charged Matthew, Mark and Luke with is imaginary.
Another answers from the law itself.
But there is no ground for thinking the Passover could be kept early. The law set one time only for killing the lamb: the evening of the 14th of Nisan. The Lord would certainly not have broken the law.
- The day: Unleavened Bread fixes the date. He kept the feast at the hour God had set, not a day early.
- The question: the disciples planned nothing themselves. They asked Him, then did what He said.
- The Master: the owner of the house agreed at once. He could bow any heart He chose.
- The room: the Man with nowhere to lay His head calls it "My guest room" — His room, His disciples, His supper.
- The fulfilment: for centuries the Passover looked back to Egypt. This was the last one before the death it pointed to.
And he sends two of his disciples, and says to them, Go into the city, and a man shall meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him.
The Passover is near, and the plot to kill Jesus is already moving. Yet He sends two disciples into the city with a sign to follow, and He gives His orders like a man who owns the place.
He does not ask the owner for a favour. He speaks as one with a right to the room.
It was One who, though He was going to die, still went there with royal, Divine rights. He had not forfeited His place as Messiah, though going to suffer as Son of Man on the cross. He therefore takes possession as the Master, and the master of the house at once agrees to His claim. All was before His eyes. There was no lack of power to act on the conscience and affections of men. He could have turned every other heart as He bowed this man's heart. But then how could the Scriptures have been fulfilled, and sin blotted out, and God glorified? So He had to go to the cross — not as a victim forced by circumstances, but as One whose only will was to do His Father's will, accepting all His humiliation from Him.
The errand looks small: a walk into the city, a man to follow, a meal to get ready.
The events that prepare the way for the supper are simple in themselves. Yet they display the glory of the Person of the Lord. He sends two disciples ahead to prepare the feast. The Lord is going to death, but He is still the King. His royal rights can claim the guest chamber, and everyone must submit to His sovereign will. What is more, He is a divine Person to whom everything is known. The man with the "pitcher of water," "the master of the house," the "large upper room furnished," are all before His eyes.
Why a jar of water? The Lord chose a sign the two men could not miss.
The Lord's foreknowledge is strikingly displayed. Carrying the water was the task of the women; a man bearing a pitcher of water was a very uncommon sight. Yet He knew there would be a man doing this unusual thing, and that Peter and John would meet him as they entered the city. He knew also that the master of the house would answer the message the disciples brought in the name of "the Master." No doubt that man recognised the Master as his own Master. He was one of the godly people in Jerusalem who acknowledged the Lord's claims, and the Lord knew how to lay His hand on him.
Mark tells us how many went, but not who. The four Gospels together fill in the picture, and one writer leaves himself out of his own record.
In Matthew the disciples come to the Lord to ask where to prepare the Passover supper, but we are not told who did it. Mark says it was two disciples. Luke tells us that these two disciples were Peter and John. John, with his usual reserve, says nothing about who prepared it.
Commentators differ on what the man with the jar pictures. One links him to the water vessels of the Old Testament:
The Old Testament often speaks of vessels of water. They stand for a small measure of the ministry of the Word of God. In the New Testament, "a well of water" and "rivers of living water" show the unlimited flowing out of the ministry of God's Word by the power of the Spirit of God. So the man carrying the pitcher of water shows that the limited ministry of the Old Testament leads somewhere — to the "large upper room furnished and prepared," a picture of the heavenly character of the church, in contrast with Israel's earthly inheritance and blessings.
Another writer sees in the man a picture of how God leads His people today.
This man may be seen as a picture of the Holy Spirit's activity in leading and guiding us, using the word of God.
The two asked the Lord first, and only then did He tell them where to go. That order matters.
How good to see that the disciples did not trust themselves to decide where to prepare the Passover. Instead, they asked Him to direct them. Without this simple faith, they could not have expected His miraculous answer to their question.
- Sent — Two disciples go on an errand. Mark counts them. Luke names them Peter and John. John says nothing of his own part.
- Sovereign — On His way to the cross He still claims a room in Jerusalem by royal, divine right. The owner gives it at once.
- Seeing — The man with the jar, the master of the house, the furnished room: He saw them all before the two men left.
- Sign — A man carrying water was an unusual sight. Commentators differ on the picture: some see the small measure of Old Testament ministry leading on to something greater, others see the Spirit guiding by the Word.
- Submitting — They asked before they decided. That simple faith is what put them in the way of His answer.
And wheresoever he enters, say to the master of the house, The Teacher says, Where is my guest-chamber where I may eat the passover with my disciples?
Jesus sends two disciples into Jerusalem with strange directions. They must follow a man carrying a jar of water and speak to the owner of the house he enters. The message is short. It settles who owns the room, who owns the meal, and who is in charge on the night before the cross.
The message asks nothing and explains nothing. It is the word of One who kept His royal rights on the way to death, and who went to that death by His own choice.
Now comes the supper of the Passover feast at Jerusalem. There the Lord acts as Master of that institution and Creator of a greater one… He was going to die, yet He went there with royal, divine rights. He had not given up His place as Messiah, though He was going to suffer as Son of Man on the cross. So He takes possession as the Master, and the master of the house at once agrees to His claim. All was before His eyes. He had no lack of power to work on the conscience and affections of men. He could have turned all the others as He bowed this man's heart. But then how would the Scriptures have been fulfilled, and sin blotted out, and God glorified? It was necessary that He should go to the cross — not as a victim forced into it, but as One whose only will was to do the will of His Father.
Jerusalem's leaders had rejected Him, yet the owner of this house says yes to a title spoken by two strangers at his door. He was not the only one in the city who still belonged to Jesus.
The Lord could provide for His royal entry, and He could provide this last token of love to His disciples too… He knew a faithful remnant in the middle of the evil and the rejection. The disciples did not know them. They were people no one had noticed, and to them it was enough to say, "The Teacher says."
The One asking for a room owned no house in the city. That left Him short of nothing, and it shaped how the disciples ran the errand.
The Lord Jesus had no home of His own, but He knew well how to put His hand on all that was needed for the service of God. The disciples knew that their Master was enough. They did nothing on their own. They looked to Him for direction and acted on it. So the One who had nowhere to lay His head had no lack of suitable accommodation for the last meeting with His own.
The word points to an ordinary custom of the city at festival time.
Records tell us that at feast times in Jerusalem many people came from distant places. Those living in the city who were able gave up a room for the use of any who came to worship. That is where we get the term "guest chamber." The disciples found such a room ready, furnished and prepared. There the Lord kept the last Passover with His disciples.
Mark's wording differs from Luke's by one word. The word behind "guest room" has a history of its own.
The Greek word for "guest room" is used in the story of our Lord's birth, in Luke 2:7, where "there was no place for them in the inn." The only other time it appears in the New Testament is when the Lord ate the last supper with His disciples in the large upper room. The Lord told Peter and John to say to the master of the house, "The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with My disciples?" (Luke 22:11). In Mark 14:14 we find the same question, but one word is changed in the better reading of the Greek text: "Where is My guest room, where I may eat the Passover with My disciples?" Yes, it was His guest room, His disciples, and His supper.
The borrowed room suited Him, and it says where those who follow Him belong.
The "guest chamber" is our true position in a world where Jesus is not. It is a place where a man puts up for the night. The place tells you the character of the one who occupies it. He does not belong to the established order of things… Let Christendom have its costly buildings and its grand temples. The "guest chamber" is the place that suits the followers of Him who had nowhere to lay His head.
- His claim. He goes to the cross without surrendering His rights — He asks for nothing. He takes possession as Master, and the owner of the house agrees at once.
- His people. In a city set on killing Him, quiet followers nobody had noticed were still His. For them three words, "The Teacher says," were enough.
- His room. The better reading makes it My guest chamber — His room, His disciples, His supper — claimed by a Man who owned no house at all.
- His provision. Having nowhere to lay His head left Him short of nothing. He knew how to lay His hand on whatever the service of God required. The disciples did only what He told them.
- His pattern. A room borrowed for one night suited Him. It marks His followers as people who do not belong to the present order of things.
and *he* will shew you a large upper room furnished ready. There make ready for us.
The Lord sends two disciples into Jerusalem with no address and no booking — only a man to follow and a message to deliver. They find a room already large, already furnished, already waiting — and the question is how it came to be ready.
The Lord had settled everything before the disciples set out. Nobody had asked the householder, yet he gives up the room at once.
He sends two of His disciples, and says to them, Go into the city, and a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water: follow him... And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us. He was going to die, yet He still went there with royal, divine rights. He had not lost His place as Messiah, though He was going to suffer as Son of Man on the cross. So He takes possession as the Master, and the master of the house accepts His claim at once. All was before His eyes. There was no lack of power to act on the conscience and affections of men. He could have turned all others as He bowed this man's heart.
The Greek word behind "guest room" is rare.
One writer follows it from the night of the Lord's birth to this room, and points to the wording of the request in Mark:
This is the word used in the story of our Lord's birth, in Luke 2:7, when "there was no place for them in the inn." The only other place this word appears in the New Testament is when the Lord ate the last supper with His disciples in the large upper room... "The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with My disciples?" (Luke 22:11). Mark 14:14 has the same question. But in the better reading of the Greek text, one word changes: "Where is My guest room...?" Yes, it was His guest room; His disciples; and His supper.
He owned no house in the city. The room was not His property.
The Lord Jesus had no home of His own, but He knew well how to put His hand on all that was needed for the service of God. The owner of the guest-chamber was doubtless someone who knew and revered Him. The disciples knew that their Master was enough. They attempted nothing on their own initiative, but simply looked to Him for direction, and acted on it. So the One who had nowhere to lay His head had no lack of suitable accommodation for the last meeting with His own.
One writer reads the room as a picture as well as a fact — both its size and its floor.
Christianity is large, because it is eternal. It is large, because it has to do with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Christianity is large because it breathes the air of resurrection... Judaism was like a room on the ground floor: it offered earthly blessings... But Christianity offers no earthly blessings — ours are heavenly. The room is an upper one, because the disciples were, in figure, to be removed from the influences of the earth. The upper room is not the Father's house; that will be ours when we see Christ, and in heaven. But now the Lord can say of us, "They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world."
The room was already equipped. The disciples had only to prepare the meal in it. The same writer applies that to how believers gather.
Christianity is complete in itself... The mind of man seeks to add what is impressive to the service of God... They seek the outside help of oratory, music, and various organisations. These cater to the cravings of unconverted men or worldly Christians for something less severe than early Christianity. And they forget that the Holy Spirit holds everything needed for life, enjoyment, and service. The upper room is furnished. A true sense of this would stop many from trying to help the Lord's things along with aids outside the Holy Spirit's power.
- Known. The water carrier, the householder, the room itself — every detail stood before the Lord's eyes before the disciples left. He improvised nothing.
- Claimed. In the better reading of Mark, He asks for My guest room. The house belonged to another man. The room belonged to Christ, and the owner gave it up without argument.
- Given. The One with nowhere to lay His head lacked no place for His last meal with His own. He had no home, yet He could put His hand on all that the service of God needed.
- Furnished. The room came equipped. Nobody had to bring anything in. One writer applies this to worship that needs no human additions.
- Upper. They ate above the ground floor — a picture of a people no longer at home in the world, though not yet in the Father's house.
And his disciples went away and came into the city, and found as he had said to them; and they made ready the passover.
Two disciples go into Jerusalem with only a description to guide them: a man carrying a water jar, a house, an upper room. Everything is there as He said — so how could a Man walking to His death command a room He had never entered?
The details the disciples had to find were not guesses. Two things stand behind this errand: royal rights, and full knowledge.
The incidents that prepare the way for the supper are simple in themselves, but they display the glory of the Person of the Lord. The Lord is going to death, but none the less He is the King with royal rights who can claim the guest chamber, and to whose sovereign will all must submit. Moreover, He is a divine Person to whom everything is known. The man with the "pitcher of water," "the master of the house," the "large upper room furnished," are all before His eyes. The disciples go out to carry out His instructions, and they find everything happening just as He said.
He bent one stranger's heart to open his house. Why not bend every heart in Jerusalem and escape the cross?
Though He was going to die, He still went there with royal, divine rights. He had not forfeited His place as Messiah, though going to suffer as Son of man on the cross. He therefore takes possession as the Master, and the master of the house at once agrees to His claim. All was before His eyes. There was no lack of power to act upon the conscience and affections of men. He could have turned all others as He bowed this man's heart. But how then should the Scriptures have been fulfilled, and sin blotted out, and God glorified?
The owner of the house is never named, and he never argues. Something had happened there before the disciples ever knocked.
He tells His disciples to go into the city, where they would find a man carrying a pitcher full of water. In the house where he would enter, they would find a heart prepared by grace to receive the Lord... He knows all circumstances and all hearts: the disciples find the man as He had told them, and prepare the passover.
The disciples asked Him where to prepare instead of choosing a place themselves. That dependence got them everything they needed.
The Lord Jesus had no home of His own, but He knew well how to put His hand on all that was needed for the service of God. The owner of the guest-chamber was doubtless someone who knew and revered Him. The disciples knew that their Master was enough. They attempted nothing on their own initiative, but simply looked to Him for direction, and acted on it. So the One who had nowhere to lay His head did not lack a suitable place for the last meeting with His own.
The meal they set out was the last of its kind. The people who had kept this feast for centuries had missed what it pointed to.
The Passover had been celebrated for many centuries. Those who ate it knew that it commemorated Israel's deliverance from Egypt. Few, if any, realized that it looked forward to the death of the Messiah. Now it would be eaten for the last time before it was fulfilled.
The room they got ready became the setting for something new. Commentators differ over the details: one sees a picture in the man with the water jar, others take the scene as plain fact.
This man may picture for us the Holy Spirit, and the pitcher of water the Word of God. We are to go where the Spirit and the Word of God would lead us... So they went and found things just as He had said, and they ate the Passover supper with the Lord in this room. In that same room, after the Passover meal, the Lord's supper — the new institution for the Church — was also instituted.
- He knew. The water carrier, the house and the furnished room were all before His eyes before the disciples left. They found what He had already seen.
- He claimed. Going to death did not cancel His rights — He took the room as Master, and the owner submitted at once.
- He prepared. Grace had made the heart that opened the house ready; He knows all circumstances and all hearts.
- He supplied. The One with nowhere to lay His head lacked nothing for the service of God. The disciples who tried nothing on their own found it so.
- He fulfilled. This was the last Passover before it was fulfilled. In that same room, the Supper for His own began.
And when evening was come, he comes with the twelve.
Two disciples had gone ahead to get the Passover ready. Now evening falls, and Jesus arrives with the twelve — a fixed hour, a named company, and a traitor at the table.
Mark's note of time is not vague. The Passover law fixed the hour: the lamb died between the evenings, and the meal that followed opened a new day on the Jewish calendar.
In Mark 14:12, 17 we find that the two disciples appointed for the work went and made ready the Passover. They did it on the day when the lamb was to be killed — that is, between the evenings of the fourteenth of the month. And when evening came, the Lord gathered with the twelve to eat it. The lamb was killed between the evenings, and they ate it after its proper preparation in the evening — that is, at the start of the fifteenth of Nisan. This agrees with its original institution in Exodus 12. The phrase in Mark, "when it was evening," allows such a meaning, and really begins a new day.
Mark records one detail about their calling that no other Gospel gives.
The first of their qualifications is of special interest, because Mark alone mentions it — they were to be "with Him." … Here we have the calling of those destined to carry on the service and testimony of the gospel in the whole world after He left. Do we not therefore see how fitting this is? The writer who describes the perfect Servant of Jehovah shows us that the servants under Him learned their service in the company of the Master Himself.
The Passover was a yearly reminder that God had brought Israel out of slavery in Egypt. Sitting down to it that night, the One presiding was Himself about to bring about a rescue of another order.
In the evening He comes with the twelve, and they sat down to share the Passover. It was the memorial of the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt. The Lord was about to carry out a far greater deliverance for His people. This eternal redemption required His death, and that death would come through the betrayal of one of the twelve.
"The twelve" means all twelve. Judas ate with them and asked his question with them. So what does his presence prove about who may share the Lord's table?
"When it was evening, he reclined at table with the twelve disciples" (Matt. 26:20). So also Mark 14:17. … Scripture clearly mentions Judas taking part in the feast and asking a question. … We do not see how anyone can question that Judas was present at the supper. Only the Lord knew his character. His fellow apostles did not seem to suspect him. But to argue from this case that we ought to allow known evil at the Lord's table is simply wicked.
Judas sat as close to Jesus as a man could sit. His case proves something terrible:
One of that company which was chosen to be with Jesus here below was to prove this awful truth — that the nearer a man is outwardly to blessing, if he does not receive it into his heart, the further away from it he is morally.
Mark also shows what followed this meal, and in what order.
Look at Mark 14. In Mark, as in Matthew, we find more attention to the order of events. Verses 17 to 21 give the Passover meal; verse 22 gives the Lord's Supper. Note here that the conversation about who should betray Him came before the Supper.
- Hour. The lamb died between the evenings, and the meal that followed opened the fifteenth of Nisan — the day Exodus 12 set for it.
- Company. Mark alone records why these twelve were called — to be "with Him," servants who learned their service from the perfect Servant.
- Meaning. They ate a memorial of rescue from Egypt. The One at the table was about to work a far greater rescue by His own death.
- Exposure. Judas ate as one of the twelve. The others never suspected him, but the Lord knew him. Nearness to blessing the heart never receives leaves a man furthest from it.
- Order. Mark keeps the sequence. The Passover comes first, then the warning about the betrayer, and only then, in verse 22, the Supper.