Matthew 26-27:10

What’s Happening?

Matthew shows us two meals that anticipate Jesus’ sacrifice.

In the first meal, an unnamed woman brings expensive perfume and pours it on Jesus to prepare him for burial (Matthew 26:7). Bodies were not prepared until after death, but Jesus explains that this anointing has prepared him ahead of his sacrifice.

The second meal is Passover, first instituted on the eve of Israel’s escape from slavery in Egypt (Exodus 12:3). During that meal, the blood of the lamb was painted on the doorframes as a covenantal sign that the people belonged to God and were leaving Egypt’s fate behind. The lamb’s blood marked their households as God’s family, distinguished from Egypt, and ready to walk out into freedom.

Now Jesus takes the bread and wine of Passover and reinterprets them. The bread is his body, and the wine is his blood (Matthew 26:26). With these words, Jesus is saying that through his life poured out, a new covenant family is being created. Those who share in his meal belong to him, freed from the death and slavery of sin, and brought into the life he is leading.

After this meal, Jesus and his disciples go to a garden to pray. Judas, the chief priests, and an armed crowd arrive to arrest him (Matthew 26:47). One disciple tries to fight, but Jesus rebukes him. Jesus says he could call on thousands of angels in a moment, but he won’t—because the Scriptures must be fulfilled.

Jesus is taken before the high priest where false testimony is raised against him (Matthew 26:59). Finally, when asked directly if he is the Messiah, the Son of God, Jesus says yes. In rage, the leaders call for the death penalty (Matthew 26:64).

Where is the Gospel?

At the first Passover, God’s people marked their homes with the lamb’s blood. That blood was a covenantal sign. By it, Israel left behind Egypt’s story and was joined to God’s story. They became his people, bound to his promises, and freed from the death that belonged to Egypt.

When Jesus lifts the cup at his final meal and says, “This is my blood of the covenant” (Matthew 26:28), he is showing that his poured-out life is the new doorway into God’s family. His blood marks us as belonging to him, freed from the death and slavery our sins create, and joined to the life he pours out and leads us in.

Jesus could have stopped the angry mob. But he didn’t. He knew his mission: to bring about the new covenant people of God through his death and resurrection. Like the woman who anointed him, we, too, can see Jesus’ death not as defeat but as the moment he prepared the way for us to join God’s household.

See for Yourself

May the Holy Spirit open your eyes to see the God who brings people out of slavery into covenantal life with him. And may you see Jesus as the true Passover Lamb whose blood marks us as family, delivering us from death into his life.