The Passover meal featuring the eating of the Paschal lamb was commanded by God as a memorial to be observed annually by the Jewish people forever (Exodus 12:1–14). As an observant Jew, Jesus faithfully celebrated Passover during his lifetime in obedience to that command. The Gospel of John mentions three Passovers that occurred during the public ministry of Jesus—in John 2:13, John 6:4, and John 11:55.
Many Christians mistakenly think that the meal Jesus ate with his disciples in the upper room, commonly called the “Last Supper,” was the memorial Passover observance that occurred on the day the Paschal lamb was eaten. But it wasn’t. Nevertheless, it was a Passover meal.
To understand the chronology, it must be remembered that the Feast of Unleavened Bread, a seven-day festival observance, was also referred to as “the Passover” (Luke 22:1). When Jesus told his disciples, “With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22:15), he was using the term in that way.
The crucifixion of Jesus happened during the afternoon before the Passover night meal (with lamb) that year, meaning that the meal in the upper room could not have been the memorial Passover meal during which a sacrificed Paschal lamb was consumed. However, the meal in the upper room was still a Passover meal, since it occurred on the first night of the Feast of Unleavened Bread—also known as the Passover. The Gospel of John confirms that the trial of Jesus by Pilate took place after the upper-room meal and before the crucifixion, another witness to the fact that the “Last Supper” was not the memorial Passover meal (John 19:14).
But if it wasn’t the memorial Passover meal with lamb commanded for Jews, then what was it?
In his discourse in the upper room, Jesus explained by giving a new focus to the Passover Seder for those who were, and would be, under the New Covenant. Jesus’ command to his disciples during the “Last Supper”—“this do in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19)—referred to the eating of unleavened bread symbolic of his body, as the Lamb of God uncontaminated by the commission of sin, and the drinking of wine symbolic of his blood, which would be shed the next day for the remission of sins for those under the New Covenant (John 6:52–59). His subsequent death on the cross the following day, and resurrection to life on the third day (Matthew 26:29; Luke 22:20), forever after brought the Passover Seder to its full meaning in God’s plan of redemption for all mankind.
The apostles, being good Jews, would still have celebrated the memorial Passover (the one commemorating the deliverance of the children of Israel from Egypt) on that night after the crucifixion—while the body of Jesus was in the tomb. However, after the resurrection and ascension, and the initiation of the New Covenant victory over death confirmed by Jesus with his shed blood, the Old Covenant Passover took on its full meaning for the followers of Jesus, who were all Jews in the earliest years.
On the first memorial Passover night after the Last Supper and the subsequent crucifixion that happened immediately afterward, and while Jesus was separated from the apostles by death and his body lay in the tomb, they celebrated the Old Covenant Passover by remembering him and his confirmation of the New Covenant as he had commanded.
Today, we affirm that Jesus is our salvation—our Passover—through the sacrament of Holy Communion: the symbolic eating of his body (bread) and drinking of his blood (wine) of the New Covenant, just as he commanded his followers to do. In observing the sacrament of Holy Communion, we do so as an expression of faith in Jesus, who in this present age is not physically with us here on Earth, but instead is alive and seated in heaven at the right hand of the Father. More importantly, it is a reminder that one day soon Jesus will bodily return, and he will be with us—and we will be physically one with him—forever.
Many modern New Covenant Jewish followers of Jesus observe Passover on the date of the modern Old Covenant Jewish Passover observed by their Jewish kinsmen, celebrating each year a New Covenant Seder in their Messianic synagogues. And Bible-believing New Covenant congregations around the world celebrate Jesus our Passover every time we gather together to observe Holy Communion in his name.
From a chronological standpoint, it should be noted that the crucifixion took place on a Thursday, not a Friday, and that the year of the Crucifixion was 30 CE. That year can be calculated from Daniel’s Seventy Weeks prophecy, which requires that Jesus’ ministry began in 28 CE. Once the start of Jesus’ public ministry is confirmed as beginning in the year 28 CE, it is a simple matter of calculating the three Passovers mentioned in the Book of John, the first occurring in 28 CE, the second in 29 CE, and the third being the Passover of the Passion Week in 30 CE, to verify that the Crucifixion took place in 30 CE.