In our passage for today, Jesus leads his disciples in the Passover meal (which they would have expected Him to do). But he did so in an unusual way. He drew the meaning of the whole meal onto Himself. He offered a new commandment, a new covenant, one which we as followers of Christ have been brought into.

And for we who are familiar with the Easter story, we may take all of this for granted. But it may well have come as a great shock to the disciples, which we will see in today’s message, the second in our Easter series, and titled “From Bethany to Gethsemane,” and looking at Matthew 26.