So, the question I ask myself is this? How long did Jesus desire so eagerly to eat ‘this Passover’ with them and why this one? He had eaten many Passovers; He ate at least two with his disciples prior to this one; but this one was to be the last one, thence He waited with anticipation. It must have been important for the apostle John, who, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote five chapters to record the whole experience of that very eventful night; these were the last hours that Jesus lived with them in His mortal body. John must have cherished these moments all his life, for when he wrote the account of those final hours, he was an old man of at least 85, imprisoned on the isle of Patmos, yet, as one reads it, it gives one the impression that it all happened like yesterday! So, what was so special about this Passover? It all had to do with: ‘That Hour’!

“After Jesus said this, He looked towards heaven and prayed: Father, the Hour is come.” God works minutely, so in His economy, Jesus had come for that important ‘Hour’! His mission reached the end and as He came to offer Himself and die for our sins, the hour, this special time, this hour, ushered the conclusion to His mission on earth. Immediately, after He took the disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane where he was apprehended to be crucified! God does not work to a human calendar. He is not tied up to seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and so on; eternity cannot be measured like is our earthly existence. In heaven there are neither nights nor days, no time to sleep and no time to wake up, no sunrise and no sunsets; from heaven God moves on earth according to circumstances, which He plans and brings to fruition according to His will, everything works according to His plan, I shall mention it a lot later!

Into time, by God’s will, came to earth Jesus, with a specific purpose. According to God’s wisdom, circumstances on the earth have reached their fullness, so He sent His son Jesus as it is written: “But when the time had fully come, God send His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those under Law.” (Galatians 4: 4) From the moment Jesus was born the clock started ticking, when He was eight days old, He had to be circumcised, at twelve years of age He became a fully pledged Jew and so His parents, who were going each year for the Passover feast, took Jesus to Jerusalem for the first time, to celebrate with them the ‘Passover’! Luke alone mentions this important occasion, and says: “Then (when the feast was over) He went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them…And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and men.’ (Luke 2: 41-52) 

If Luke had not mentioned the event, that happened when Jesus was twelve years of age, we would have not known anything about Jesus until he reached thirty years of age at which time, He left Nazareth to begin His public ministry.  It is Luke again who alone mentions that: ‘Jesus was about thirty years old when He began His ministry’. (Luke 3:23) From the time that Joseph left Egypt, to settle in Nazareth, except for what Luke mentions about Jesus previously, we may presume that He spent about twenty- six years of His life as a carpenter, totally unknown to the world! Who would have thought that this man, would turn around the destiny the world, and change the life of millions of people, and finally, take them out of time into eternity? 

There was a time set for Jesus to go and meet John the Baptist to be baptised by Him. So, the clock on earth was always ticking and Jesus was patiently waiting not for a special date, but for an event, prophesied by the prophet Isaiah between the years 716 to 680 BC, some seven centuries before John the Baptist was sent by God to baptise and announce the coming of the Messiah. In Nazareth Jesus knew His time had come so He went to be baptised by Him. There John the Baptist said: “When John saw Jesus said, ‘Look the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. This is the one I meant when I said. A man cometh after me…I myself did not know Him, but the reason I came baptising with water was that He might be revealed to Israel.” (John 1:29-31). Fulfilments of times as set by God in His eternal plan are of utmost importance.