One of my special, spiritual daughters is Marie Bepete.
She is the wife of Bishop Luckie (Peter) Bepete, the African and Foreign Mission Bishop.
He oversees the churches and ministries outside of America that are a part of the Fellowship of Interdependent Churches (F.O.I.C.) (where I serve as Senior Bishop and Prelate). Bishop Bepete and his wife, Maria, live in Cape Town, South Africa.
She graciously, with the consent of her husband, came to help my wife during her second hip replacement surgery recovery period. She was here a little over a month.
For some time now, I have been the primary cook in my house.
During Maria’s stay, she convinced me that she truly enjoys my cooking. When I came in from the grocery store with some of the food items that I had planned to cook, I said to her, “This will be our last supper.” The idea for this article immediately came to my mind.
How many of you can recall the last meal, whether it was a breakfast, lunch, or dinner you shared with a special person, loved one, or comrade and colleague? Of course, we who have any biblical knowledge of the life of Jesus Christ are quite familiar with the origin of the term, the Last Supper. It was one of the most prominent moments of His life and ministry that has been further memorialized by the great renaissance artist and inventor, Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, The Last Supper. I wonder how many of you can recall the last meal you shared with someone who you held dear in your life.
Too often, we tend to take these very cherished and treasured moments in our lives for granted until something we see or hear rekindles the remembrance of the special event that is cemented in our minds. I venture to say that most of us least suspected that it would be a last supper event. How could we have known, except by divine revelation or premonition that it would be the last birthday meal, the last Thanksgiving meal, the last Christmas meal, the last wedding anniversary meal, or any other meal for a special occasion that we would share together?
There is absolutely no way I would have known that when I ate the last Christmas meal at my sister’s house (where my brothers and I would gather with other family members) would be the last meal prepared by her that we would eat together.
This issue of the last supper is not a trivial topic, but a very important one because it takes us back to a time when we feasted and fellowshipped with people who were near and dear to us. There are perhaps few things that we do with friends and family members that can foster a bond of belonging and brotherhood like feasting and fellowshipping together over a delicious meal.
I am going to shift to a category of last suppers that are historical. To follow me, you must use your imagination as we traverse back in time to a few last suppers that led up to some essential events that altered the course of history. In 1963, Medgar and Myrlie Evers did not know that they would have their last meal on the very day he would be assassinated on June 12th.
Five short months later, President John F. Kennedy and his wife, First Lady Jackie Kennedy, did not know that they would share their last meal together on November 2, 1963, in Dallas, Texas (where he would be assassinated on that same day).
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King, had the faintest idea that when he left Atlanta and arrived in Memphis, Tennessee that the meal they shared together at home would be their last supper (since he was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis).
President Abraham Lincoln and First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln certainly did not know that the meal they shared together in the White House before attending the Ford Theater would be their last supper. On the evening of April 15, 1865, he would be the first president to be assassinated.
As impactful and consequential as all these last suppers were in history, they are minute in comparison to the event where the term is derived.
Only one of the thirteen people who were present at that most momentous of last suppers knew of the eternal and essential events that were about to unfold. Only He knew who the traitor was among them, who would sell him out for thirty pieces of silver and betray Him with a kiss as they individually asked Him, “Is it me Lord”?
Without any doubt, He saw the mock trial where He would be declared guilty of a crime He had not committed. He saw the Way of Suffering, the Crucifixion, the Entombment, and the Consummation through the Resurrection.
Thank God for the Last Supper that was the catalyst and trigger event that was a part of the unfolding drama and sequence of events that changed the world forever.