The Last Supper

Lucy Moore

On your marks:

This story ties into The Barnabas Children’s Bible series through the Big Story of Famine and Feast. This session plan is basically a re-enactment of the Last Supper from Matthew's account, with a little bit from Luke, and concentrating on the bread and wine, rather than the footwashing. If you have a particular sacramental tradition in your church, you might want to check with you leader that s/he is happy with what you plan to do. If they're not happy, gently suggest that they come and lead the session instead, or provide you with material they consider suitable.

Get set:

You'll need a cloth and various items of food, depending on how much of a Passover meal you plan to set out and a cut-out or black-and-white picture of bread and wine, plus crayons.

Go!

1. Your aim is to recreate the atmosphere at the Last Supper. Try to help the children enter into the intimacy, the mysteriousness, the 'family traditional celebration meal they had done since they were little' feel to the supper, then the renewing and reinvigorating of the old tradition as Jesus turns it on its head.

Say: ‘Right, we're Jesus' disciples. We've been with him for three years! What have we seen in those three years? What stories have we heard him tell? What miracles has he done? What sort of a person have we discovered that he is? What do you like best about him?

‘Now here we are in Jerusalem, the capital city. Do you remember how, last Sunday, the crowds cheered Jesus on as he came riding in on a donkey? And then Jesus cleared all those nasty money changers out of the temple? And we've watched him all week, with the Pharisees getting crosser and crosser at the things he's saying about God and about them. Jesus and us, we've been out in public, in the crowds all week. But tonight is different. Tonight it's just him and us. Let's shut all the doors and close the curtains to make it cosy.

‘It's a very special festival tonight: the festival of the Passover. We've always had a special meal to celebrate this festival, ever since we were little. So we're really pleased that we're going to be sharing it with Jesus this time.

‘So let's get things ready for him.’
(Here you might want to set up a Passover Meal with the full script as given in Welcome to the Lord's Table: this would help children to link the Last Supper with the escape from Egypt. But if time doesn't permit, you might want to set up a cloth with a cup of blackcurrant juice and a plate with a bread roll or matzo on, and just act out the part of the story from Matthew 26:26 onwards.)

‘And we all share the celebration family meal together, and it's just like when we were little. But then Jesus does something strange. He takes the bread and he breaks it and says, “Take this and eat it. This is my body. Eat this and remember me.”’
(Pass round the bread.)
‘How do you feel? The he takes the wine and says, “This is my blood, and with it, God makes his agreement with you. It will be poured out so that many people will have their sins forgiven. From now on I am not going to drink any wine until I drink new wine with you in my Father's kingdom.”’
(Pass round the wine cup with a wiper.)
‘What does he mean? How do you feel? What do you think is going to happen next?’

2. Talk with the children about the bread and the wine.
How does it feel that we all have a piece of the same bread inside us? And the same wine?
What's special about bread?
What's special about wine?
How real does that bread and wine feel to you?
What stories can you remember from the Bible about bread or wine? Do they help us understand what Jesus is doing here?
Do you think we will ever understand completely everything there is to know about Jesus? Does it matter if we don't?

Talk about what you do for the Eucharist In your church: what is the same as the Last Supper and what is different?
If you were in charge of giving everyone in your church bread and wine to remember Jesus by, how would you do it?
You may want to finish by giving the children large cut-outs of bread on a plate and a wine cup, and asking them to explore these mysteries in their own drawing.

3. An alternative is to choose your favourite Last Supper picture from around the world and use it in the way described in Bringing a picture to life—a dramatic activity.

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