Over the next few blog posts I will be writing about my findings in certain verses that pertain to The Last Supper.

John 13: 1-5 

The first verse in John 13 directly refers to a feast that was about to commence during the Jewish holiday of Passover. The term “feast” is similar in all the religions we study in this class, as it refers to a special occasion, festival, or holy day. Each of these religions had its own set of principles and standards that had to be followed to fulfill all their obligations. Passover, as I said before, is a Jewish holiday, but what has not been explicitly stated is that it is a festival in Judaism to celebrate the Israelites’ escape from slavery in Egypt. Passover in the Hebrew Bible required a pilgrimage (a sacred journey) to Jerusalem, as this is where they originally celebrated the festival. Since this select passage occurs in the New Testament but refers to Passover, a Jewish holiday, it can be inferred that this text goes together with the Abrahamic religions. The three main religions of Abrahamic religions are Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. The festival known as Eid al-Adha in Islam is a specific pilgrimage that I want to compare. This specific festival is known otherwise as the “feast of sacrifice” and would require people to travel to Mecca (Cleopatra Egypt Tours 2022). Both feasts share a pilgrimage to a specific location, as it has spiritual significance in what is being celebrated. It is also said in the first verse that he knew his hour had been about to depart from this world to be with his father. This demonstrates that Jesus was more all-knowing, or omniscient than he was in the Old Testament, where he was not. The last thing to note is that Jesus did something no one thought he would do by washing the feet of his disciples. This was seen as unimaginable, as it was usually seen as one of the jobs of the lowest household servants. This could be seen as a parable (spiritual teaching) in the religious text as he did something no one would expect a divine being like Jesus to do, but he went ahead and did this to show his disciples’ true humility. The parable of humility is similarly important in Hinduism as the book Bhagavad Gita, as it lists humility as the first of 20 qualities that comprise wisdom (Charan 2022).