The Final Evening: The Passion narrative is the account of the suffering and death of Jesus. It normally includes all the events beginning with the garden scene in Gethsemane and finishing with the burial. The centrality of the cross in early Christian preaching is reflected in the major emphasis given to it in each of the four Gospels. Matthew 26 records the events of Wednesday and Thursday of the final week of Jesus’ life.

26:6–13 During the Passover season Jesus apparently spent his evenings in the town of Bethany, located on the southeast slope of the Mount of Olives on the Jericho road less than two miles from Jerusalem. On this occasion he was staying with Simon the Leper (obviously cured earlier but still designated by the epithet). A parallel account in John places the scene in the …