THE HOLY BIBLE

 “Merciful Father, as you have sent the Holy Spirit on Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, to write all that You wished and wanted, we pray You, send the same Holy Spirit on us, so that we may understand, appreciate Your Word, and make it our plan of life. This we ask for the merits of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.” 

                                            

21      The Upper Room

Jesus held His Last Supper, in the Upper Room where the apostles, later on , after His death, hid for fear of the Jews. In the same room the Holy Spirit descended on them. The ‘upper room’ was an important room in the Oriental house. We find reference to it in 2Kings, 1:2;  2Kings, 23:12;     Acts, 9,37;          Acts 20,8 …..

Not everyone could afford to have an upper room…. Those who could not afford it had to content with a small shack or booth, to provide them with some cool air during the hot summer days. It also served as an accommodation for any guest.  The building of more than one room upstairs meant a change in the name, in the designation; it would have been called a ‘summer house’, unlike the groundfloor which was designated as the ‘winter house’.

In the Old Testament we find the the famous upper room built for Prophet Elisha, where he could stay and pray. So that the guest would not disturb the family living downstairs, with his coming and going, they used to build a flight of steps on the outside of the house. In my childhood, I remember these stairs  in old farmhouses. In this way the guest, be it a Prophet or otherwise, could go up and down whenever he felt the need. In this room one would find the bare necessities; a bed, a table,  a stool and oil wick for light. The candles, as yet had not been invented.

When we refer to the New Testament, we often meet with the Upper Room. Recall the fact when Jesus sent two of His disciples to an inn to prepare for the Passover  Meal, and this had to take place in the Upper Chamber’. Who, one day, visits the Holy Land, God willing, will surely be taken to the ‘Upper Room’, where the Last Supper of Jesus took place. Once you are in it, you will be overwhelmed with emotions, recalling all that took place in that Room.

During the Last Supper, we have the most beautiful Prayer of Jesus, in it He thanks God the Father for giving Him the followers Apostles, disciples and others, He declares that he has taken good care of them…. One should read it and meditate on it. Then we have the Betrayal of Judas from Kerioth…after having eaten the ‘sop’ given to him by Jesus. (to be dealt with later)

Then, we have the Institution of the Holy Eucharist. Later on, this same room served as a hiding place for the apostles after the death and entombment of their Master, Jesus. In this same room the Holy Spirit enlightened the Apostles. One can’t hold back the emotions of the memory of all these incidents that took place, when you feel you are standing right where they all happened.

With the great influx of thousands of Jews visiting Jerusalem in the days of the Passover, (some historians quote the number of visiting Jews to exceed one a half million), so it was expected that whoever had an upper room would gladly rent it for those days. They all went to celebrate the feast of Passover. We could refer to….Mark14:12-16;  Luke22: 7-13;  Acts1:13.

Luke even mentions that when Dorcas died, her body was washed and placed in the upper room, where they used to meet. Dorcas, the name meaning “gazelle”, is the Greek version of the name “Tabitha”, a woman of Joppa, who was raised from the dead by Peter. We read this in Acts 9:36 – 41.            /22