This article is very helpful. Before, Bracy, and many others were talking about when Jesus died. Scripture makes it clear that Jesus' and his disciples celebrated the Last Supper as a Passover meal. Scripture also makes it clear that Jesus was crucified on Passover. A seeming contradiction in the Gospel accounts.
http://www.biblebb.com/files/MAC/2382.htm
http://www.biblebb.com/files/MAC/2382.htm
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4. The problem
Notice that Matthew 26:17 says, "Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the passover?" Verse 19 says, "They made ready the passover. " And verse 21 says, "As they did eat. " Putting those three verses together we can assume they were eating the Passover meal. Mark 14:12, 14, 16 and Luke 22:7-8, 11-12, support that assumption. There is no doubt that they ate the Passover meal. But there are problems that many Bible scholars have debated over.
a) The chronological discrepancy
On Thursday the disciples made preparations for the meal. That afternoon the lamb was killed, and later that night they ate the meal. Just before the meal Judas left them and went to the religious leaders to betray Jesus. After Jesus and His disciples withdrew to the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was captured by the soldiers. The dawn of Friday morning followed as He was brought to trial. After the Jewish leaders held their mock trial, John 18:28 says they led "Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment; and it was early. And they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover. "
Now we are faced with a chronological problem. How could Jesus have eaten a Passover meal the night before when the Jewish leaders didn't want to be defiled because they had yet to eat the Passover? Some claim Jesus had a private Passover. That can't be true because the lambs could be slain only at the authorized time. The leaders certainly weren't late in eating it because they were extremely religious. In addition John 19:14 says, "It was the preparation of the passover," which you recall means it was Friday. So we know it's Friday, yet the Jewish leaders haven't eaten the Passover. How do we resolve this?
b) The consistent proofs
We know Christ came to die as the Passover Lamb. Matthew 27:46 says that Jesus died (on Friday) at the ninth hour, which is three o'clock. He died at the exact moment when the screams of the lambs would echo throughout the Temple as the slaughter began. First Corinthians 5:7 says, "Even Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for us. "
Jesus died on the day and time the lambs were slaughtered that He might fulfill every prophecy to the letter. But how could He eat the Passover on Thursday night? We know it wasn't just another meal because Jesus insisted that it be eaten inside the city of Jerusalem. They constantly referred to it as the Passover. Furthermore, it was unusual for Jewish people to have a meal at night. To recline at the table was unusual for anything other than a festival meal. In a normal meal the breaking of bread occurred at the beginning, not in the middle of the meal as in this case. The use of red wine also was unusual. They sang a hymn when they were finished with the meal, which was true of the Passover. And when Judas left, the disciples thought that he was going to give money to the poor, which was a typical thing to do at the Passover. So we can be sure they ate a Passover meal.
c) The contrasting reckonings
The answer to how we can account for Jesus and disciples eating the Passover on a different day than the Jewish leaders is based on how days were reckoned. We reckon a day from midnight to midnight. The Jewish people reckoned their days differently, and they had two options: from sunset to sunset or sunrise to sunrise. The normal routine was sunrise to sunrise, but certain festivals, special days, and the sabbath were reckoned from sunset to sunset.
(1) Sunset to sunset
Exodus 12:18 says the Feast of Unleavened Bread had to be celebrated from sunset to sunset on Nisan 14 to Nisan 21. The Day of Atonement and the weekly sabbath also were reckoned from sunset to sunset. Leviticus 22:6 says that any uncleanness needed to be dealt with before sunset. Perhaps things were reckoned that way because the order of creation seems to have followed that pattern. Genesis 1:5 says "The evening and the morning were the first day," which indicates that God reckoned from evening to evening.
(2) Sunrise to sunrise
The Jews reckoned from sunrise to sunrise as the normal calendar day. Although we reckon from midnight to midnight, we think of our day as beginning when we rise in the morning. Their day officially began in the morning. Matthew 28:1 says, "In the end of the sabbath . . . it began to dawn toward the first day of the week. " The first day of the week began at dawn.
d) The critical calculations
Regarding the Passover we can see a sunrise to sunrise reckoning in Deuteronomy 16:4. Combining that with Exodus 12:18, the Passover day could be calculated from sunset to sunset or sunrise to sunrise. Josephus, who was a Pharisee living in Jesus' day, explained that the law of the Passover called for the Paschal lamb to be eaten during the night with nothing left for morning (Antiquities, iii. 10. 5). The Talmud, the codification of Jewish law, says it had to be eaten by midnight, which seems to indicate that the new day began after sunset (Pesahim x. 9, Zebahim v. 8).
It is thought that the Galileans and Pharisees reckoned the Passover day from sunrise to sunrise, whereas the Judeans and Sadducees, who made up the ruling body in Jerusalem, reckoned it from sunset to sunset. The Talmud tells us that the Galileans would not work on the day of Passover because their day began at sunrise. The Judeans would work until midday because their Passover day didn't begin until sunset (Pesahim iv. 5). So the Galileans and Pharisees calculated the beginning of Passover on Thursday morning. The Judeans and Sadducees didn't calculate the beginning of Passover until Thursday evening at sunset running until Friday evening at sunset.
e) The convincing harmonization
Matthew 26:17 follows the Galilean reckoning, so Jesus and the disciples had to kill their lamb on Thursday and eat the Passover meal Thursday evening. The Judeans and Sadducees didn't begin their Passover day festivities until late on Thursday and wouldn't kill their lambs until the prescribed time of day on Friday. That harmonizes John 18:28 with the other gospels.
Jesus had to die on Friday between three and five o'clock because that's when the Judean Passover lambs would be killed. But He also had to keep the Passover to transform it into the Lord's Table. How could Jesus keep the Passover and still be the Passover lamb? Only if God allowed the two options for reckoning days to take place in history. When it came time for Jesus to die, there was no problem in having Him participate in the Galilean Passover on Thursday night and die during the Judean Passover on Friday afternoon.
Certainly the priest accommodated the two reckonings because it would be virtually impossible for them to kill all the lambs in one two-hour period. With the Galileans coming to the Temple on Thursday and the Judeans on Friday, at least the killing of the lambs could be divided into two days and they could accomplish their task much more easily. Since it was difficult to find a room in Jerusalem to hold the Passover meal, how convenient it was to be able to double the capacity of the city by having two different days to eat the Passover.
Conclusion
God rules history and all tradition and customs to bring about the minute fulfillment of His perfect plan. Jesus had to keep the Passover to fulfill all righteousness, instruct His disciples, and give them a new memorial feast. Yet He had to die as the Passover Lamb. He did both because God controls history. We see Jesus Christ as anything but a victim. In three brief verses Matthew is able to present the majesty of Jesus Christ. This isn't something Jesus could have arranged on the weekend. It had to have been planned before the foundation of the world by the providence of God. Our Lord controlled every event on His path to the cross. None of His glory and dignity are lost in the midst of His betrayal.