It didn't, probably, look like Leonardo's version.
It was not a seder – the Temple was still standing and in operation. So it was the traditional Passover meal, with sacrificial lamb, bitter herbs and unleavened bread. (The Children of Israel were told to sprinkle the lamb’s blood on their door-posts in Egypt, so that the Angel of Death would ‘pass over’ them: they, too, were ‘saved by the blood of the lamb’.) The lamb was likely served roast and cut, in or with a sauce. The set-up was probably the triclinium, with the diners reclining around a central space with tables and room for serving. Hence John’s position, reclining next to Jesus, in the place of honour. In such a position, a murmured word could be passed confidentially without attracting everyone’s notice.
Jesus’ mood is fascinating, and moving. This is the only time he admits out loud to his disciples that he is scared. There is a sadness, but also a faintly bitter irony – “All very well, and yes, you love me and support me; but I also know that one of you is going to give me up.” It makes me think of the Occupation during WW II. He loves them, he has chosen them, he is going to die for them, but he is under no illusion whatsoever.
I’d always wondered about John’s question and Jesus’ reply. The whole, murmured quietly. “Who is it?” “The one to whom I’m going to give the next piece of lamb.” (Which suggests that Judas was close physically also.) Why, I always wondered, did John then not instantly warn everyone and stop Judas? He appears to do nothing; he even lets Judas leave when Jesus has said, sadly: Go do what you have to do, do it now.
But I think I may have found an answer. If Jesus had murmured this to Peter, Peter would have jumped up, shouted “Traitor!”, and tied Judas up in an instant. But John, I suspect, was the only one (and this was in part why Jesus loved him) who had understood that this had to happen. It had to be played out all the way. After all, Jesus could have stopped it. Many times, say the Gospels, he had simply slid away when a crowd tried to hold him. But he knew it had to happen. And so, I think, did John.
Which accounts also for the fact that he left (‘fled’ say the Gospels unkindly) with the others at Jesus’ arrest, and (unlike Peter) does not appear again until the actual crucifixion, when he is the only one of the disciples present.
Postscript: Was Yeshua gay, in his human form? It’s of no importance, but it’s not impossible: it might account for the fact that, though a nice well-brought-up Jewish boy, he reached the age of 30 without being married, which surely was unusual. And although in the Jewish religion it was a sin, it wasn’t in the surrounding Roman-Greek world, and one might very well have the bent without living it in practice. I don’t think his relation with John (Jochanan) was a gay one, any more than I think he married Mary Magdalene. He had neither time nor space for such relationships in his life. But I think he loved them both very much, as he loved Mary, Martha and Lazarus (Miryam, Marta, Eleazar).
