The disciples expected to keep the passover with their Master, and they needed a place to eat it. Matthew Henry says, "They took it for granted that their Master would eat the passover, though he was at this time persecuted by the chief priests, and his life sought." The religious leaders had just consulted to take Jesus "by subtilty, and kill him" (Matthew 26:4), yet the disciples did not ask whether, only where. Their words also leave the choice with Him: "Where wilt thou." Gill says the disciples who came were Peter and John, as Luke records (Luke 22:8-9).

Jesus gave them exact directions: "Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The Master saith, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples" (Matthew 26:18). They obeyed: "the disciples did as Jesus had appointed them; and they made ready the passover" (Matthew 26:19). Mark adds that a man "bearing a pitcher of water" would lead them to "a large upper room furnished and prepared," and that they "found as he had said unto them" (Mark 14:13-16). That evening Jesus sat down with the twelve (Matthew 26:20).

The feast of unleavened bread came from the Law of Moses. The passover lamb was killed on the fourteenth day of the first month, and for seven days Israel put away leaven and ate unleavened bread (Exodus 12:6, 15, 18). Barnes notes the feast continued "eight days, including the day on which the paschal lamb was killed."

The Greek word pascha comes from the Hebrew pesach, "to pass over." Thayer's lexicon shows it can mean the passover lamb, the passover supper, or the whole feast. Barnes says the word commonly means the lamb rather than the feast itself. The meal recalled how the LORD "passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt" (Exodus 12:27). Barnes adds that "The Master" was probably the name by which Jesus was known among the disciples.

The disciples asked a practical question, but Jesus' answer carries much more: "My time is at hand" (Matthew 26:18). He had already told them that the Son of man would be betrayed at this feast (Matthew 26:2). He walks toward the passover knowing what it will cost. He is not caught off guard by events; He appoints the house and announces the hour Himself.

At this very meal He would take the cup and say, "this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins" (Matthew 26:28). The feast that remembered God's rescue from Egypt became the setting where Jesus explained His own death. Barnes points to Paul's words: "Christ our passover is sacrificed for us" (1 Corinthians 5:7).