It was two days before the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him; for they said, ‘Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.’ (Mark 14: 1-2)

The seven day festival of Pesach or Passover commemorates the freeing of the children of Israel from Egypt. Jerusalem would have been crowded with many pilgrims arriving to celebrate the festival in the Temple.

A central ritural of the festival was the sacrificial lamb or korban pesach. Exodus 12:3 commands the setting aside of a lamb or kid to be slaughtered at the Temple on the day before Passover. The blood of the animal was used to mark the lintels and doorposts, as in the Exodus story.

On the first evening of Passover family and friends would gather to eat of the lamb and remember how their ancestors in Egypt had been protected and freed.

Since the destruction of the Temple many Jews - especially Ashkenazi - have refrained from eating lamb or goat meat during Passover.

The Gospel of John - but not Mark, Matthew, or Luke - presents Jesus as a new korban pesach.