Luke 22:9

And they say unto him, Where wilt thou that we make ready? And he said unto them, Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house whereinto he goeth. And ye shall say unto the master of the house, The Teacher saith unto thee, Where is the guest-chamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples? And he will show you a large upper room furnished: there make ready. And they went, and found as he had said unto them: and they made ready the passover.

Harrison saw in this the likelihood that Jesus had "made previous arrangements for a contact by means of a secret signal,"[7] but such a view is refuted by a circumstance noted by Bliss. He said:

There was a custom that the head of each family should bring water from a certain spring, which was to wet up the unleavened bread for the Passover. But this man was not head of the house; nor does it appear how, among the thousands that would be carrying water at the same time, that the incident could have served as a sign.[8]

If Bliss' reckoning of this occasion of the last supper as the Passover should be allowed, then it would nullify, absolutely the kind of sign Jesus mentioned, because tens of thousands would have been doing the same thing. Obviously, this was not the Passover evening. This leaves the alternative that a servant was carrying the pitcher of water in a certain direction at a certain time of day, and that his master was one who honored the Teacher and would provide the guest-chamber. The answer to this is not some "secret-signal," set up by Jesus in advance, but the omniscience of the Lord.

Mark 14:12-17 is parallel to this portion of Luke, and more extended remarks on this passage will be found in my Commentary on Mark under those references.

[7] Everett F. Harrison, Wycliffe Bible Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1971), p. 263.

[8] George R. Bliss, An American Commentary on the New Testament (Valley Forge, Pennsylvania: The Judson Press), Vol. II, Luke, p. 312.