The Lord serves us

Now let’s look at the other scenario, where the Lord serves us. That is God’s greatest identifying mark. He is the Giver. Luke 12:35-37 has been described as the greatest promise in the Bible. The Lord will serve the servants sitting at His table. “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. … He will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them.”

As the Lord shows in Luke 17:7-10, that is most unusual and unheard of! “Suppose one of you had a servant, would you say to that servant, “‘Come along now and sit down and eat?” Would he not rather say: “Prepare me my supper and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink?” Of course, it is normal for a servant to wait on his master, but in Luke 12 the Master waits on the servant. Only Jesus would ever be so gracious as to do that! Indeed, that is the precise and wonderful promise: He does what is never normally done. The Master attends to us, personally serving us at the table. What an incredible way to treat servants!

Perhaps in our 21st century world we can’t appreciate just what a privilege that is. Today Jack is as good as his master, but a century ago there was a huge gulf separating master and servant and even higher and lower-ranking servants. In the great houses of lords and ladies, servants of the lower order were never even to be seen by the family in their living quarters. Only the higher-order servants were allowed to get anywhere near the lords and ladies of the great houses. One aristocratic would not permit anyone except a top servant to bring anything to her. A lady would ring a bell for a servant to climb three flights of stairs just to pick up her shawl or book from the floor. When Christ suggested that the supreme Lord would wait at the table of His servants, that was enough to shake everyone. Why, it wasn’t even proper! But that is what Christ has promised; that we shall be His guests!

Incarnate Greatness

Sometimes I think we have taken the Lord’s friendly, caring attitude to us a bit too much for granted. Among the religions, which God was ever depicted like that? For us it is perfectly ordinary, and we don’t think anything of it when we read or sing Psalm 23:5: “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” In Bible terms, that is normal, but nowhere else in the world is it so. Just imagine the cook sitting at a table set by the Lord of the palace, who cooks for him and even waits on him! Well, what is unknown in the world is normal with God.

So, the verses from Luke mirror two situations presented in Revelation 3:20: we are the hosts and He is the guest, and then He is the host and we are the guests.

That was the truth behind the ultimate Divine sacrifice. It was revealed to the disciples, but not in some cosmic vision filling the heavens with glory. It all took place in a lowly room. There, as Jews, His disciples kept their national Passover tradition. Something beyond all human invention took place. A person passing never knew that what was transpiring was an act of incarnate greatness; A quiet room in the evening lit by tiny flickering oil lamps casting the shadows of thirteen men on whitewashed walls. We read that, on the night He was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, saying, “This is my body given for you.” Then, after supper, he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:19-20, 1 Corinthians 11:23-25). Something greater than religious teaching had entered the world. God had come to us, to dine with us and we with Him shown in the most fundamental of human activities, eating and drinking.

Jesus made two other statements about the food and drink that was shared at that Passover meal. First, He said, “I will not eat it (the Passover) again until it finds fulfilment in the kingdom of God” (Luke 22:16). Notice the word “fulfilment.” At that moment Jesus was beginning to fulfil the Passover as God’s spotless Lamb. The Passover traditionally looked back to the Exodus, but Jesus looked forward to the kingdom of God.

The Passover lamb was eaten in remembrance of a mighty act of God, but now, Jesus replaces it with instructions about Himself: “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). The historic drama of Israel leaving Egypt was the greatest story Israel knew, but Christ shows that it merely foreshadowed a greater event; His own act of deliverance. Moses wrought salvation for twelve tribes, but Christ bought salvation for all the nations on earth.

Great power, the might of God Himself, was behind the Exodus. But all that power and infinitely more lay behind the work of God in Christ at Calvary. By comparison, the Passover lamb and Moses’ triumph over Egypt were reduced to the status of an allegory; a type and shadow of the triumph of Christ over sin and death. He was not the lamb provided by one man for his family, but the Lamb of God given for the whole human family.

The Ultimate Fulfilment

Jesus’ second statement was, “I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes” (Luke 22:18). We need to note that there is more than one coming of the Kingdom. Although Jesus told us to pray “Your kingdom come” (Luke 11:2), He said that the kingdom of God had already come (Luke 11:20). He conquered death, laying down his life at Calvary, and then taking it up again at the Resurrection, just as He said He would (John 10:18). This stupendous act of God brought in a new manifestation of the Kingdom. When Jesus said He would not drink wine again until the kingdom of God came, He was looking forward to the coming of the Kingdom when He rose from the dead.

Like all Kingdom truths, this had a present and future fulfilment. The ultimate fulfilment will be when Jesus comes again in the power and glory of his eternal reign, but it has a present fulfilment. Our Lord Jesus is with us as we partake of the Lord’s Supper. It is an occasion like the one He promised in Revelation 3:20: “If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”

Inexhaustable Riches

The Communion table set with bread and wine is not a mere sacrament, or a spiritual or religious moment; it is a symbol of our eating with Him. It recalls our prayer, “Give us today our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). The riches of Christ, all His goodness, blessings, joy, and reality come to us only in Him. Eating a fragment of bread and taking a sip of wine at the Lord’s Table takes but a brief moment, in which we may sense His nearness, but it is not a passing experience; it reminds us of all He is. We open the door to Him and dine with Him. We do not need to go knocking at heaven’s gate begging for bread. He comes knocking at our door, bringing with Him the offer of food, and the promise and privilege of eating with Him. 

To return to our verse from Revelation, we recall that it was intended for the church at Laodicea. The ardour of their love for God had cooled, become dull, and lukewarm. Although Christ could not stomach lukewarm people and threatened to spit them out of His mouth, what He would not refuse was true love; the fruits of the Spirit. His rebuke, He told them, was a sign of His love (Revelation 3:19) and, to help them put things right, He would give them gold refined in the fire, white clothes, eye salve (Revelation 3:18), and the opportunity to sit at His table and dine with Him. The inexhaustible riches of His grace are there for each of us when we open up to Him.