The palms of the procession have been laid on the path; the shouts of hosanna hung in the air for a little while, but they’re nowhere to be found…and depending on which Gospel you’re reading, Jesus has overturned the tables of the temple rather than overthrowing Rome…and it was all so confusing.
For many, nothing about the week had gone right…and perhaps the same can be said of you in this particular season of your life. And now, even if it was for just a moment, (before he steals hell, sin, and the grave) the Savior steals away with his disciples to a secluded, private place—away from the chaos of the day, away from the cries of the crowd, away from the demands of ministry and he sets a table.
Have you ever noticed that when Jesus took his place at a table anytime, a transformation occurred every time?
We need what Zacchaeus got when Jesus invited himself to supper.
We need what the wedding party at Cana received when they unknowingly ran out of the sustaining substance of fellowship.
We need what the Emmaus travelers experienced on the journey back home.
We need what those disciples got that Holy Thursday evening.
We need a turn–a turn at the table.
What is a turn but another chance? What is a turn but a gradual or sudden change of direction? With all the division around us, the drama among us, and the disturbance within us, if there was ever a time that we needed a turn at the table it’s today!
While they were seated in the upper room, Jesus removed his outer robe and began to wash the feet of his disciples. What master abandons a position of status and then assumes the position of a servant, making the last the first and the first the last? There’s a turn.
Further, it was routine that rabbis would take a command and build upon it. It was rare that they ever gave a new one—in fact, the last time anyone gave a new command, it was on Sinai and God did that. At the table, Jesus audaciously issued a new mandate, a maundatum: He said, ‘Love one another—not as you would—but as I have!’ Ever since that Maundy Thursday there’s been a new standard…and oh how the tables have turned for anyone who dares to take the command for a spin.
It was at the table that Judas turned. In his mind, how can anyone take a turn that wrong and make it right again? That was the tragedy with Judas, by the way. He was convinced he’d fallen so far and sunk so deep that he was tapped out of turns. Perhaps you’re sitting in Judas’s spot, walking in Judas’s shoes and thinking Judas-like thoughts:
“Do you know what I have done?”
In response, a towel-bearing, stooped-low-son-of-a-carpenter looks up from his work on your feet and says, “Do you know what I have done?” (John 13:12)
We say it in full view of our failures. Jesus says it in full view of our future. Whose word carries more weight? Yours or His? Friend, Jesus is still the Filler of all starving souls and the Turner of all tables. Thank God, by grace, there’s still an opportunity for another turn to take place…and that’s yours and mine. The offer’s still on the…you got it…table. Won’t you take it?
