“That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom.” Luke 22:30
My dear congregation,
Tables are ordinary. We have them in almost every room. Most of our lives revolve around them, sometimes hurriedly, sometimes lingering. We watch our children grow up sitting around them. Difficult conversations take place across them. There are empty spaces that remind us of who once sat there with us.
A table is just a piece of furniture, but it serves a remarkable purpose. It gathers people together. And when our Lord instituted the Supper, He did so at a table.
On the night He was betrayed, Jesus said, “With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22:15). A room had already been reserved. He deliberately planned this meal. After they had all gathered, and eaten the Passover together, Jesus, in the fellowship of those He loved, took bread and wine and instituted the Lord’s Supper.
Luke records, while speaking of His betrayer, “Behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table” (22:21). Later, He spoke of His disciples continuing with Him in His temptations and promised that they would one day “eat and drink at my table in my kingdom” (22:30).
A table in the upper room. A table in the kingdom. The Lord is establishing a theme at this dinner.
And when Paul later warns the Corinthians against participating in idolatrous feasts, he states, “Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils” (1 Corinthians 10:21).
We admit, Scripture does not command that communicants leave their pews and sit at a separate table at the front of the church. The Lord and His disciples would actually have reclined, according to the custom of the day. We have no warrant to insist upon one particular arrangement. But we have good inference.
First, a table belongs to someone.
You may work with someone, live beside someone, and get along quite well. He may tell you about his life, his family, his job, his hobbies. But the moment he invites you to sit at his table, something changes. He brings you into fellowship. He is asking you to share in what belongs to him alone.
The Lord’s Table belongs to the Lord.
I wonder whether we consider that enough. We talk about our communion seasons, our preparations, our customary services. Yet the Table itself is His. The invitation is His. The provision is His. Even the qualifications for coming are His.
One reason a table is so fitting is that it speaks of fellowship at Another’s invitation, “Come and dine.”
Another use of a table is to have a place to rest all of our provisions.
When you invite someone for supper, it’s expected that you will have prepared something for him. He comes, after all, to eat. They might ask “Can I bring anything?”, but the answer is, ”No, we have it all covered.”
At the Lord’s Table, the bounty is overflowing.
Bread and wine are already on the table. Our eyes see them. Our mouths taste them. Our souls receive them. And through these little morsels, Christ directs our attention to His body broken, and His blood shed for sin. There is something particularly fitting about going forward and sitting down to receive His provision.
During the sermon you searched your heart. Perhaps you were deeply convicted. Perhaps you were comforted. At the Table call, you feel the need to rise in response to the Word. You leave your seat and approach the Table where the Lord has spread His provision.
“Can I bring anything?” What can I bring?
My repentance? Yes, I ought to come as one who mourns. My faith? Certainly, for without faith I have no mouth to eat with. But neither repentance nor faith contributes to the meal.
Jesus Christ has it all covered.
We eat with humble thankfulness when we sit down for a meal to which we have contributed absolutely nothing.
And finally, a table brings people face to face.
This is one feature of our practice that I particularly cherish. In the pews we all sit facing the pulpit. At the Table, like dinner at home, we sit facing each other. We see the faces of fellow pilgrims called by grace. We may know their trials, their family woe, their weaknesses. Sometimes we know their faults rather too well.
And they know ours.
Yet here we sit.
Paul writes, “For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread” (1 Corinthians 10:17).
There is a rebuke here for us all. How can I sit at the Lord’s Table with bitterness? How can I receive the blessing of such costly forgiveness, when I’m deliberately withholding forgiveness from my brother? The Table has a wonderful way of bringing these matters out.
Dear congregation, when you come forward this Lord’s Day, consider whose Table it is. Think of the cost of that Meal. Then consider those with whom you are seated.
There was a night when our Savior sat at a table with men who would soon forsake Him. He knew. He knew their weakness better than they did. Yet He said, “With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you.”
What a Savior!
And now, from His exalted throne, He calls His believing people to remember His death, and receive the tokens of His love.
Come, then, with a humbled, hungry heart, and an eye of faith fixed upon His provision.
There is bread and wine upon the Table.
And there is a Savior who has provided it.
Your friend and pastor,
J Lewis