“Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like servants waiting for their master to return …Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them.” Luke 12:35–37
Lord Jesus, stunning, that’s what it is. Meditating on this passage dismantles and demolishes the apprehension—even fear, I used to have about your 2nd Coming. “Will I measure up? Will I have done enough? Will I be taken up into heaven?”
Those questions have been replaced with, “How soon can you possibly get here, Jesus? “Dressed in his righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne”… Jesus, you’ve made us your Bride, adored us in the wedding garment of your grace, and placed your Spirit in our hearts as the first fruit and surety of our wedding and life with you forever. We will run out of the oil of the Spirit as soon as the Holy Spirit ceases being God.
“Be ready for service”… of course and most gladly, but the main service highlighted in this passage is—wonder of wonders—your service to us. You’re not coming back with a tape recorder in hand to play all our idle chatter before the angels. You’re not returning with a ledger in hand, to give us the final tab on our law keeping and law breaking.
According to this Scripture, when you return, you will have us, your Bride, “recline at the table,” and you will come and wait on us. Wow! Oh my! What wondrous love is this? How can this possibly be true? Lord Jesus, this is hard for us to take in. We believe you, but free us from the depths of our unbelief.
Lord Jesus, all you’ve ever done is serve us—in creation, redemption, providence, intercession… and you’re coming back to serve us more. Of course, our response—now and forever—is to worship, love, and serve you right back with everything we have and are. May it be, So Very Amen.
