Verily I say unto you, that He shall gird Himself, and
make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth,
and serve them.--LUKE xii. 37.
No one would have dared to say that except Jesus Christ. For surely,
manifold and wonderful as are the glimpses that we get in the New
Testament of the relation of perfect souls in heaven to Him, none of
them pierces deeper, rises higher, and speaks more boundless
blessing, than such words as these. Well might Christ think it
necessary to preface them with the solemn affirmation which always,
upon His lips, points, as it were, an emphatic finger to, or
underlines that which He is about to proclaim. 'Verily I say unto
you,' if we had not His own word for it, we might hesitate to
believe. And while we have His own word for it, and do not hesitate
to believe, it is not for us to fathom or exhaust, but lovingly and
reverently and humbly, because we know it but partially, to try to
plumb the unfathomable depth of such words. 'He shall gird Himself,
and cause them to sit down to meat; and come forth and serve them.'
I. Then we have, first of all, the wonderful revelation of the
Servant-Lord.
For the name of dignity is employed over and over again in the
immediate context, and so makes more wonderful the assumption here
of the promise of service.
And the words are not only remarkable because they couple so closely
together the two antagonistic ideas, as we fancy them, of rule and
service, authority and subordination, but because they dwell with
such singular particularity of detail upon all the stages of the
menial office which the Monarch takes upon Himself. First, the
girding, assuming the servant's attire; then the leading of the
guests, wondering and silent, to the couches where they can recline;
then the coming to them as they thus repose at the table, and the
waiting upon their wants and supplying all their need. It reminds us
of the wonderful scene, in John's Gospel, where we have coupled
together in the same intimate and interdependent fashion the two
thoughts of dignity and of service--'Jesus, knowing that the Father
had given all things into His hand, and that He came from God and
went to God,' made this use of His consciousness and of His
unlimited and universal dominion, that 'He laid aside His garments,
and took a towel, and girded Himself, and washed the disciples'
feet'; thus teaching what our text teaches in still another form,
that the highest authority means the lowliest service, that the
purpose of power is blessing, that the very sign and mark of dignity
is to stoop, and that the crown of the Universe is worn by Him who
is the Servant of all.
But beyond that general idea which applies to the whole of the
divine dealings and especially to the earthly life of Him who came,
not to be ministered unto, but to minister, the text sets forth
special manifestations of Christ's ministering love and power, which
are reserved for heaven, and are a contrast with earth. The Lord who
is the Servant girds Himself. That corresponds with the commandment
that went before, 'Let your loins be girded,' and to some extent
covers the same ground and suggests the same idea. With all
reverence, and following humbly in the thoughts that Christ has
given us by the words, one may venture to say that He gathers all
His powers together in strenuous work for the blessing of His
glorified servants, and that not only does the metaphor express for
us His taking upon Himself the lowly office, but also the employment
of all that He is and has there in the heavens for the blessing of
the blessed ones that sit at His table.
Here upon earth, when He assumed the form of a Servant in His
entrance into humanity, it was accompanied with the emptying Himself
of His glory. In the symbolical incident in John's Gospel, to which
I have already referred, He laid aside His garments before He
wrapped around Him the badge of service. But in that wondrous
service by the glorified Lord there is no need for divesting ere He
serves, but the divine glories that irradiate His humanity, and by
which He, our Brother, is the King of kings and the Lord of the
Universe, are all used by Him for this great, blessed purpose of
gladdening and filling up the needs of the perfected spirits that
wait, expectant of their food, upon Him. His girding Himself for
service expresses not only the lowliness of His majesty and the
beneficence of His power, but His use of all which He has and is for
the blessing of those whom He keeps and blesses.
I need not remind you, I suppose, how in this same wonderful picture
of the Servant-Lord there is taught the perpetual--if we may so say,
the increased--lowliness of the crowned Christ. When He was here on
earth, He was meek and holy; exalted in the heavens, He is, were it
possible, meeker and more lowly still, because He stoops from a
loftier elevation. The same loving, gentle, gracious heart, holding
all its treasures for its brethren, is the heart that now is girded
with the golden girdle of sovereignty, and which once was girt with
the coarse towel of the slave. Christ is for ever the Servant,
because He is for ever the Lord of them that trust in Him. Let us
learn that service is dominion; that 'he that is chiefest among us'
is thereby bound to be 'the servant' and the helper 'of all.'