“And he shall show you a large upper room furnished: there make ready” (Luke 22:12).
This is the description of the place in which the Lord Jesus instituted the feast of the supper. Every word in Scripture has its significance, and every fresh particular added contains some further teaching.
Whilst this is so we must take care not to force interpretations or to indulge in fanciful applications. To the careful reader I commend the following thoughts on the above expression.
“Large.” As soon as we touch Christianity we are in connection with what is large. Judaism was small. It was confined to one small nation; those who formed part of it were small in their ideas. This is seen in the gospels, where they would restrain the blessing from reaching the Gentiles; in the Acts of the Apostles in the reluctance of Peter—the apostle of the circumcision—to admit Cornelius to the blessings of the kingdom; in the wild cry, “Away with such a fellow from the earth, for it is not fit that he should live,” when Paul rehearsed his divine commission in being sent far hence to the Gentiles in the hearing of the people of Jerusalem. Moreover, Judaism was small, for it could not contain adequate types of that which was to come. Indeed, the types often, by force of their inadequacy, became contrasts. It had to pass away because of its unprofitableness. “He takes away the first that He may establish the second.”
But small as Judaism was, it proved that man was smaller, for no man was able to answer to the demands of its system. Death proved to all how small they were.
But the other day the Duke of Cornwall and York, on behalf of the King, opened the new Australian Parliament. The most brilliant pageant the antipodes have ever seen celebrated the occasion. Yet it was a small affair, for everyone who took part in it is bounded by death, and Australia itself is bounded by time. “Heaven and earth shall pass away.”
But once we come into Christianity we are in touch with what is large. To begin with that most dreaded foe of man, that blighter of his prospects who hurries him from the scene of his brief sporting—“death is ours.” Death can but introduce the believer more fully into the region of his blessings. Christianity is large, for it is eternal. It is large, for it has to do with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Christianity is large because it breathes the air of resurrection. Christian reader, do you know what it is to be in this large place?
“Upper room.” Judaism was like a room on the ground hoer: it proposed earthly blessings. Those who earned God’s favour were blessed in basket and store, in children and cattle, and their days prolonged on the earth. But Christianity proposes no earthly blessings—ours are heavenly. The room is an upper one, for the disciples in figure were to be removed from the influences of the earth. The upper room is not the Father’s house; that will be ours when we see Christ, and in heaven. But now the Lord can say of us, “They are, not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” Twice over this is said, almost in the same breath (see John 17:14, 16). So Christianity in spirit frees us from earth and links us up in our truest hopes with heaven. How many Christians live as though no upper room existed, as if they were still the tenants of the ground floor of Judaism! You see them going in for politics and amusements; you see them enrolled in clubs with worldly members, reading the latest novel. And even if more outwardly correct than that, how many have never taken sides with a rejected and a glorified Christ! As One rejected, we are not of the world, even as He is not of the world; as One glorified, we share with Him all the large and wealthy place which He enjoys.
“Furnished.” Christianity is complete in itself. The Colossian believers were running after philosophy on the one hand and ordinances on the other. These two evils are seen full-blown today—the former in the religious rationalism so rampant in the free churches, the latter in ritualism so abundant in the establishment The mind of man seeks to add what is imposing to the service of God. The apostle Paul warns against both, and points to something positive. “In Him [Christ] dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power.” Even in a smaller way people betray their ignorance of the fact that the upper room is furnished. They seek the adventitious aids of oratory, music, diverse organisations which pander to the cravings of unconverted men or worldly Christians for something less austere than primitive Christianity, and forget that everything necessary for life, enjoyment, and service is found in the Holy Ghost. The upper room is furnished. A true sense of this would lead many to refrain from seeking to help on the Lord’s things by aids outside the Holy Ghost’s power.
You may turn to me and say, “Where shall I find this “large upper room furnished?” The disciples were told to follow a man bearing a pitcher of water, and he should show them the spot. Is not this a picture of the Holy Ghost? and does not the pitcher of water speak of divine resources and refreshment? If you wish to enjoy this large place, let the Holy Spirit conduct your soul into it. You may break bread with a very correct body of Christians and yet never know this large upper room furnished. On the other hand the actual room in which you may break bread may be small, on the ground floor, and be very bare of furniture, yet you may have found this spot of which we speak. You may be, in spirit, beyond the blighting, belittling power of death, in this large place, where all the warmth of divine love is known. In this upper room, removed in spirit from the earth and worldly influences, and in the furnished place, you may find all the resources of your enjoyment and service and worship in the Holy Ghost. May you meet the man bearing the pitcher of water and be led by Him to this “large upper room furnished.”