Observation: The time has come for Jesus to eat the Passover meal with the disciples, his last supper. When asked by the disciples where they should prepare to do this, he gives them this instruction - follow a man carrying water, enter his house and ask him where the room is for 'the teacher', and he will take you to it. It will be a large room, upstairs, and already furnished and ready ... all the disciples will have to do is get the meal ready.
Several times, when Jesus gives the disciples instructions or enters a city, there is someone there who has made practical preparations to receive visitors. Sometimes they want to receive Jesus and his disciples, but several times the preparations are much more generic. This is a prime example. The owner of the upper room has effectively assumed someone who is visiting Jerusalem for the Passover will want a space large enough for a family/gathering of many. (Were there 13, 20, 75, ?? people at Jesus' last supper? That's a different lesson.) Therefore, the owner has prepared the space. He has run errands, even fetching water (likely to wash the feet of travelers), and the space is ready for ... someone.
And here comes Jesus, who will turn the space into a sacred location, honored as the room of the last supper, the place where the sacrament of communion was introduced, and the site of one of his greatest lessons.
Application: There are thousands of people locally - millions worldwide - who have had their hearts prepared for something ... and have no idea that 'something' is Jesus. Over the last 24 months, they have suffered financial hardships, lived in fear, experienced loss, and endured mental trauma. Isolated physically, and mentally attacked through a continual stream of negative inputs, they have felt afraid, angry, helpless, hapless, and alone. Now they are ready for something good. Their hearts are prepared to receive something better. They are ready for a change.
Jesus is that change they want. He is the source of the best news ever, and the better life. Jesus can bring them the life free of loneliness, dread, anger, frustration, and need. What they wish life would become post-pandemic, Jesus fully offers.
Their hearts are prepared, and they aren't even sure what for. They just know there must be something better coming. May we - Jesus' disciples - go, see them, and let them know that Jesus is here for them, to occupy that big empty space in their hearts that they prepared in advance for him.
Prayer: Lord, your church is here, emerging from the pandemic, ready for revival. Here we are. Send us. Amen.
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