Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Week 9 - Devotional 1 – Jesus Teaches to Serve – The Sign Is Serving

Monday (28/04/2014) – Read Luke 22:7-13

What Day was that?

What were the Jews commemorating?

What Jesus wanted Peter and John to do?

Where Jesus wanted the supper for the Passover to be prepared?

What was the signal to know the right place?

How was the place supposed to be like?

What happened when Peter and John left? 

The Jews were celebrating the Passover which was the feast to commemorate when the people of Israel left Egypt. This feast would go for the whole night. The feast of the Unleavened Bread  started on the day of the Passover and remained for seven days. During this week the people wouldn’t use or eat yeast, representing that the people had no time to let the bread be raised when they were leaving Egypt. Jesus wanted to celebrate the Passover as well and chose Peter and John to prepare it. Where were they going to prepare it? Jesus gave the sign.  The sign would be a man carrying a jar of water. They should prepare the supper in the house where this man entered that, according to tradition, was the house of John Mark, the writer of the second Gospel.

How is this text relevant for us? Only because of Jesus’ omniscience, giving every detail about what was going to happen before it happened? No. The importance is that the given sign was a man carrying a jar of water. This was a difficult sign to let pass unnoticed because in the Jewish culture it was the role of women to draw water from the wells or to carry jars of water.  The fact of a man be doing the work of a woman would be easy to recognize. Why would a man be doing this kind of service?  This may show the heart of a servant, of someone who saw a need and acted to supply it. Do you want Jesus to came to have a banquet in your life, celebrating you leaving the life of sin behind?  The sign is a heart of a servant. God doesn’t call lazy people to do His work. He seeks for servants.

Memory Verse:
 “Serve one another in love.”
Galatians 5:13c

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