A Large Room Furnished

What would you do if someone came to your house on a holiday, asking to borrow your dining room?

A large furnished room in my apartment. Would I be willing to let strangers use it on a holiday evening?

It was probably morning or afternoon on the day of Passover when a man carrying a pitcher of water—probably a servant or employee—turned from the street into the house of his master.

Usually, carrying a water jug is awkward because it’s heavy and there’s no good way to hold it, so I can imagine the servant trying to walk carefully so as to not slosh too much water onto the ground.

I can also imagine that, walking that way, he wasn’t too hard to spot from around the corner where Peter and John—disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ—were waiting to find him.

Jesus had important plans for that evening—it would be the day where He instituted the sacrament and told his disciples of His impending death—and he had sent Peter and John in search of a venue where those events could take place. When He requested of those two, “Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover,” they had naturally responded, “Where do you want us to prepare for it?”¹

I can imagine Jesus turning to look them directly in the eyes and telling them, with a hint of a gentle smile, “When ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you, bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he entereth in.”²

So Peter and John had done just that, and now following the servant into the house—which I presume must be pretty spacious—they look around until they spot the master of the house.

The following conversation that they have with this man touches me to my core.

I assume that the goodman of the house has no idea who they are. Perhaps he thinks they’re caterers or businessmen or some type of traveler. Approaching them after noticing that they’ve stepped into his home, I can imagine a look of concern on his face at seeing two unexpected visitors. But then I think Peter or John speaks first, and they speak plainly and directly, delivering the exact words that they’ve been instructed to say:

“The Master saith unto thee, Where is the guestchamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples?”³

I imagine that a moment of silence ensues as the master of the house tries to process what he’s being asked. But then, for whatever reason, he leads them to a large upper room in his house which is completely furnished and prepared.⁴

What went on inside the master’s head is for us to forever wonder. We have no idea how long he paused, whether he asked any clarifying questions, or if perhaps he knew the disciples already. But what we do know is that he took Peter and John and brought them upstairs and gave them an entire room—fully furnished—to use on this holiest of holiday evenings.

Why did that man give them the room? And why was it already fully furnished?

Maybe it was because he knew, instantly, that the Savior needed him to make room for Him.

And maybe, just maybe, this man had been preparing his entire life so that when the proverbial bridegroom came—the Savior Jesus Christ himself—he would be ready to greet him.

Moses sang, “The Lord is my strength and song, … and I will prepare him an habitation.”⁵ And unlike the episode thirty three years previous when nobody had a room for Jesus to enter this world, this goodman of the house was not about to let the Lord go without a place to eat His last supper.

And so while the rest of us live our lives praying, “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies,”⁶ this man turned that psalm on its head and prepared a table for his Lord at which to eat in the presence of His enemies.

The Lord said “I go to prepare a place for you,”⁷ and this man said, “I’ll work my whole life to prepare a place for You, Lord, so that when Your messengers come knocking at my door, I will have a large upper room, fully furnished and prepared, waiting for You. And when they come into my house asking for room, I will know exactly who they are and exactly what they need from me.”

If hope that if some day, a pair of apostles or a pair of angels or a pair of whoever appears before me and makes a request on behalf of the Master Jesus Christ, I will drop everything I’m doing—every Passover preparation, every holiday light-hanging, every party preliminary, every business busywork, every to-do list task—and give those messengers what they ask for.

And what’s more, I hope I can live my life preparing things that are useful to the Lord—talents, time, relationships, brownie recipes, warm blankets, or warm hugs—so that when He asks, the room upstairs that I show Him to will be large, and will be fully furnished with all the tools that He needs for me to employ in His service.

The best people that I know—my mother, my friend Mark, my classmate Eric—live this way, and I have seen the Lord put them to use time and time again in the building of His kingdom.

The truth is, however, that the Lord and His prophet and all His authorized servants are asking us for help every single day. What they ask for is almost never as grandiose as preparing a banquet room. Rather, what they ask us to do is minister to the “fainting, struggling seaman,”⁸ the wanderer among “earth’s harvest fields so wide,”⁹ the “fatherless and widows,”¹⁰ the lost sheep.¹¹

And while it may not be on the mountain height, or over the stormy sea—or even in the room where the passover meal was prepared—that Jesus needs us to serve, every station and every ministry is just as important to the Lord. Our call is to “lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees.”¹² And in doing so, we will be preparing our lives for the day that the Lord’s servants approach us and ask us to make room for the Lord.

The greatest preparation that has ever been made was “the atonement which has been prepared from the foundation of the world, that thereby salvation might come to him that should put his trust in the Lord”.¹³

May our life’s ministry reflect our gratitude for the Savior’s great, atoning sacrifice that prepared the way for us to access the large upper rooms of our Father’s mansion above.

1. Luke 22:8–9 NIV

2. Luke 22:10 KJV

3. Luke 22:11

4. Mark 14:15

5. Exodus 15:2

6. Psalm 23:5

7. John 14:2

8. Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy, Philip Paul Bliss

9. I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go, Mary Brown

10. James 1:27

11. Luke 15:3-6

12. Doctrine and Covenants 81:5

13. Mosiah 4:6