The Upper Room In Three Acts

THE UPPER ROOM IN THREE ACTS

John 13; 20; Acts 2

INTRODUCTION

A. HUMOR: THE BOARD MEETING

1. Announcement: “There will be a meeting of the Church Board immediately after the service in the cafeteria,” announced the pastor.

2. After the service, the Church Board gathered, but a stranger joined them — a visitor who’d attended for his first time.

3. “Friend,” said the pastor, “Didn’t you understand that this is a meeting of the Board?”

“Yes, Sir” said the visitor, “after today’s sermon, I supposed I should try to figure out, how NOT to be bored!”

B. TWO GREAT UPPER ROOMS

1. Charles Templeton once said that the history of the world was altered by the events which took place in two upper rooms. They were separated by some three thousand miles and nearly two thousand years.

2. One was a flat over a laundry in the Soho slum district of London. It had a dirty, curtainless window, and it contained a small, round table stacked high with papers. By the light of a flickering oil lamp a bearded man sat writing with a cheap, scratchy pen. He was Karl Marx, a Jew, and he was writing “Das Kapital” the Bible of modern Communism. Today, nearly a third of the world’s population follows his economic theory, and most live in slavery as bad as that against which they rebelled.

3. The second upper room was spacious and was located in one of the world’s oldest cities, Jerusalem. This room was mysteriously revealed to the disciples by a miracle of divine appointment.

C. DISCOVERY OF THE UPPER ROOM

1. In Mark 14:12-14 Jesus gave directions for finding this room; “On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus' disciples asked him, "Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?" So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, "Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. Say to the owner of the house he enters, 'The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?'”

2. The disciples had to walk to the city at their own random pace from somewhere outside it, and walk around the city until they saw a man carrying a jar of water. Simultaneously, the water-bearer would leave the residence he served in and head for a well, stand in line to get water, fill his jar, and head back for the residence, stopping to greet those he knew along the route. How he and the two disciples would end up converging is a mystery of how God can manipulate random events! Of the hundreds of water carriers in Jerusalem, only this one would lead them back to the upper room.

3. This upper room became the focal point of several significant events in N.T. history. Let’s look into the 3 times this room was significant to spiritual revelation.

I. ACT I — JESUS’ LAST SUPPER (John 13)

A. FOOT WASHING: HUMILITY

1. Jesus told his men, clearly and matter-of-factly, “Next time this happens. . . wash one another’s feet.” I believe he meant it literally. Years later, Peter himself—who at first had tried to refuse Jesus’ servant ministry to him—wrote a letter to the church throughout Asia Minor and told them, in a pointed reference to Jesus’ act wrapping the apron of humility around himself before washing Peter’s feet, “Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another.”

2. I think it’s as simple as that. The “manifest meaning” of Jesus words is that he intended, literally, for them to wash each other’s feet the next time they were in such a situation. But that’s not all. I believe that his deed and words also meant a call...

B. TO SERVANTHOOD TO ALL

1. When Jesus spoke the words of verses 14 & 15, he did not mean only that his followers should literally wash each other’s feet; he also meant it figuratively. In the words of Mark 9:35, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

2. An 18-year-old boy from a wealthy Chinese family came to the China Inland Mission for training in medicine. Elegant and educated, Hsu Chu was a model of Chinese nobility. A few days after he had begun training, the superintendent was called to deal with him. He had been asked to clean some shoes, and indignantly refused, saying he was a gentleman and a scholar and wouldn’t do such menial work.

The wise superintendent took the shoes and cleaned them herself, while Hsu Chu looked on. Then, leading the young man to her office, she asked him to read for her from John’s Gospel, the portion that is our text today.