Promise Keeper

Has anyone ever failed to keep a promise to you, or let you down in some way? Have you ever been the one to let someone else down? It’s an empty and disheartening feeling, either way, isn’t it? In the graceless age we live in, with all of its formal agreements and contracts, we may have lost the inherent security of being people of our word. This is not an integrity issue of credibility only, but dependability.

In the week prior to the cross, and upon the brink of making the atoning sacrifice for all mankind, Jesus engaged his disciples in a series of discussions targeted at reassuring them that He could be depended upon to keep His word. They must have needed reassurance; they must have been struggling with the feeling of abandonment and disappointment.

One such discussion, recorded in Luke 22, is such a discussion, although not as apparent as many of the others. Jesus begins the dialogue, in verse 8, sending Peter and John to go and make preparations for a place to partake of the Passover feast.

Jesus said, “Go and prepare the Passover for us.”

“Where do you want us to prepare it?” they said to Him.

He said, “When you go into the city, a man carrying a pitcher of water will meet you; follow him into the house which he enters, and say to the householder, the Teacher asks, where is the guest room, where I can eat the Passover with my disciples. He will show you a large furnished room upstairs. Prepare the Passover there.”

Jesus, in a small way, is making a promise to Peter and John directly, but to all who are in earshot of his voice. He is telling them what will happen in the future, and He is telling them they can depend on Him. His words must have seen strange, even with all the other signs the disciples had witnessed over the last three years. If the promise did not materialize, Jesus’ credibility among His disciples would have been seriously damaged. If events did take place as Jesus told them it would, it would be a source of comfort, and security, to know that Jesus keeps His word.

For a moment, look at this story with different eyes. Not from the perspective of Jesus, Peter and John, or the other disciples. Look at it through the eyes of a man with a pitcher of water. It appears he doesn’t even know Jesus is working through him and around him. With all the activities of the day, the schedule he has to keep, the business he must conduct, and the people with whom he must engage, it’s a wonder he could get himself, and his family prepared for the Passover feast. All we know, is that with all this man, with a pitcher of water, had to do, he would end up in a certain spot, at a certain time, carrying a pitcher of water, and on the way to someone’s house. He may never have known that it was Peter and John who were following him, or who it was that might have sent them.

Verse 13 sums up the story, not written by an eyewitness, but told to Luke by an eyewitness (Luke 1:2). The verse says, “They (Peter and John) went and found everything as the Lord had told them, and prepared the Passover.”

The story must have been a source of encouragement, security, and hope. It survives until this day, where it still offers the same possibilities.

When they found “everything as the Lord had told them”, it must have struck their senses. Probably, it struck them in such a way, that later, when Jesus said “I go and prepare a place for you”, or “I will come again and receive you unto myself”, or “I am with you always, even to the end of the age”, they were hearing promises from a credible, and dependable source.

Jesus made many promises. Many were made to us. Will He let us down? Can we be secure in His promises? Do we live in expectation of the fulfillment of those promises?

One day, in heaven, and every day until then, we will find everything as the Lord has told us. Jesus is a promise keeper.