15 May 2024
Bailey calls the parable in Luke 12:35-38 the Serving Master.
He starts off sharing a bit of mystical symbolism. Jerusalem represents atonement; that's where the Cross stood. Bethlehem is just about seven miles away over one ridge, and represents incarnation -- Jesus was born there. His point is how close they are. Throughout the Bible, the incarnation and atonement have been closely twinned.
The format is a dramatic interplay of two characters on stage: master and servants. Bailey sees three stanzas:
1. Servants prepared
2. Servants alert when the master comes
3. Servants blessed
Bailey offers more detailed analysis, but from my own Hebrew literature studies, I think he overdoes it. It's well enough to point out parallel statements as echoes, a common Hebrew device in poetry. Bailey compares it to John 10:11-15 (The Good Shepherd) and offers another outline of that. Again, I think it's overwrought.
The first stanza of our focal text has two images: waist girded and lamps lit. I believe everyone understands the first, with longer garments normally flowing loose, but bound by something like a sash or rope when vigorous activity is required. The business of a lamp is because the master is at a wedding, and so will return during the night, which is in the second stanza.
This second stanza is a nested echo; servants alert, the master coming, is coming, servants alert. A better translation is not "waiting" passively, but "expecting" the master to come once he "withdraws" (breaks loose) from the wedding. Notice that he knocks on his own door. This would be a prearranged quiet knock that only an alert servant would hear so as to unlock for his master, without waking anyone else.
There's a reason for depicting him as slipping out of an ongoing banquet. That's in the third stanza. We need to understand that the alert servant is technically a slave; no one else would be tasked for such a job. But these are slaves who are alert because it's their nature to serve eagerly, not trying to suck-up, as it were. These are blessed slaves.
To their surprise, the master then girds his own robes. For Luke to include the word "amen" is quite rare; pay attention to what he says next. The master will turn the tables and serve his slaves. We can imagine them putting up resistance to this scene. Truly, this is simply unheard of then and up to now. It prefigures Jesus washing His disciples' feet. This is what it will feel like when Christ welcomes us into our eternal rest.
Thus, we combine incarnation and atonement. Our Lord acts according to His own divine nature. He brings the food back with him from the wedding. He had planned this all along. With such a Lord, little wonder His slaves are so eager to please.
Comments
Jay DiNitto
Maybe weird to say, but a willing slave being served by the head guy in charge gives me hope for a lot of things. I suppose that's at least part of the point of the story to begin with.
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