As we approach our Passover Worship this Friday evening, March 29, we will eat and drink at the Lord’s Table. Cost: “Paid in Full by the Groom.” When Jesus inaugurated the Passover meal (Luke 21) he not only refused our contribution to help pick up the tab, but he also became the meal. Literally, the feast was on him. To eat and drink Jesus is not cannibalism (John 6), for we do not eat transformed bread and wine. But we do eat and drink Jesus, that is, we believe that he is our life, our sustenance, our resurrection. To refuse his flesh and blood is to die. To eat and drink is to live.

I didn’t grow up using the word “dutch” as a way of saying that we each pay our own way for the meal. But my parents did. In the 1950’s  and 60’s when someone said, “let’s go dutch,” they were borrowing a derogatory statement from the British. The British had dozens of slanderous stereotypes for the Dutch people of the Netherlands – for one, they viewed them as stingy. Hence, “let’s each be stingy with our money, like the Dutch, and not pay for the other’s meal but only for our own.”

Cute.

But when it comes to the most necessary meal that one must eat, aren’t you glad that Jesus did not say, “Dear, let’s go dutch this evening”? No, Jesus alone picked up the whole tab. You and I could no more contribute to the cost of our salvation than if we had lived a thousand years of doing good works. Our money is no good at this table. Either you come bankrupt or you do not come. Either you come broken and needy or you will starve. Either you come a poor wretched beggar or you will die. Either you come with palms turned upward and open or you will go without. This table is on Christ Alone!

Oh what splendid and delicious good news this is to the hungry and thirsty of soul. As the old hymn says, “Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.”

Sinner, Come to the table – Jesus paid it all.