CHARISSA CHEONG writes about the significance of a call for Jesus to ‘come in’ to our homes – and our lives…
London, UK
PICTURE: Lan Gao/Unsplash
“Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.” – Revelation 3:20 (NLT)
One thing no-one tells you about moving back home after leaving university is that it’s going to take you ages to get your room back in order.
I graduated back in summer, 2021, but I’ve still got boxes full of books that I don’t know where to put, a new set of blinds I’ve been meaning to put up for weeks, and a bunch of old posters and pictures on the walls that I’m still hoping to replace.
“The call to ‘come in’ is one of deep intimacy. When you go into someone’s house and share their space, you commit to spending time with them. It’s the reason why the starring couple in every romcom movie stands awkwardly on the porch before one of them hesitantly asks, ‘Would you like to come in?’ It’s such a difficult question because it means asking for a commitment to spend the night together.”
My life has changed so much since I first went to university three years ago, and yet much of my old room is still in need of transformation. Now that I’m busy with work, I haven’t had the time to give it a proper makeover.
It was on the floor of this very untidy room that I sat down and read this verse from Revelation one day, and even though it’s very familiar to me, I couldn’t stop thinking about the last part, “we will share a meal together as friends”.
I found myself asking God, “Why do You insist on using this metaphor of sharing a meal over and over again?” When I was a kid in Sunday school, we often sang a song about Zacchaeus, who was told to come down from a tree, so Jesus could come to his house “for tea”.
The Pharisees came to recognise Jesus as someone who ate and drank with sinners. I continued to wonder, apart from the fact that shared meals had great cultural significance for Hebrew people during Jesus’ life, what does this metaphor from Revelation 3:20 mean for us today?
We see a similar invitation to a meal echoed in the Bible in Proverbs 9. The personified Wisdom prepares a banquet and calls out to us, “come in with me”, so we can share the feast with her. However, the personified voice of Folly also calls out, “come in with me”, and we are asked to choose between them.
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The call to “come in” is one of deep intimacy. When you go into someone’s house and share their space, you commit to spending time with them. It’s the reason why the starring couple in every romcom movie stands awkwardly on the porch before one of them hesitantly asks, “Would you like to come in?” It’s such a difficult question because it means asking for a commitment to spend the night together.
The Old Testament readers of Proverbs were presented with a choice of committing to Wisdom or dwelling with foolishness and sin.
But Jesus flipped the narrative. In Revelation, we see Him knocking on our door, asking to come in and share an intimate meal with us.
If the King of Kings were to knock on the door of my messy and unfinished room, I’m not entirely sure I’d feel comfortable letting Him in. But nonetheless, He’d still want to come and spend time with me.
I’m so thankful to have a Saviour who doesn’t ask me to dress up nice and meet Him at the fancy restaurant down the road. He meets me right where I am, mess and all.
God insists on this image of coming in to eat with us because it reveals His urgent and merciful desire to dwell with us and commit to us. Jesus, who came down to earth and ate with sinners, made it easy for us to know Him. What an incredible picture of intimate and wonderful love.
