His banner of love

The simple words “He brought me” connect beautifully with the Lord’s words in Luke 22:19: “Do this in remembrance of Me”. His request brings us together into His presence with joy. Banquets are special times of celebration where everything is provided, and the guests are focused on one theme. It was the Lord who brought His disciples together on Passover night on which He was betrayed. Luke and John describe the banner of love that was unfurled over their heads on that occasion,

“Then He said to them, “With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer (Luke 22:5).

“Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end” (John 13:1).

When we visit ancient places, we often see ageing banners of past glories, frayed and worn, with little meaning to the onlookers. But the banner over our heads is an eternal banner witnessing to the freshness and power of the love of Christ. It is a vast banner that embraces every child of God within the fold of the one Flock of God.

It is an embroidered banner displaying all the glories of the Saviour's Person, work of redemption and the depth of His love. It never ceases to hover over our heads calling our hearts upward to respond in praise and worship.

For over 2000 years, the Church of God has remembered the Saviour sitting whilst sitting beneath the banner of His love. Generation after generation has met in twos and threes and in large numbers in peaceful and persecuted times to remember the Saviour. Each heart is reminded that “the Son of God who loved me” and each person is a unique record of the grace of God.

We sit in fellowship, knowing we are members of His Church; “Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her” (Ephesians 5:25). There is only one Church under His banner of love. God does not recognise the artificial divisions and the many barriers erected down the centuries. There is only one Flock of God. “As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd” (John 10:15-16). There is only “one pearl of great price” which Christ “went and sold all that he had and bought it” (Matthew 13:45-46).

Individually loved and as part of “the church of God which He purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28), we gather under the Saviour’s banner of love. It is the Saviour who draws us beneath its glorious shadow, to fall in worship, sing His praises, read His word, eat the bread and drinking the wine from His hand, remembering the love from which we cannot be separated (Romans 8:37-39). It is the place of worship from which we step into a new week in the journey of faith still under the banner of His love.