Solomon: Israel’s third king, son of David by Bathsheba, administrative and intellectual genius. An idea of his achievements from 1 Kings.

• early marriage to Pharaoh’s daughter, a political alliance ensuring peace with Egypt (3:1); a large section of the palace for her (7:8).
• food for his table: 200 bushels of flour a day, ten oxen, twenty cows, a hundred sheep (4:22–23).
• buildings: 80,000 stone-cutters in the hills (5:15); blocks 12 and 15 feet in size (7:10); the Temple, 7 years in building (6:37–38), paneled in cedar and gold leaf (6:15, 21–22); his palace, the “House of the Forest of Lebanon,” 13 years in building (7:1), with a Hall of Pillars 75’x50’ (7:6).
• goblets of pure gold for the table (10:21); silver was nothing in Solomon’s time (10:21); silver as common as stone, cedar as plentiful as sycamore (10:27).
• wealth: income of 25 tons of gold per year (10:14–15).
• intellectual prowess: composed proverbs and poems, knowledge of natural science, especially trees and animals (4:29–34).

The Visit: 1 Kings 10:1–13, today’s Old Testament reading. The Queen. The challenge. The sights that convinced her (vs 4–5).

• wisdom: this is personal
• temple (“house”): this is architectural, a monumental achievement, showcasey, great wealth, a cultural icon
• food of his table/seating of his officials/attendance of his servants/their clothing, his cupbearers: this is domestic, running the palace in sheer opulence (10:21, silver is nothing).
• the burnt offerings he offered: this is religious devotion

Her Amazement

In 1 Kings 10:5, in today’s text, what is the Queen’s emotion upon seeing all Solomon’s greatness, including “the food on his table?” There is an interesting translation matter here. The original Hebrew is very simple: “...there was no more ruach in her.” This exact expression doesn’t occur anywhere else in the Bible (except in the parallel account 2 Chr 9:1–12), but, depending on the context, the word ruach can mean breath, spirit, wind.

• The ESV translates, “There was no more breath in her.” To be unable to breathe—actually and not as a figure of speech—suggests an anxiety attack. Was the Queen struck with panic after discovering how badly she had underestimated Solomon?
• Suppose we take it figuratively? The JPS translates, “She was left breathless.” To say, “The kids are breathless about going,” may suggest a little panting, but it really describes them as eager and excited, as clamoring for some activity or treat. Or, people sometimes say, “It took my breath away,” perhaps of the view from a high mountain or of a lovely sunset. Was the Queen energized by what she saw?
• The KJV, RSV, and NRSV translate, “There was no more spirit in her.” This sounds more like discouragement than excitement. To change the image but still reflect ruach, did she “have the wind taken out of her sails”?
• We can get a little of this breadth with an English word like “overwhelmed” (NIV) or even ”amazed” (REB), and either of those will do as a free or dynamic translation. In staying closer to the original, the ESV and NRSV force us to think more closely about the meaning and thus convey something of the richness of the original.

The two women of today’s readings, the woman of Samaria (John 4) and the Queen of Sheba: When we read these stories as God’s word to us (and not as “just stories” or for antiquarian interest), we see that the women stand for something beyond the bare historical events. They are figures for non-believers who approach God’s people.

The same thing is true of the king. In Israel, the king is God’s designated leader, responsible (with the prophets) for supporting and furthering the way of life that the covenant calls for. This is clear in Psalm 72 (today’s responsive psalm), with which Solomon is associated in the superscript. Solomon, therefore, stands for the King to come; he is a figure of the Messiah. Christians know that Person is Jesus the Messiah.

And so, we—you and I—are those who come, from near or far, to greet the King, to be hosted by Him, to eat at His Table, and to confess His greatness.

On this understanding, the amazing sights that convinced the Queen of Sheba also stand for something; each has a second meaning having to do with the work of Christ. If we revisit that list (vs 4–5), we find a whole series of possible sermons:

The Amazing King (and His Rule)

When once we grasp the richness of the divine meal and the grace that supplies its nourishment and strength, we say with the Queen, “Behold, the half was not told me.” We discover how right Jesus was when he said,

“The Queen of the South came from the ends of the earth
to hear the wisdom of Solomon,
and behold, something greater than Solomon is here”
(Matthew 12:41).

Eight Reasons that the Lord’s Supper Is an Amazing Meal

1. It’s an amazing meal because Jesus commanded it. We quote those words, the “warrant,” in every communion service: “Do this in remembrance of me” (Lk 22:19, 1 Cor 11:24–26).

   1. What other meal do we hold because someone in the past told us to?
      • Family reunions we plan from year to year. But did old Great-Grandpa Gottfried tell his descendants to have that picnic?! I don’t think so.
      • Does anyone eat a meal because Alexander the Great said so? No.
      • But here we are, about to have a meal because Jesus told us to. Amazing!
   2. And he commanded a meal. The whole world knows Jesus, as a teacher, comes from God. Jesus taught us many things, some of them difficult, that people still know and try to follow. But it’s amazing that he’d command something as ordinary as a meal. His teachings have to do with morality, justice, with God. Jesus, don’t you have more important things to enact than a command to eat?

2. It’s amazing because the meal is to help us remember Jesus—a meal, not a statue, not a pyramid, not a museum, not a library (a Messianic Library!).

   1. The advantage is, it’s not localized, confined to one place. You have to travel to Washington, DC to see the memorial to Vietnam veterans or to Edinburgh to see the statue of John Knox. The Lord’s Supper is wherever Christ’s people gather properly constituted.
   2. Why a meal? He wants us to remember him by eating together.
      • Eating, that act of receiving nourishment essential to survival. In remembering him, we also survive, live, prosper.
      • Together, as a group and not as private and solitary Christians.
      It’s Jesus’ will that there be this communal observance around his memory and especially around symbols of his death.

3. This is an amazing meal because it connects us with the past, an even more distant past. When Jesus ate and drank with his disciples that Thursday night before his death; it was the traditional Passover meal of the Old Testament (so in the Synoptic Gospels). What he commanded us to do is a new version of what God’s people had been doing for over twelve centuries.

   Someone else commanded a meal, long before Jesus did, and that was Moses, telling what God had commanded: “You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your children forever” (Ex 12:24, 14). This is the Passover meal at the time of the Exodus from Egypt, perhaps about 1250 BC.

   And so, the Lord’s Supper links us to events of redemptive history going far back into the biblical story. It links us to that long history of salvation. Here, memory piles up upon memory.

4. It’s an amazing meal because Christians have been eating it for twenty centuries. What else do you do that you can trace that far back?

   Some of our civil laws are old, maybe even going back to King John and the Magna Carta of 1215. Some laws have roots in Roman law from the time of Christ. But a specific practice? Something particular like this meal?

   Are you following some practice in Bucyrus that Col. Norton established in the 1820s? Oh, you are, but you can’t think just now what it is? And is it your impression that 1820 is a long time ago?

   Actually, church people are often quite aware of how long we’ve done things. You may say (about something else, not the Lord’s Supper), “We’ve never done it that way here.” Oh? And how long have you been doing it your way? “Well, at least since Clayton Turner was our minister; maybe longer.” I see. And according to the dates in the Heritage Room, he left here in 1987?

   But we’ve been setting this table since Jesus told us to, twenty centuries ago.

5. And then, it’s an amazing meal because there’s hardly anything on the table.

   1. I admit, it’s a nice big table, certainly bigger than our dining room table at home. And that’s a nice white cloth. But really, I expect a king’s table to be more impressive—with golden goblets, like Solomon’s—and a prime rib roast, or at least a rack of lamb from one of those hundred he needed each day! Look at those tiny glasses! And what about those tiny pieces of bread! Was this Dr. Atkins’ idea?
   2. A different kind of King has a different kind of meal. When Jesus came, he didn’t flaunt himself. The devil tempted him to open his ministry by floating down from the temple tower, making a soft landing in the middle of pilgrims come for worship; he wouldn’t do it. He once said that foxes have holes and the birds have nests, but the Son of Man had nowhere to lay his head. He cared about the inner person and not about outward show. His disciple Peter once wrote that we should not think of personal adornment in gold, pearls, and costly array; we should want the ornament of the heart, “the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit” (1 Peter 3:3–4).
   3. And this was one of the complaints of the Reformers, that the Mass had become a huge show. People thought it was better if there were a lot of priests and helpers; if they were dressed in flashy robes; if the sacred dishes were expensive; if the altar were a long way off from the people, deep in the chancel and surrounded by candles and incense; if the liturgy were long and involved. The Reformers never meant to get rid of the mass as a weekly service; they just wanted to reform it, to simplify it and make it more consistent with the Son of Man who came as a servant.

6. It’s an amazing meal because of its cost.

   There may not be much on the table, but there’s nothing cheap about this meal. The cost of the meal has been the very life of God's Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.

   He came to us within history,

   • to show us God's heart—to live among us so that we might know God's love and holiness—
   • and to die here for us, in order to reconcile us to God. The bread and the wine are his body and blood, broken and shed for our sins. We can sit down around this table as forgiven sinners only because he has already paid the price with his own life.

7. And then, it’s an amazing meal because, although there’s not much on the table, what’s there can change your life. It’s a meal that nourishes and heals the spirit and the community.

   1. It can change your life, personally and individually, because those elements—the bread and the wine—connect us with the transforming power of God in Jesus Christ. Mind you, the sacrament is not magic, and your heart has to be open and yielding, but no place is closer to the Cross than the table of the Lord.

      Here see the Bread of Life; see waters flowing
      forth from the throne of God, pure from above.
      Come to the feast of love, come ever knowing,
      Earth has no sorrow but heaven can remove.

   2. And it can heal the community. A meal expresses commonality, oneness, identity with one another, even affirmation of one another. It brings God's people together.

      We know what sometimes happens to our meals at home. Do you enjoy a meal when some of the people at the table won’t speak to some others? It can happen. We sulk, we won’t look up, we won’t let our eyes cross the table to the hated brother or sister, the hated parent, the resented child.

      But we also know how good it is to be together as a family, in reconciliation and good spirits, taking our food with one another. In our human quarrels, especially lovers’ quarrels, we sometimes hear the words, “Kiss and make up,” or even, “Go to bed and make up.” These are sayings that know the linkage between human love and reconciliation.

   This meal is amazing because in it, God says, “Eat and make up.”

8. And finally, this is an amazing meal because it connects us with the future as well. It reaches back into the past, to the Passover meal, but it also reaches ahead into eternity, where Christ promised us we would eat together at his own messianic banquet.

As we live our lives here, in the time and space of mortal life—as we follow Christ, seeking to live his ways and to know him better—we find that it’s better being a Christian than we ever knew it would be. Christ’s presence is so real, his grace so rich, his forgiveness so free, his support so affirming, that we’re ready to follow him to the end.

But at every communion, we say, “As often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we do show forth the Lord’s death until he comes again” (1 Cor 11:26). That refers to the return of Christ to bring in new heavens and a new earth, in whch righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13). Jesus’ own saying about that age to come is, “Many will come from the east and the west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingom of heaven” (Mt 8:11). And so the amazing meal that Christ hosts for us here today also images our hope for the glad day of reconciliation and gathering in the time and space of God’s final triumph.