Expect the Unexpected
I’ve been really SLACK! I do apologise. I haven’t even finished the Sermon on the Mount series. I’ll have to just post what I’ve done some time.
I started a series on Jesus’ miracles which makes for a very interesting study. I think most modern westerners are so overcome with the occurance of a miracle, we don’t go the extra step and ask, “what does this mean?”, “what does this teach us?”, “How does this inform the way we relate to Jesus?” Yet, these are the precise reasons why Jesus wrked miracles. So in this series, I’m assuming the authenticity of Jesus’ miracles and their heavenly origin. What I went to ask the question, “what do these miracles reveal about Jesus, and, how are we to respond to him”.
I have also decided to include the NIV traslation of the Bible in a bid to make life easier for readers.
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The Student’s Desk fortnightly devotion
Psalm 4
Answer me when I call to you,
O my righteous God.
Give me relief from my distress;
be merciful to me and hear my prayer.
How long, O men, will you turn my glory into shame?
How long will you love delusions and seek false gods? Selah
Know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself;
the Lord will hear when I call to him.
In your anger do not sin;
when you are on your beds,
search your hearts and be silent. Selah
Offer right sacrifices
and trust in the Lord.
Many are asking, “Who can show us any good?”
Let the light of your face shine upon us, O Lord.
You have filled my heart with greater joy
than when their grain and new wine abound.
I will lie down and sleep in peace,
for you alone, O Lord,
make me dwell in safety.
Prayer
Lord, we can often find ourselves in circumstances that are hard to overcome. Particular when we endure insult upon insult, injury upon injury, pain upon pain. So we ask you, gracious Lord, to show us your goodness. May our hearts abound with the joy of knowing you, and may we have peace and refuge in what you have surely promised. As we come to look at Jesus’ miracle at the wedding, may you bless us with a fresh understanding of who your Son Jesus is.
In Jesus name we pray, Amen!
John 2:1-11
On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”
“Dear woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.”
His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.
Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.
Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”
They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”
This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.
Expect the unexpected
What do we expect from Jesus? I reckon most people expect on of two things from Jesus. Either people expect Jesus to give them a whole bunch of rules to follow to make God happy; or they expect Jesus to run around and fix every problem they have in life. Kind of like a ‘pocket Jesus’ they can whip out when things aren’t going right. In this miracle Jesus shows he’s not about either. Instead, Jesus shows he’s about something much, much bigger.
I think most of us have been to a wedding, and it’s normal to have wine or beer or some sort of alcohol. Can you imagine being at a wedding and running out of wine. How embarrassing would that be? Well, that’s the situation we find Mary, the mother of Jesus, in. It’s likely that Mary was on the catering team, and in an effort to avoid severe embarrassment, she turns to her eldest son to provide for her. That’s what they did in those days! It just so happened that her eldest son was Jesus.
Now you might think that having Jesus for a son would solve every problem you would every have. Think again. Mary is in for a rude shock as Jesus does something no respecting son would ever do. He denies Mary any motherly claim she has over him. Mary’s expectations of Jesus were offbeat, and she had to approach her own son differently from what her culture determined. Mary had to shift from seeing her son as someone who had obligations, to someone she had to trust in the most trying of circumstances. Why? Because Jesus was obliged to God the Father. God the Father had determined what Jesus was to do, and everything else had to conform to what God the Father had determined. All Mary could do was trust Jesus, and let him call the shots with out any obligation. There’s a sense that Mary leaves the situation in the hands of her son, not expecting any particular outcome as she turns to the servants and says, “Do whatever he tells you.”
The thing is, it’s not that Jesus didn’t want to help his mother. He did! But it was crucial that his mother, and everyone else with him, had the right kind of relationship with him. Jesus did provide more wine for the wedding, not just any old wine that you give to people when they’re already drunk, but the best wine! And he did it in a way that showed people what he was about.
In Jesus time, people had this funny idea that they could make God happy by washing their hands. They got this idea from the Old Testament law. Jesus uses the jars that were used for washing hands by getting the servants to fill the jars with water. Plain, ordinary water. But when they took some of this water to the head organiser of the wedding, the water had miraculously turned into wine. By doing this, Jesus showed that he was replacing the task of following cold hard rules with the enjoyment of being in fellowship with him. And this new fellowship involved trusting Jesus. This was a profound moment for Jesus mates who struggled to understand who this man was that said to them, “follow me.” Jesus shows himself as the one who would change the way people approached God.
As I have thought about this passage, I have been struck by the severe embarrassment that Mary was facing, and Jesus’ audacity to strip Mary of all motherly claims over him right at the moment of her agony. But I think this parallels much of our Christian experience. We’re struck by one crisis, and when we’re trying to deal with that crisis, something else hits us. And in our hearts we say, “Oh Jesus! What are you doing!?” We ask him to do one thing, and something else happens. In effect, Jesus was saying to his own mother, “Trust me! Believe in who I am.” Jesus says the same thing to us today, “Trust me! What I have to offer in fellowship is far better then whatever you are worrying about.”
What can we expect from Jesus? We can expect Jesus to bring us into a right relationship with himself where we trust him and submit to him as our Lord. And he will do whatever it takes to get us there, even if it hurts. Trust him! It’s worth it!
© The Student’s Desk, 2008
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