Good Thursday morning! What a nice, sunny, and cool morning it is too! Will the fine August mornings stay with us now, and will the cool August evenings arrive soon? I don't know, and what a privilege it is to say that. Christ has given me the freedom to say, "I don't know!" Wait a minute, you might say, didn't we always have the freedom to say, "I don't know"? Yes, but did you ever want to be caught saying that? No, you felt shame and humiliation because you didn't know the answer. We pursue knowledge in so many ways. Some through school or reading, others through gossip and conversation. We all feel the urge to have the latest knowledge of something, even everything, and yet we never will know as God knows. We even train the children by comparing them to other nations, "You better study hard, the kids in Uberstan go to school 20 hours a day and can perform calculus while standing on their fingertips!" Perhaps you didn't hear something quite that absurd growing up, but I'll bet you heard something along those same lines. I remember hearing something like that more than once in my school years. There is a great freedom in coming to Christ and having the freedom to not know everything. My poor human brain can't hold all that knowledge anyway, or at least I can't recall it when it is needed. What if you do something that goes against the common wisdom, like not trying to know everything all the time? These days we might raise a few eyebrows by sitting everyone down at the table and serving dessert first. The bridegroom in our Bible story is about to get one of those "what is wrong with you?" questions from the master of ceremonies.
"A host always serves the best wine first," he said. "Then, when everyone has had a lot to drink, he brings out the less expensive wine. But you have kept the best until now!" (John 2:10)
For one thing, this verse should solve the alcoholic/non-alcoholic wine controversy. No one would worry about better grape juice affecting any one's judgement on more grape juice. Wine on the other hand does tend to dull one's mind and taste buds as one drinks too much of it. We can see that the master of ceremonies is impressed with the wine Jesus has made right there in the back room. Of course, Jesus didn't do things poorly in his miracles. He didn't heal one eye of a blind man or make weak wine. People have made up a lot of crazy stories about the Spear of Destiny or the Holy Grail, but can you imagine the silliness that would go on if someone had taken one of those stone jars and bottled 20 or 30 gallons of the wine made by Jesus? Describing it as a unique vintage doesn't do justice to that batch of wine. I wonder how many at the party missed something special because they had already in fact taken too much wine?
...and there it is. Don't get caught up in the 'wine' of the world and miss the very special savior we have in Christ Jesus. We have so much today in entertainment. Soon the entire world will have access to the Internet, but will the message of Jesus be seen in crush of sudden knowledge? One of the great success stories of the devil is in how he has made everyone so busy. Some take pride in their constantly busy schedule. Getting caught up in this busy and distracting world might just cause one of us to miss the special message that Jesus brings to us.
Have a wonderful, and perhaps just a bit slower, day in Christ!
Bucky
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