Psalm 36 informs us that in the Lord is the well of life and in God’s light is our light. I meditated on these words and realized that without God, we have no life in us. Isaiah’s words remind us that no matter what we go through in life, God still pursues us so that we can have life. God sent his word to us as a seed to effect transformation in our lives. God promised Israel results. When you look in the mirror, you shall see yourself as a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord. Everything will be well with your soul because Salvation has come into your household. Countless stories in the Bible demonstrate to us that God is our pursuer and our rescuer. The trouble is if we downplay or violate the terms of our covenant with God, do we still have a right to claim God’s help. Fortunately, we serve a mighty God, a gracious and merciful Father who, helps us even when we are unresponsive. A pure gift to all undeserved. We see this working out at the wedding of Cana. The report came from Jesus’ mother: “They have no wine”. A symbol of our crises or all that has gone wrong in our families, or in our health. The lack of wine in a week-long wedding festival could be a major source of embarrassment, but Mary trusted Jesus, the Son of God. By trusting God throughout our crises, we learn the amazing benefits of bringing everything to Christ, where is the well of life. The timing and miracles belong to God.
I learned through commentaries that the miracle of turning water into wine at the wedding wasn’t only superhuman, but also an act of renewal of fallen creation. He restored sight, made the lame to walk and even brought the dead to life again. All sort of crises met solutions in Jesus the Son of God, in whom is the well of life. Jesus sees our crisis of physical and spiritual poverty, like in that moment when facing wedding public shame. He asked for the jars to be filled with water. Faith and obedience to Christ might be hard but the payoff is amazing! What if our own jars are filled our past hurts, anxieties, our earthly attachments, sin. Jesus wants to fill our jars and transform everything in it into a pleasant drink of his well. Do you remember what Jesus replied to the Samaritan woman at the well? “Whoever drinks the water I give them, will never thirst, it will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
God intended for us to be fully healed, and when we look into the mirror which is God’s word, we will see exactly the picture in Isaiah’s word: “You shall be a crown of beauty and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.” How do we look while in the midst of our crises. It must be frightening for sure. We have seen evil at work, we have experienced loss, especially in the latest terrorist attacks or fires in California, which are huge crisis to communities. We face crisis in different ways. Some of us can’t help but panic, mourn and grieve our loss, others move into action mode to do something about it. For Mary, the mother of Jesus, it was trust! She faced her son who is: “Lord of the entire Universe.” She knew, He would know best. She understood there was no crises in creation that was beyond him. Jesus didn’t disappoint and all the disciples believed in him, the wine crisis was averted.
Perhaps often we worry more about getting our crises averted than getting acquainted with Jesus the one responsible for our rescue. Call on God and ask for His will to be done, not your own will. As one preacher encouraged us: tell yourself by faith: “All is well with me, everything is working out for my highest good and out of this situation, only good will come and I am safe in the hands of my God.”
Don’t lose sight of God’s hand during your crisis. Believe in Jesus, not because of your expected miracle only, but because He is able and he is not bound by our impatience. His silence does not always mean no, but perhaps it means not yet. Today at Holy Communion, prepare your inside jars to be filled with Jesus’ well of life. Then enjoy some peace and quiet at last.
Call on Jesus! In him is the well of life!
Amen.
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