What Comes First Is Not The Best Part 2 Growing Intimacy with Jesus             By Luz Cintrón August 13, 2001 Web Site:http://www.thepearlsofwisdom.net

 
 
 

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Now both, Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding. And when they ran out of wine,  the mother of Jesus said to Him, “they have no wine.”

Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.”
John 2: 1-5

Was it because He was not supposed to do miracles ahead of  His public ministry time? If that is so, how come she knows He can do something about this? Well then, maybe it could be that He was not supposed to do them in public. I have a son and he is  grown now. Many times when I see a need and I can not do a thing about it, I go to him and  open up to him and get him to help. Most of the time I see him doing it with gladness, other times he does it just for me. To me it is enough that he does it.

I understand Mary and her concern, and see that it may be a reflection of the type of life, they use to live together, but they are to enter a new level now and it is Jesus who says to her: “Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.”

Now, there is a great difference between this Mary and the Mary by the cross. From conception to the cross we read that Mary used to keep things in her heart and ponder them.  In Cana she has been doing that for thirty years, and yet she steps out and speaks. At the cross there is only silence. Not a word of her is recorded. I believe His words were being pondered all throughout the  suffering and death of our Savior. “Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.”

Like any mother I am sure she also must have been careful of her Son’s destiny, to guard Him for the purposes of God. If she stepped out in Cana to speak, she didn’t opened her mouth at the cross. Sometimes it can take us a lifetime, to understand we understand only in part, and see only in part, and know only in part, and then trust.  The Mary  by the cross understood  that the purposes of God were unshakeable and unmovable . By then she had learn to trust and wait. I wonder, if she would have written a gospel what kind of things we would have found  in it .  In Cana Mary ask for wine, in Calvary her very life is poured out like wine before God, in the suffering of her first born, received from God, and not a word was uttered, just like Jesus did. She has been transformed by her Savior and Son.

From the time she conceived the Savior to the time all was consummated regarding Him, that young girl was changed. All that change came out through the intimate interaction  with her Savior and Son. There is hope for us. He is available to us in the same level of intimacy, in the same level, if not even more accessible to us,  because His mother, and brothers, and sisters are those who do  His Father’s will. When I read Jesus answer there, I always wonder what kind of truths were ministered to Mary in her walk with Jesus.

What God touches is transformed, but to be more accurate I should say, all that God’s touches is restored. The rich young ruler asked: What can I do? … and he was answered what he could do. And that answer did not take him, to the assurance he was seeking, but to the conviction of what he could not do. It is because we need to understand what we can not do, before we become enabled to do in Him, and through Him. The risk is great and the dangers plenty if we should step into doing before “our time.” For our fleshy nature like the young ruler seeks to do, and to appropriate actions and glory, if we would be allowed to do so. And if not our  destruction, at least great sorrow would come to us in that way.  The harsh answers and the no answers we may find,  in the different situations in our lives, serves the purposes of showing us, what we can not do, and teaching us silent trust on the One who can do all.

In the wedding feast at Cana, man’s wisdom declares, that the best wine is always served  at the beginning, right there Jesus starts His ministry by showing that God reserves the best for the end.  I have always wondered if the rich young ruler encounter with Christ, was the last chapter of  his search. I think many times in our lives, we too, draw near just to withdraw later on, because we start to see how unable we are… and it is necessary that it happens, to show us where we stand, to ministry us truth, and set us free in complete dependence upon God.

“He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him” John 7:18

And he came to look for that which was lost. He came for the sick and the broken, the rejected, the afflicted. The healthy didn’t bring Him down but the lost, the sinners without hope, the ones humbled in their abandonment and despair and left out in rejection. For them He became a Man Of Sorrows acquainted with Grief, in Whom we  all could identify our own life with His.

What comes first is not the best, but a type of the things to come, the foot stool of His glory and grace. Until  we hunger and thirst in our helplessness,  the  doors of the kingdom of heaven will not open to us. God opposes the proud and even more, if that pride is dressed of spirituality in the religious  mindset of this age. You will not be offered to buy until you realize it is purchased without money, meaning any means whatsoever on your side that will enable you to acquire will not be effective. His glory He does not share with any other.

The thoughts of the religious spirit are, that it is our weaknesses that keep us from Him. He speaks lies, to make us believe that our weaknesses separates us, from His mercy, that God can not bear to look at our sins. But it was our problem with sin who brought Him down from heaven, to put on humanity and to restore us. The spirit of religion through lies, looks to separate us from the only One who can save us, even after we have believed, through condemning thoughts, in order to lead us to isolation.  I wonder what things  was Paul wrestling against  when the Lord told Him His grace was enough. The same remains true for us.

The Lord shows me that we are dry. I do not mean that there is no love for Him in your hearts, there is love and longings for Him. But we remain dry, so dry there is hardly strength to realize our own state. We choke on our own condition, in our weaknesses, our failures, our bitterness, our resentments, our lack of strength to love in truth,  our jealousies, our envies, our strife and even our ignorance of His own heart and purposes for us as individuals. All of it leaves us feeble and dry, dry and feeble. Drives us to withdraw into the apathy of everyday life and issues. But heaven is pressing and He is Faithful and Powerful to fulfill what He promised, that He would not allow,  that we may become  separated from His love.

Have you not heard :
“The Son Of man came to seek that which was lost”. (Luke 19:10)

And you feel lost, never able to attain the level to deserve His trust, His closeness of heart. You feel unworthy and you keep your distance from Him. But rejection  is not what is in His heart for you. He came to seek that which was lost.

Your hopelessness in all the times you have tried, just to find how weak you really are, in your failure, your fear that you may never be able to attain the level others seem to have, that qualifies you to draw near. He came so that you could draw near, not on your merits but on His. To you He says again  as  He has said to all of us: My grace is sufficient for you.

If you would only know what things He has reserved for you, you would realize how dry you are now. If you could only catch a glimpse of the measure and kind of love He has for you, you would realize, you only love in words and not from the heart. And you love Him, you seek His face and worship Him, and draw near every Sunday from ten to noon and some Thursdays. But if only you knew! For once you step out from church, is  the mentality of  9 to 5, Monday thru Friday and the cares of this world, because you lack the strength and you will never have it on your own. That is why He came.

Stop wavering between two thoughts, two minds and  seek Him with all you are, it is more than to be called by His Name what He longs to give you. It is the bridal chambers of His heart to dwell.  Your failures can not separate you from Him, they can not even define you because you belong to Him now. You are betrothed to Him. Stop living life as usual and dare to look into His eyes, feel the breath of His words, abandon yourself in His desire for you and give in to His romancing of you. Allow Him to sweep you off your feet and carry you into the bridal chambers. Do not be afraid  of being unworthy, that is what qualifies you in His sight for all His mercy, grace, His love poured forth like blood, His whole life. If only you would cry your thirst instead of hiding from  Him through the cares of this world, you would be given  the living waters.  Come draw near the living waters and drink:

“On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.
He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” John 7:37-38

He stands to teach you:

“Therefore with joy you will draw water
From the wells of salvation”
Isaiah 12:3

Heed Him, draw near and buy from Him without money. Invest your heart in the Lord and find  life more abundant.

He will swallow up death forever,
And the Lord God will wipe away
Tears from all faces;
The rebuke of His people
He will take away from all the earth;
For the Lord has spoken.
Isaiah 25:8
 

Please hear His voice today:

Arise, shine;
For your light has come!
And the glory of the lord is risen
Upon you!
Isaiah 60:1

Come and quench your thirst!
 

Your servant in His love;

Luz Cintrón
Let us be glad and rejoice,
and give honour to Him: for
the marriage of the Lamb is come
and His wife hath made herself ready
...Revelation 19:7.