April 23: Believing His Salvation.
HIS TIMING.
"Every man serves the good wine first...but you have kept the good wine until now."--John 2:10
There are two fascinating dimensions to God's timing, expressed by two Greek words: chronos and pleroma. Chronos is the time that never stops but keeps flowing, like in "chronometer." Pleroma is the completion of all the variables that must come together to make things complete. "But when the fullness (pleroma) of time (chronos) came, God sent His Son" (Galatians 4:4). As in a pregnancy, not only is time going by, but there is an evident growth of the baby inside the womb. Both fullness and time must converge for a healthy birth. It's the same in spiritual matters; that is why God's timing is so different from ours.
When the mother of Jesus came to Him at Cana, informing Him that the hosts had run out of wine, Jesus answered, "Woman...My hour has not yet come" (John 2:4). Jesus knew that more variables had to come in place in order for His hour to be fulfilled. In this Gospel, the hour for Jesus is the cross, and throughout the narrative the approximation to His hour is developed (see John 2:4; 7:30; 12:23, 27; 13:1). That's when His glory would be fully revealed. In Cana, Jesus performs the first public miracle turning water into wine. John narrates seven signs in his Gospel, of which this is the first (John 2:11); he doesn't call them miracles, but signs, revealing a deeper understanding of the identity of Jesus through each one of them. When the master of the banquet tasted the new wine, he said "Every man serves the good wine first...but you have kept the good wine until now" (verse 10). Being that the stories of Jesus in John have a second, more profound meaning, it's not surprising that many scholars believe that this miracle was an enacted parable, similar to the old and new wine metaphors (see Matthew 9:17), about the new order that Jesus introduced, replacing the old order of ceremonial laws (see the purification jars mentioned in verse 6) with the newness of His mission and sacrifice. Jesus patiently waited for His hour to achieve salvation for us. And He invites us to trust His timing in our lives.
My Response:__________________________________________________________
HIS TIMING.
"Every man serves the good wine first...but you have kept the good wine until now."--John 2:10
There are two fascinating dimensions to God's timing, expressed by two Greek words: chronos and pleroma. Chronos is the time that never stops but keeps flowing, like in "chronometer." Pleroma is the completion of all the variables that must come together to make things complete. "But when the fullness (pleroma) of time (chronos) came, God sent His Son" (Galatians 4:4). As in a pregnancy, not only is time going by, but there is an evident growth of the baby inside the womb. Both fullness and time must converge for a healthy birth. It's the same in spiritual matters; that is why God's timing is so different from ours.
When the mother of Jesus came to Him at Cana, informing Him that the hosts had run out of wine, Jesus answered, "Woman...My hour has not yet come" (John 2:4). Jesus knew that more variables had to come in place in order for His hour to be fulfilled. In this Gospel, the hour for Jesus is the cross, and throughout the narrative the approximation to His hour is developed (see John 2:4; 7:30; 12:23, 27; 13:1). That's when His glory would be fully revealed. In Cana, Jesus performs the first public miracle turning water into wine. John narrates seven signs in his Gospel, of which this is the first (John 2:11); he doesn't call them miracles, but signs, revealing a deeper understanding of the identity of Jesus through each one of them. When the master of the banquet tasted the new wine, he said "Every man serves the good wine first...but you have kept the good wine until now" (verse 10). Being that the stories of Jesus in John have a second, more profound meaning, it's not surprising that many scholars believe that this miracle was an enacted parable, similar to the old and new wine metaphors (see Matthew 9:17), about the new order that Jesus introduced, replacing the old order of ceremonial laws (see the purification jars mentioned in verse 6) with the newness of His mission and sacrifice. Jesus patiently waited for His hour to achieve salvation for us. And He invites us to trust His timing in our lives.
My Response:__________________________________________________________
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