Glory in the Gritty
When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom. John 2:9
It takes a certain kind of love, McDonald's founder Ray Kroc says in David Halberstam's The Fifties, to fall in love with a hamburger bun.
The servants on which the fourth Gospel reports in John 2:9 have a certain kind of love. Theirs is not Kroc's to build a business empire on mastery of efficiently satisfying consumer demands. Still, both these servants and Kroc see something greater in the daily details that go with the job title in which they find themselves.
Kroc could multiply effectiveness in one transaction at one counter and see compounding dominance. Even when we can't, even when our jobs are more likely to show us if we have the heart of a servant by how we react when people treat us like one, John 2:9 entrances us to look again at the tasks the Son of God has given us in our station. His glory, the often subtle extension of His reputation is there. In obedience itself, we establish that He is greater than our oft-resurgent will. As the servants were the first to know that something unusual was afoot, so might we be.
In fact, He might further John 2:9's work in His sovereignty today. Pastor Matthew Sink draws out that wine was often a biblical symbol of joy and that Christ in John 2 filled handwashing vessels synonymous at that moment with empty ritual with a joy only He could provide. As we walk by faith, as we obey by faith with habits and materials as ordinary as water, He can give and deepen joy that will reverberate through the ages.
Christ may also further our progress in His ways more rapidly than our expectations can calculate. Even if He determined to turn water into grape juice in John 2, the progress of fermentation would have taken far longer than the guests would wait for. Yet, His proactive grace was in control not only of type but of timeline. We know from Scripture that the joy of the Lord is our strength, but how often do we reflect on the reality that it is not just our strength to grit our teeth and get through, but of the more-than-enough variety to celebrate because He changes conditions, and attitudes on conditions, and speed of progress at His discretion?
As we learn to love, then, the hamburger bun, or the email, or the diaper as we consider the possibility that they might be means of His slightly veiled grace, we may get the gift of His timing to reveal what we know in Him. The servants didn't reveal what they understood immediately, but they did at some point. Because they were submitted in this as well, they were more than the Magician's assistant drawing attention in the moment. They were, as it were, the Lord's hands in work only He could do. So, in His reckoning and that of His Word, can we be.
It takes a certain kind of love, McDonald's founder Ray Kroc says in David Halberstam's The Fifties, to fall in love with a hamburger bun.
The servants on which the fourth Gospel reports in John 2:9 have a certain kind of love. Theirs is not Kroc's to build a business empire on mastery of efficiently satisfying consumer demands. Still, both these servants and Kroc see something greater in the daily details that go with the job title in which they find themselves.
Kroc could multiply effectiveness in one transaction at one counter and see compounding dominance. Even when we can't, even when our jobs are more likely to show us if we have the heart of a servant by how we react when people treat us like one, John 2:9 entrances us to look again at the tasks the Son of God has given us in our station. His glory, the often subtle extension of His reputation is there. In obedience itself, we establish that He is greater than our oft-resurgent will. As the servants were the first to know that something unusual was afoot, so might we be.
In fact, He might further John 2:9's work in His sovereignty today. Pastor Matthew Sink draws out that wine was often a biblical symbol of joy and that Christ in John 2 filled handwashing vessels synonymous at that moment with empty ritual with a joy only He could provide. As we walk by faith, as we obey by faith with habits and materials as ordinary as water, He can give and deepen joy that will reverberate through the ages.
Christ may also further our progress in His ways more rapidly than our expectations can calculate. Even if He determined to turn water into grape juice in John 2, the progress of fermentation would have taken far longer than the guests would wait for. Yet, His proactive grace was in control not only of type but of timeline. We know from Scripture that the joy of the Lord is our strength, but how often do we reflect on the reality that it is not just our strength to grit our teeth and get through, but of the more-than-enough variety to celebrate because He changes conditions, and attitudes on conditions, and speed of progress at His discretion?
As we learn to love, then, the hamburger bun, or the email, or the diaper as we consider the possibility that they might be means of His slightly veiled grace, we may get the gift of His timing to reveal what we know in Him. The servants didn't reveal what they understood immediately, but they did at some point. Because they were submitted in this as well, they were more than the Magician's assistant drawing attention in the moment. They were, as it were, the Lord's hands in work only He could do. So, in His reckoning and that of His Word, can we be.
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