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It’s Time To Report!

February 3, 2008

Scripture:

John 2:1-11 - 16 “On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding. 3 And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.”  4 Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.”  5 His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.”  6 Now there were set there six waterpots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing twenty or thirty gallons apiece. 7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the waterpots with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 And He said to them, “Draw some out now, and take it to the master of the feast.” And they took it. 9 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. 10 And he said to him, “Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!”  11 This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him.”

Synopsis:

As believers we go through a process of maturation in the form of trials and adversity design to get us to a place where we can begin to be productive in advancing God’s kingdom.  Many times this process makes us feel like a frail, weak failure, but is in fact transforming and regenerating us.  In our text, Jesus performed his first miracle in Cana of Galilee.   Cana means “reedy” and “frail, ” while Galilee means to “revolve in a circle” or be “regenerated.”  The miracle Jesus performed was one of regeneration, turning water into wine, which set a first fruits pattern for all of the miracles he would perform  and is still performing today; miracles of regeneration and transformation.

The water that Jesus transformed or regenerated was in large, earthen vessels or receptacles.   In 2 Corinthians 4: 7 the apostle Paul speaks of each believer as earthen vessels holding the treasure of God’s Spirit.  Jesus’ miracle, which transformed the  wine or contents of the earthen vessels but not their exterior, is a type of the born again experience where the  spiritual regeneration  that takes place happens internally.  In the Bible wine is representative of the Holy Spirit, which is the result of the transformation that takes place in the salvation experience.

In the natural, there are all kinds of wines, port wine being one of many,  which go through a transformation process.  This process, an accurate description of how a believer develops, includes the harvesting of the grapes, the pressing of the grapes to release their juices, the fermentation of the grape juice, and finally the aging or maturing of the wine.  Port wine goes through this same process, but historical it gets its name from traveling on ships from one “port” to another and returning.  The storms the wine experiences on the ship’s  departure and “re-port” journey, bring a special sweetness to the taste of “port” wine.  Storms of adversity in the lives of believers only sweetens the wine of the Holy Spirit already activated inside us, making us more effective in advancing God’s kingdom.  So when adversity comes, we must remember that we are in a process of  maturation that when we “re-port,” delivers us to the place of beginning to be all that God has created us to be.