Brown's Daily Word: Brown's Daily Word 10/31/14

Friday, October 31, 2014

Brown's Daily Word 10/31/14

Praise the Lord for this last Friday of October. Those who live in the region, please join us for our weekly Television outreach this evening at 7 PM on Time Warner Cable channel 4. I also preached a brief sermon on John 2, the miracle Jesus our Lord performed at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. This brief video posted on You Tube and also on the Union Center United Methodist Church Facebook page. We posted this as a trial.

Today is celebrated as Reformation Day in the church calendar. The Lord used Martin Luther to shed His Light on the church afresh and anew. The Lord also used Martin Luther to recognize His grace falling fresh on His church. The Lord used Martin Luther to dispense His shining Light and His Fresh Grace on the church; the Lord Jesus used the servants at the wedding feast at Cana to be partners in dispensing His joy to His people. Even in a fallen world, our Lord's business is joy. Our Lord Jesus is also in the wedding business. Jesus our Lord is first and foremost is in the grace business. In the wedding business the Lord provides the best wine. Jesus brings life to dead places and dead lives. Jesus brings joy to darkest and the most depressed places and lives. He brings Joy to places and lives bombarded by tragedy, trials and tears. He dispenses His joy in places and lives saturated with deep sadness and sorrow.

In Isaiah 25, the prophet spoke about a great hardship coming upon the people of God due to their rebellion against him. But then he said, God will rescue you. There will be a Messiah. Isaiah 25:6 states, "On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well aged wine. Of rich food full of marrow and of aged wine well refined." This is the kind of wine that Jesus made at the feast... The very best.

That's not all that the prophet Isaiah said. He did not merely speak of one who would come and provide wine. Verse seven of Isaiah 25: "And he will swallow up this mountain, the covering that is cast over all peoples." He's not just coming to bring a rich feast with a lot of good wine; he is coming to move the covering—that's the death shroud—that is upon the people. He is going to swallow up death for all people. When John described Cana he was not talking about Jesus taking away death. Go back to John 4:46 and we read, "So Jesus came again to Cana in Galilee."

Jesus went back to Cana. "He came again to Cana in Galilee where he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill." Verse 50, "Jesus said to this official, 'Go, your son will live.'" The official went back to his own town, where he met his servants as they were coming to get him, and the servants said, "Your son has been healed." The official asked when this happened. They gave the hour and it was exactly the hour that Jesus told him that his son would be healed. He was given life again.

This is not all that Isaiah spoke about. He did not merely just say that this one who would come wouldl give much good wine and life. The Book of Isaiah says he would give life to all people. The official whose son was on the verge of death was not Jewish, but a Roman centurion, speaking to the way that the gospel was extended to all peoples. Isaiah also said, "He will swallow up death forever and the Lord God will wipe away tears from their faces."