Praise
the Lord for the sights and sounds of a new dawn and a new day. Praise
the Lord for the sweet rest and sleep the Lord of grace grants us all. He
wakens us, reminding us that "All is well". He is in full
control. He is sovereign and all- powerful. Praise the Lord
for this last day of January. We are entering the shortest month -
February. We are just few weeks away from daylight savings time and
the arrival of sweet spring. Alice and I walked yesterday evening. It
was past 5:00 PM, yet was still bright and brilliant. The western sky was
getting colorful, and the sky was looking bluer than the ocean. We
saw one solitary Canadian goose flying, honking and possibly surveying the land
and the fields, perhaps taking the good news to her company of the committed.
I had a sweet visit with a
couple from Pittsburgh. They are avid Steelers fans. He is in his
seventies. He and his siblings were born and raised on a dairy
farm. The Church is the epicenter of their family life. All of the
siblings are blessed beyond belief. They all love the Lord and serve
Him. My friend is an avid bicyclist. He has ridden bike from
the West Coast to East Coast. He has traveled with his daughter to Europe
on bicycling adventures. Amazing! He and his wife faithfully
serve the Lord with much joy and obedience. They are the members of a
large Methodist church near Pittsburgh which
has exciting and vibrant ministries and missions. His dad, who
was in his seventies, went with me on a short term mission to India in
1993. WOW! It is a wonderful joy, privilege indeed, being loved by
the Lord and by His grace to worship and serve in this life and to run
the race well and finish it well by His grace alone.
Every year without fail I get to
preach from John 2 on the miracle of the wedding at Cana in Galilee. My
wife asks, "are you preaching from John 2 again?" I say,
"Yes, indeed". We all have short memories. We often
forget in 7 days or less what we heard. I love to preach from
John 2, the wedding story. Jesus blesses common places with His presence.
He is present in common things and performs miracles. He uses people like
the servants in the story as the partners in miracles. The bride, the groom,
the master of the feast, and the wedding guests did not know what
happened. It is written that only the Servants knew the
secret of the miracle. The Lord let the servants in on the mystery
and wonder of it all. Our Lord is the Lord of abundance. He is
the Lord of the magnificent generosity.
I was talking to one of our
friends who suffering with intense pain, going through long nights of waiting,
tears, and anguish. The Lord intervened and now she is free from
pain. We all can celebrate and affirm, "weeping may tarry for the
night but joy comes in the morning". Even in a fallen world, God's business
is joy. Ultimately he is in the wedding business. I love to say
that it is not just the grace business, not just the joy business. Our
Lord and Savior, Jesus, is in the wedding business.
In Isaiah 25 the
prophet spoke about a great hardship that was 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. What will mark him"? Isaiah 25:6,
"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." The Lord is the giver of the finest wine,
the best wine. The wine stands for the Blood of Jesus that cleanses us
from all our sin. There is indeed a wonderworking power in the
Blood of the Lamb. There is life in the Blood of the Savior. It is written,
"the Lord will give life to all people. He will swallow up death
forever and the Lord God will wipe away tears from their faces." John brings
the glorious and spectacular, extravagant consummation and conclusion of
the the story in the book of Revelation, in which he announces at the
great consummation as all the peoples who have trusted in Jesus come together,
that there will be a great wedding of feast before the Lamb. A great
wedding feast of the Lamb! At the great wedding feast the people of God,
the new Jerusalem, will come down from heaven adorned as a bride and at that point
God will wipe away "All tears from their eyes." What a
promise! What a conclusion!
In Christ,
Brown
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