The Wine Always Runs Out

 In John 2, we read about Jesus turning water into wine. We all know how it goes: the party starts going south real quick, Mary asks Jesus to intervene to save the bridal couple's shame, Jesus steps in and BAM best wine ever! 

Now, being someone who has neither gotten married nor even slightly enjoyed or desired wine, this story has the potential to miss the mark. But the one point we can all absolutely relate to on every level is that the wine always runs out. 

Sure, it will look different for each of us, but for all of us, at some stage and in some way, things will turn south and the good party times will start to dry up. People change. Plans don't work out. We let ourselves down. The bank balance leaks out. The roof leaks in the rain. Our grace for our boss/spouse/children/neighbour also leaks out of our flawed, broken barrel. As Jeremiah said in 2v13, we are broken cisterns that can hold no water. The wine always runs out.  

That's the bad news. But the good news is that Jesus makes the best wine. 

Jesus can take the average and depleted and make it not only better but abundantly so. As Paul Miller, reflecting on this says, “When Jesus shows up to a party, it doesn’t just keep going. It gets better.”

Beyond that, Jesus points us to the best wedding reception the world will ever know. It'll make the Royal weddings look cheap and boring. The Marriage Supper of the Lamb where communion remembering Jesus' work will become a literal feast in the very presence of Jesus, paid for with His own body and blood (aka the best wine). It's the banquet that every delicious meal we’ve ever tasted is but a shadow of. It is the reception every one of our lonely hearts longs for. 

The cheap and nasty box wine of all the earthly things we put our hope will always run out. But at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, the wine never runs out because Jesus the Lamb IS the Wine. And He promises to be with us forever. Once again, He is keeping the best wine until last. 

Truly, our cup does overflow. It overflows with the wine of Jesus’s neverending grace to us.

Broken & Beloved

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."
- Hebrews 12:1-3

On this, Tim Keller writes, “What was His joy? His joy was you. His joy was me.” 

As Sammy Rhodes says, "The Beloved was broken so that everyone who feels broken might become the beloved of God through Him." That is the joy of Jesus. His joy was entering into our broken world, our broken situations, our broken lives, and taking that brokenness upon himself that we might become whole and be reconciled to our Creator. 

The reality is that our brokenness is very real, and in and of ourselves there’s sweet nothing we can do about it. There is an honest relief in admitting that fact. 

But there is a quiet, constant hope that yet whispers through the darkness, through the brokenness, to our despair. The only One who can do something about it is very near and He longs to break in to our broken places to bring breakthrough. 

He is both Broken and Beloved. He is the one who says, “This is My body broken for you.” And He is the Beloved Son of God, with whom the Father is well pleased. His brokenness is our healing. His belovedness is our hope.

Prodigal James

If I just showed up at your party

Would you have me? Would you want me?

Would you tell me to go straight to hell

Or lead me to the garden?

~ Taylor Swift, Betty

Tonight I was thinking about these lyrics, because we, like James in this song, have done stupid things and require forgiveness and quite frankly deserve to be told to go straight to hell. But it made me specifically think of the prodigal son in Luke 15, and the difference between James's Betty and our God that we need forgiveness from is that God doesn't wait for us to show up at His party; instead even while we are a long way off, He runs out to us to embrace us, forgive us and bring us home. 

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him."

And then God throws a cracker party, where the answers are yes: Yes, He would have me; Yes, He would want me. He leads us into His garden of promises where we are absolutely wanted and loved and held forever! 

So as I listen to Betty, I find myself grateful once again that Jesus shows up so that we can party with Him. 

Stupid Games, Stupid Prizes

 You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes

~ Taylor Swift, Miss Americana and The Heartbreak Prince

What games am I playing? What prizes am I spending my life trying to win? These are the questions that always pop into my mind when I hear this song. 

I want to be playing for a prize that really matters, for a prize that lasts, to look back at the end and know I have achieved something of meaning. I certainly don't want to pour out my life in the pursuit of something that doesn't even matter. I don't want to play stupid games to win stupid prizes. 

It also makes me think of the times of playing Candy Crush when I start a level without taking in what the goal is, and then I get caught up clearing out the chocolate or collecting the pieces that seem the most obvious, only to get to the end of my moves and realise I completely missed the mark in what I needed to do. 

I don't want that to be true of my life. When my moves are up at the end of my days, I don't want to have just done my own thing, thinking I know best, and completely miss the true goal of my life. So I need to pause often and remember what the goal and the prize set before me is: 

Philippians 3:12-14 "Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

James 1:12 "Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him."

The upward call of God in Christ Jesus is the goal I am striving for, the game I am called to play; and the crown of life, which God has promised to me, is the prize I am living for. 

Everlasting

You know the greatest loves of all time are over now.

~ Taylor Swift, The 1

T Sweezy was onto something with these lyrics. Because no matter how epic the love story, there will always eventually come a point where either death or distance or disagreement do them part. 

Except (thank the Lord!) God's love is different. Death, distance, disagreement, demons, depth, despair can't touch it. 

Romans 8:38-39 "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Jeremiah 31:3 "I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you."

The good news of the Gospel is that there is no expiry date on God's love for us. There is no end to His love, because God is love and from everlasting to everlasting He is. God's love for us is everlasting and His faithfulness continues always. 

So, Taylor, my humble request to update that line: 

The Greatest Love of all time is everlasting and you can know it right now. 

 

Out Of The Woods

 

The above three lines are from the ending of Taylor Swift's Out of the Woods music video. The video is a journey of Taylor fighting and struggling in mountains, snow, oceans, and of course the woods; something of a picture of the struggles of a relationship in a rocky place. At the end of the video, she emerges onto a peaceful beach looking ragged and broken by her experiences and finds there an untouched, unblemished version of herself, and the words appear:

She lost him.
But she found herself.
And somehow that was everything.

She lost him. Their relationship never made it out of the woods. They failed. 

But she found herself. Taylor speaks to the idea of “expressive individualism", that the purpose of life is to find and express your individuality and that you “find yourself” by fighting through and emerging triumphant from all the constraints placed upon you by others.

And somehow that was everything. Why does this song/concept so resonate with us? Because, deep down, we all just want to be fully known and totally loved. And we are sold the shortcut of “knowing yourself” and “loving yourself” so we no longer have to be dependent on anyone else for our happiness.

While I agree with the longing and desire this conveys, I'd like to challenge Taylor's solution here to this problem. 

Yes, even in the Christian life there is an overarching story of discovery that makes sense of all our trials. But the difference is that it's radically God-focused, not self-focused. It is the story of how Jesus finds and rescues unworthy sinners; it's not our own attempts to find ourselves. It’s all about how God expresses Himself in amazing grace to the world through the death and resurrection of His Son, not how we express the worth we think we have in ourselves.

Jesus told us (in Matt 10:39) that "the one who finds their life will lose it, but the one who loses their life – for His sake – will find it." Sounds like it's not self-discovery, but Jesus-discovery that is key. 

The Gospel that calls us out of the woods of sin and brokenness and into the clear of Jesus' grace and redemption beautifully rewrites those lines from the music video:

She lost herself. 

But she found Him. 

And somehow that was everything.

The Shiniest Wheels

I had the shiniest wheels, now they're rusting

~ Taylor Swift, This Is Me Trying

How much time do we waste trying to make all our wheels the shiniest, only for the rust to inevitably come. We invest so much time and energy and elbow grease in shining up the things that, in the greater scheme of things, matter very little. 

Status, wealth, comfort, fame, popularity, instagram likes, promotions, fancy cars, pretty houses, perfect wardrobes. These might shine for a little while, but the rust will always eventually inescapably destroy. 

Matthew 6:19-21

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

So let us pour our lives, instead, into the treasures that will last; the treasures that no rust can touch. Advancing God's kingdom, loving people, building relationships, giving generously, making disciples. 

These are the wheels that will forever be shiny.