As for you, you have safely guarded the good wine until now. John 2:10
Jesus before starting his public ministry was invited to a wedding with his disciples and family. You know the story. Israeli weddings took a long time back then, and people were allowed to just drop in. And so it happened that they ran out of wine. Mary urged Jesus, and when he did not want to do it, even brought him into a situation he could not do otherwise, to help with the situation. She told the waiters: “Do exactly as he tells you.”
Now we can wonder where Mary’s confidence came from. Did Jesus do miracles in private? Or was it enough that she pondered what had happened when he was born and when he was twelve? This is something I just might ask her one day…
When the waiters had obeyed and Jesus had turned the water into wine, the supervisor came and said above verse: “As for you, you have safely guarded the good wine until now.”
Why has this story been included in the bible?
Mary in the time of the Old Covenant gave birth to Jesus, the pattern son. There is another woman in Revelation 12 that gives birth to a child, the man child, the company of sons born out of the church by the Spirit. Mary represents the church, the remnant within. Just like Mary was one of the few in her time, there is a remnant church in ours not following fads. Not in it for themselves.
Mary told her son: they ran out of wine. There is no Spirit any more.
Granted, they still had water. Just before Jesus left this planet, he breathed at his disciples and said: “Take the Holy Spirit.” This blowing and receiving of the Spirit had no outward effect on the disciples. It was essential for survival of the 10 following days, the days of test, awaiting, what they did not know yet, the outpouring of the Spirit on Pentecost. Water keeps us alive, but wine intoxicates us.
The church today has water. The church is surviving, and has been for the last centuries. There were times they had wine – in the beginning, and in the beginning of the restoration of all things. Yet they ran out of wine.
Let me explain. God in the early 1900 restored wine back by the outpouring of the Spirit in Topeka, Kansas, Azusa Street and the like, and later in Saskatoon and North Battleford, Canada. Yet it was a mere restoration. I am very thankful for it, but it was the early rain again.
But God promises the early rain and the later together. In the first month, the time of the third feast season. What is this later rain?
The remnant church is crying out to the Lord: They ran out of wine. And she tells those who are truly waiting on him, that are ministering at the wedding, ministering to the bride and the bridegroom – the Lord and his church – to do whatever he says.
So they gather the water, the early rain portion of the Spirit in jars for cleaning. In Eph 4:11ff the fivefold ministry is shown to be set until we all grow into full manhood and maturity. Are fivefold ministers jars of cleansing? Just like Jesus cleansed the temple, are we to rid the church of earthly remains, the memories of the old nature? Not by wrath and whip, not by power and might, but by his Spirit. The water. The water that turns into wine. Cleansing both us, which speaks of the purification of heart and character, and the people God appointed us to.
There were six jars. Six speaks of man. God is going to use mere man to be the vessels, the tools for this transformation. Each of those jars held two or three measures. The bible tells us that we were given the grace in the measure of the gift of the Christ. But here it is 2-3 measures. God gave gifts to them more than before, not only a double portion, even more. Three speaks of excellent things. Things without measure. The Spirit without measure, just like Jesus. You will do greater miracles than these.
Or is it that they have the measure of Jesus, received at the cross. The measure of the Spirit, received at Pentecost, the second feast, the early rain, and are at the brink of or in the midst of receiving the Father, who comes to live in the midst of his people in Tabernacles?
True sons, becoming fathers, will hand out the later rain, the wine. And people supervising the church will say: Why did you keep the best for last? But the people will just enjoy the feast.
This is the time we are in. The wine is prepared in the jars. Soon the ones waiting will start handing it out. Some will react puzzled, but most will rejoice.
Do you agree? Send me a comment.