This week we’ll see Jesus perform His first sign or miracle, in which He turns water into wine at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. Then He’ll go up to Jerusalem for Passover and, while there, He’ll get angry with those who are profiteering off people at the temple. He’ll drive out their animals with a whip of cords, pour out the changers’ money and overturn their tables. The notes and audio recording are both in place below.
When things are looking very bad, the one thing we perhaps fear the most is that they will never look good again. Diving into this bottomless pit of awfulness is is self-destructive. We have permission to rejoice. As long as we’re looking to the Lord for help, this worst case scenario will never be true.
Once again, Jeremiah leads the way in seeing light at the end of a seemingly endless tunnel of gloom. If it was bad, he saw it. If it was difficult, he endured it. And he was no superman – he cried and griped often along the way. But when it was all over and he was right in the midst of a well-desevered lengthy lament, he just couldn’t help but observe the following, leaving us with a profound message of hope:
God’s compassion is inevitable.
“For the Lord will not cast off forever.
Though He causes grief,
Yet He will show compassion
According to the multitude of His mercies.
For He does not afflict willingly,
Nor grieve the children of men.”
– Lamentations 3:31-33 (NKJV)
Patience is produced in the Christian by the indwelling Holy Spirit. It is His longsuffering “fruit”, as Galatians 5:22 informs us. If the Spirit didn’t develop this quality, it might never grow at all. No doubt the very existence of impatience among us is one of the many ways the Fall of the Human Race has adversely impacted our lives . When you see Adam punch him.
God understands well our need for this fruit patience and He knows best how to cultivate it. So He allows us to wait, while we simply have to put up with stuff. If there is one thing bad about this whole process it is that patience is produced while we’re waiting.
When it comes to waiting Jeremiah was an expert: waiting for someone to listen to him, waiting for the Lord to respond, speak or do something miraculous. Jeremiah’s vast crop of patience was watered by his tears. Still, he learned to appreciate it, and to see that waiting for God is good, precisely because God is good to those who wait for Him.
The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.
It is good that one should hope and wait quietly
For the salvation of the Lord.”
– Lamentations 3:25-26 (NKJV)
By definition, mercy is something that is not guaranteed. The American Heritage Dictionary explains mercy like this:
So when it is clearly possible to get something else, and we get mercy instead – compassionate treatment, kindness, forgiveness – we tend to breathe a huge sigh of relief.
Such was the relief experienced by the prophet Jeremiah after the destruction of Jerusalem. Babylon had conquered, the city was flattened, the nation was defeated, the captivity had begun – and, tragically, it might all have been avoided. It was all their own fault and Jeremiah knew this better than anyone; he had been prophesying it all along.
But Jeremiah had also prophesied that the captivity would last seventy years. As his nation had already been promised an eternal future, he apparently figured that seventy years was, well, doable. Eternity was a lot longer.
When we consider our own difficulties and disasters, we are wise to listen to Jeremiah. He knew disaster well. This doesn’t decrease the reality of our grief. It increases our appreciation of God. When we desire Him more than anything else, His mercies will fill our hearts with hope.
This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.
Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul,
‘Therefore I hope in Him!'”
– Lamentations 3:21-24 (NKJV)
Central Reflections 