Wedding

​Our garage is full of boxes and items that we will transport to Champoeg State Park.  The weather forecast for Sunday is 72 degrees and cloudy—almost perfect!  The kitchen is stacked with boxes of food, prepared and unprepared.  Brenda, Kathleen’s sister, spent countless hours ironing tablecloths, dresses, shirts, etc.  Orange and purple flower arrangements dance in their splendid array.  Bridesmaids are making signs. Kathleen’s friends of countless weddings, veterans familiar in how these things go, are cooking, planning and helping us with all the logistical challenges (and I thought military exercises were complicated).  

Hectic activity drowns contemplation in its pool of chaos.  Tomorrow, I walk Sarah down the aisle and with Kathleen give her to Mark. A new chapter in our lives will begin yet I’m hardly ready to leave these familiar pages.  So fast my only daughter has become a woman and the wedding songs cannot wait to be sung.
    
Meditation
John 2:1-3—On the third day a wedding took place in Cana of Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding as well.  When the wine ran out, Jesus' mother told Him, “They don't have any wine.”
 
“They don’t have any wine!”  Okay, I better understand those words.  Wracking our brains to make sure we have thought of everything that needs to be done, I can only imagine how lousy it would feel to run out of food, to be short on beverages, to have miscalculated chairs.  Mary saw the desperate look of concern in the providers and did what any caring friend would do—she looked for a solution.  In her confident mind, Jesus, her splendid son, could fix the problem. So she asked Him for help.
​
John shares the first recorded instance of Jesus using His divine power.  God’s Son turned six stone jars full of water into wine. “He displayed His glory, and His disciples believed in Him” (2:11b).  Rather than launch His ministry with some breathtaking miracle of monumental proportion, Jesus met the need of friends.  “For even the Son of Man did  not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life—a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).  What an awesome Savior we have!  He understands our needs and applies His eternal hand with the deftness of a painter’s touch.  Imagine if the tears of joy that accompany a daughter’s celebration are special, what the heart will know when we join our Savior for our eternal marriage!  Picture what happens when our stone jars are changed forever . . . the wedding is tomorrow and I can hardly wait.
 
Inspiration
The one-flesh marital union we know on Earth is a signpost pointing to our relationship with Christ as our bridegroom. Once we reach the destination, the signpost becomes unnecessary.—Randy Alcorn in Heaven
 
©2011 Daniel York  ARR. Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals go to www.firstcause.org and click on the “Click here to receive weekly devotionals” box.  Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.      
 
Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth.  (Holman CSB)