I know everyone gets a kick out of my infatuation with
Genesis 3 but listen to Moses and see if you don't hear the echoes of that
passage, "if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I
solemnly warn you today that you shall
surely perish. Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God." The Lord
said to Adam that they would surely perish if they ate of the tree. Adam's sin is obeying the voice of his wife
rather than the Lord's voice. Moses
knows that human nature is such that when we have prosperity we tend to ascribe
it to our own devices and forget how merciful and gracious the Lord has been,
that all we have and all we are is because of Him, without His work of making
us, we are but dust and to dust we shall return. That should put us in a place of utter
amazement that we live at all, much less prosper. His is the only voice that is from eternity
and into eternity, all life depends upon Him, creation obeyed His voice, how
can we not do the same?
The abundance of wine Jesus provided is
incredible. They went from having no wine
at all to sixty gallons. The address,
"Woman" is not as disrespectful as it sounds to our ears, it was
common. John shows us here and at other
times, that Jesus was not obedient to the voice of even His mother or those who
would direct Him, He moved when the Father spoke. Sometimes those voices were
near in time but not always. Mary
certainly could not have imagined what He would do or the abundance which He
provided. The sign was known only to His
disciples and the servants who drew the water and wine. I wonder what the family thought when they
heard the master of the feast acclaim them for their generosity? They were surely confused as to what this
could mean and if Mary had a role they would have surely come to her and asked
what this meant.
Jesus has shown us the way to be
human. We are intended to be God's
representatives, we bear His image to one another and to the rest of
creation. We have been given what we
need in the Word of God and the Spirit of God to live according to His
ways. Jesus came and was fully dependent
in all things and at all times on the voice of the Father to know how to
navigate life. He loved the Father
entirely, just as the commandment says, with everything in Him. His one aim was to please and glorify the
Father. That wholehearted dedication to
the Father characterized every moment of His life and because it did He managed
to please Him and be the perfect sacrifice for sin. What would our lives look like if we had the
same goal, if we truly believed the chief end not just of mankind but our own,
was to glorify God and enjoy Him forever?
We might listen a bit more closely for His voice.
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