Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C: Is 62:1-5, Ps 95(96):1-3,7-10, 1 Cor 12:4-11, Jn 2:1-11
Do you know you could have Jesus in your life and yet experience hardships and setbacks? You could have Jesus in your home and yet experience disaster!
Someone once said to me: Father I am devastated: after enthroning the altar to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in my home, I experienced a great disaster in my business that shook my faith and made me question God: Are you truly with me?
Another family had a similar experience: after we enthroned altars to the Lord Jesus to cancel former ancestral covenantal altars dedicated to deities, there was an increase in setbacks and evil manipulations to the extent, many questioned their faith!
Does that mean God’s presence is useless?
If you find yourself asking this question or you’re on the cross road of doubts and disbelief then this message is for you. Here I show you how God breaks protocols in order to bless, and how you can activate this Divine action in your life. If you want to know more continue reading slowly…
Cf. John 2:1-11
There was a wedding at Cana in Galilee. The mother of Jesus was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited. When they ran out of wine, since the wine provided for the wedding was all finished, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ Jesus said ‘Woman, why turn to me? My hour has not come yet.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ There were six stone water jars standing there, meant for the ablutions that are customary among the Jews: each could hold twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, ‘Fill the jars with water’, and they filled them to the brim. ‘Draw some out now’ he told them ‘and take it to the steward.’ And they did this…
POINTS FOR REFLECTION
1. Child of God the Presence of Jesus in your life, business, work, marriage or family is not a guarantee that things may not go wrong! In the gospel you just read, Jesus and his mother Mary were present in that wedding, yet the wine finished even after all the preparations by the couple. Elsewhere Jesus was with his disciples in a boat, yet they experienced a great storm that almost sank the boat, even when professional fishermen, like Peter and others who were ‘skilled on the sea’ as fishermen were present on board(Matt 8:23-27).
I know you will ask me: Is the presence of GOD then useless- offering us nothing but only occupying space? No my dear you’re missing it.
2. Listen if it so for those that follow Jesus how much more will it be for unbelievers? Think about it. It would be worse for the man without Jesus because His presence always create miraculous difference: transforming our weaknesses into strengths, our sorrows to joys, converting our imperfections into perfections and our disgrace into grace! And you need this grace, ‘for by strength shall no man prevail’ (1Sam 2:9).
3. But God breaks protocols in order to bless, and how you can activate this Divine action in your life is what I want to show you:
(a) Power of Persistent Intercession
(b) Power of Faith in action- doing what God says.
(a) Power of Persistent Intercession
“My hour has not come” was the response of Jesus to his mother but he ended up doing what the mother pleaded for. But why? Because she persisted! Mary didn’t take her son’s response for a No! That is not being daring but believing. Scripture says, after the miracle (Jn 2:11), his disciples believed in him, but that was not for Mary because she believed in her son Jesus even before the miracle and she persisted in pleading! She went ahead to prepare the ground for the miracle with an instruction to the servants “TO DO WHATEVER HE TELLS THEM! This is intercession, not of any kind but a Persistent one!
Do you persist in Prayer, or you pray once and get tired? Or you stop praying when you have gotten an answer? Have you forgotten what Jesus taught about Persistent prayer: why men ought to pray always (Lk 18:1-8)? read it now. That is what Mary does, keep a devotion with her and she will teach you persistence in prayer!
(b) Power of faith in action- doing what God says
You may know the definition of faith as a supernatural gift of God that makes us believe whatever God has revealed, but those that ‘DO’ faith know its definition and spelling as: RISK.
To benefit positively from faith, you don’t only need the believing aspect, you also need the ‘doing aspect’ that requires action. Men and women of faith are those who take the leap and risks involved in faith instructions.
Put yourself in the shoes of the servants in the gospel “who did whatever they were told“: after filling with water gallons meant for ritual purification (that is, for washing of hands and legs, not gallons for drinking water), and you are asked to draw out of it and give people to drink, without confirmation. Would that not be a risk , and embarrassing one at that, if you served the guests water when they asked for wine? What a disgrace would that be!
Imagine Mary also, who had so much daring faith, that after preparing and assuring the servants to follow instructions, and nothing happened. Hmmm. But Jesus’ active response breaking all protocols, and even his Divine protocols, saves us all these thoughts!
4. Jesus breaks the protocols of Time by performing a miracle before his appointed time!
Jesus breaks the Jewish Ritual protocols by by using gallons meant for ritual purification purposes to produce drinkable wine. (There’s something deeper here that I shall teach next time).
Jesus breaks the protocols of quantity by providing abundant wine than is expected in a wedding feast!
Jesus breaks the protocols of nature by turning water into wine!
He does all these because Faith was put into action and Prayer (Intercession) was Persistent.
TASK: God has given you the Power to Believe, to work and to pray. Put your hands to work and your faith into actions and see the results. Don’t be lazy: work as if all depends on it and Pray until something happens!
Let’s Pray Now
I declare over you reading this piece: as you read with faith, and put your faith into action, may every difficulty and challenge before you begin to transform into moments of grace encounter (Pray with this many times).
For the Lord says in Isaiah 62:1-2
For Zion’s sake (and your sake) I will not be silent, about Jerusalem (and about you) I will not grow weary, until her (your) integrity shines out like the dawn and her salvation flames like a torch. The nations then will see your integrity, all the kings your glory,and you will be called by a new name,one which the mouth of the Lord will confer.
And so I prophesy:
the Lord Jesus is breaking protocols in your finances now,
the Lord Jesus is breaking protocols in your business now,
the Lord Jesus is breaking protocols in your marriage, in your family and in your life now,
the Lord is converting your sorrows to joys, the Lord Jesus is converting your poverty in to riches,
The Lord Jesus is transforming your disappointments into appointments,
and converting your failures into opportunities, now in Jesus name. AMEN
I always feel lucky and happy whenever I read from you Padre, may Jesus the protocol breaker and our mother Mary the greatest intercessor continue to be with me and my family and do our own miracle for us, amen.
Amen and Amen. Thanks my dear for the prayers and beautiful review. I pray your encounter here endures, in Jesus name. Amen.
Thanks alot padre, may the almighty God continue to bless us all.
Thanks father for that wonderful exposition. May Our Lord Jesus Christ through the intersection of his mother & our’s break every protocol &bless me & my family &,heal my financial life in Jesus name amen.
I say Amen to your prayers. Amen.