The Fine Wine

A woman darted out from the shoulder of the road.

My husband slowed down to try to avoid hitting her. She still bumped into the side of the van. We rolled down the window.

“Please,” she sobbed, “please. I need a ride.” 

We told her we would drop off our children at home and come back for her. We urged her to go to the C-Store, out of the road. Her senses were obviously dulled.

When we returned, she was nowhere to be seen. I asked people at the C-Store and the laundromat if they’d seen her. We drove slowly back and forth. I finally saw her, passed out in the grass on the opposite side of the road. 

We got her up and took her where she wanted to go. When we dropped her off, she hugged me tightly, holding on with a scary sort of desperation. She had imbibed sweet emptiness that did nothing for her real thirst. I wished she could taste the goodness of God.

At the wedding in Cana, when Jesus changed the water into wine, inferior wine had been served until it ran out, leaving the guests thirsting for the real thing.

When the Master of the Ceremony tasted the wine Jesus made, his thirst for quality was finally quenched, and he said in surprise, “You have kept the fine wine until now!”

When he called it fine, he was indicating that the taste was an outward sign of the inward quality of the product. His senses weren’t so dull that he couldn’t taste quality, and he hadn’t been slaked by the sweet emptiness that had come previously, so he was thirsty enough to appreciate what Jesus produced.

Throughout the Old Testament, God used the Law, the Tabernacle system of worship, leaders like King David, and the reward and discipline system of covenants to reveal His character to people. These were just shadows of the Christ which was to come, inferior wine that left people thirsting for deeper knowledge of God’s character and an intimate relationship with the One who would save them.

When Jesus emerged from the waters of the Jordan River at His baptism, He was the fine wine that people had been looking for. Only He could quench thirst. Only He could be the outward sign of the inward quality (the deity) of His Messianic character. He wasn’t sweet emptiness; He was hearty substance and nourishment.

The Savior was God. The Messiah was the Holy One. The Anointed One was Himself the Creator. 

They would no longer settle for the sweet emptiness that dulled their senses, and neither should we. Jesus is the fine wine, and only He will satisfy. Don’t settle for a vintage with less quality. 

With the Master of the Ceremony, we can say, “Everyone sets out the fine wine first, then, after people are drunk, the inferior. But you have kept the fine wine until now,” and pray that the fine wine convinces them to forsake all others.