Good news, homebrewed

Anyone who has made beer, wine, cider, or mead knows the first rule: sanitize everything. One stray bacterium in the mix, and the sip you’ve waited weeks for tastes like vinegar.

Once fermentation finishes, the risk drops. The alcohol protects the batch, and a sealed bottle can age for years. 

Our lives begin with raw ingredients, and a lot gets added along the way. Some of it came from our own choices, and some from what other people did to us. A brewer would pour that batch out. Plenty of us have felt like that batch, and have wished for a do-over. 

Jesus, who turned water into wine in the late stages of a wedding party, offers a different ending. The hosts had run out of wine, and the best wine of the night came last, from him.* He likes to flip the script. However spoiled our batch seems, and however late we arrive to the party, he promises to repair what went wrong, keep us safe and sealed with him, and loosen the hold that shame and pain have on us. 

He sees the person each of us was made to be. Our batches hold more potential than we can imagine, and he makes something new when we invite him into the mix.

* For more of the wedding story, you can check out John 2:1-12.