For persuaded hearts everywhere who find themselves waiting for the perfect faithfulness of God’s timing: Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man, walked this way before us. His soul learned what His spirit knew. Timing is everything.
“O Lord, You are my God; I will exalt You and praise Your name, for in perfect faithfulness You have done marvelous things, things planned long ago.” Isaiah 25:1
Faith and Understanding
It’s nothing new to ponder what it was like to raise Jesus the child. His mother Mary had a lot to ponder while rearing him from infancy to when his heavenly Father claimed the governing of his life.1,2 What felt like a back seat became a front-row view while He knit together in her understanding what He had knit together in her womb.3
The intervening years were perfectly wound to his Abba’s eternal timepiece, dispensing His plan of the ages held and released in perfect faithfulness. Jesus in the flesh was confirmation of the ancient prophet Isaiah’s awe-induced announcement of God’s marvelous things done, planned so long ago. What Isaiah knew by the Spirit and saw with eyes of faith4 was established by Ancient Abba in his persuaded heart. His faith did not waver; it grew.
Isaiah and Jesus were both privy to, in their respective days on earth, of that toward which we are yet moving in our day. Even as I am writing this, I am deeply impressed with knowing all of Heaven is waiting for the perfect faithfulness of God’s timing. Creation groans, the saints groan, the Spirit groans; and so too do we groan. Let us groan with understanding; unwavering, growing faith; and the knowledge that Isaiah and Jesus wait with us too.
Honor your father and mother – Twelve
Luke opens his Gospel with telling how he investigated firsthand, the stories and history of Jesus’s life through those who lived and journeyed with Him. Chapter 2:41-52 recounts the boy Jesus at twelve years old on his first trip to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. Then, his stay behind after the Feast was over and his family’s departure, unaware he was not present in the traveling caravan. Instead, he was in the temple courts for three days, listening and asking questions of the teachers. In turn, he amazed them with his understanding and answers.
When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he was saying to them. Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured {kept watch, guarded} all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men. (vs. 48-52)
Jesus was faith in the flesh.5 He embodied understanding. During waiting obedience with his earthly family, Jesus grew. We aren’t told in scripture when his father, Joseph, died. But I believe Joseph and Jesus developed a bond that knit their souls together through their heavenly Father. They both knew who Jesus’s Abba really was.
Can the same be said of us who are followers, disciples, beloveds of Jesus? Faith doesn’t waver; it grows.
Honor your Father and mother – Thirty
Eighteen growing years later, Jesus was a guest at a wedding in Cana as recorded in John 2:1-12. Set on a stage in the natural, where Jesus delighted in human joy and celebration, the wine failed. Mary his mother was present, along with Jesus’s disciples. She had spoken to him at twelve with no understanding of what he said then. Now, she approached him through a faith that had been exercised as her heavenly Father continued His work in her.
Thousands have written of this passage, but during our sabbatical time off, timing was often uppermost in my soaking time with the Lord. Truly, I pondered from here to eternity. What He showed me in scripture then, I share with you now. We know the significance of the wedding at Cana is that it was the place and timing of Jesus’s first sign or miracle. The day He changed the water into wine – the eternal equivalent of which has never failed.
Once again, Mary found her son and in highly-responsible-mother fashion, told him, “They have no more wine!” And once again, as he did at twelve, he responded with a question, followed by a firm timing is everything statement:
“Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour {time to act} has not yet come.”
Then, he did what she asked. But in between… (and this is when Holy Spirit knit together in me even more understanding)
Jesus had to have sought His Father’s word on his mother’s request. You can almost hear the ticking of the second hand as it moved to a marked time that could not be rewound. On the surface, Mary was persuaded that Jesus could do what was needed to ‘fix things’, make things better, spare embarrassment, keep the party going. In her pondering heart, did she know the domino effect that would be set in motion by what she was asking?
By telling her it was not yet his time, then convening a brief but necessary gathering of the Triune Council, and ultimately doing as she asked – Mary became not his mother but the vessel through whom the prompt came. As he stepped into it, his time of being hidden away would now become more public. And with it, continued need for the private conveyances and conversations between him and his Abba. He was headed into not easy but eternal.
“Father, the time has come.”
John 17 records what has been titled in Bibles, The High Priestly Prayer. As I read, Holy Spirit was knitting together the perfect faithfulness of God’s timing in His own Son’s life – along with mine and yours and all that concerns us.
Jesus had spent years growing as we do. As he did, surely His soul learned what His spirit knew. This time, He had no questions, just the knowing faith that one to whom all authority has been given, has grown from smallest seed.
“Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.” (John 17:1)
The walking-out reality just ahead of Him was the time of His revealing. Now He waits, along with all creation, for the ones who are His to be revealed. Today, we yet groan, until the perfect faithfulness of God’s timing appears.
The Mother from His Father’s Heart
Behind the scenes of Jesus’s crucifixion was his Abba’s eternal timepiece. Before him, the mother from his Father’s heart. While on the cross, Jesus took care of the natural while His Father was tending to the eternal. His beloved John was there, too, and it was these two grieving hearts Jesus knitted together. Though grief clouded their faith for a little while, the best was yet to come. Inexpressible joy waited just around their corner, and his. While even now, our corners are brightening with every step we take in the perfect faithfulness of God’s timing.
Gracefully Free
1 Matthew 3:16-17; 17:5 2 John 5:19 3 Luke 1:26-38; Psalm 139:13-18 4 Hebrews 11 5 II Corinthians 5:1-10
©2022 Nancy C. Bentz – Author’s permission granted to forward this devotional piece in its entirety, including this copyright line. For more devotionals, to leave a comment, or to subscribe to this blog, visit Wellspring of Life
Loved the comment ‘his mother became the vessel’. A good reminder of what a ‘Christ believing mother can do, even in this day and age.
Oh amen, Pat. Even in this day and age and especially so. The Lord is faithful to his Christ believing mothers. We can take heart ❤️