The Great Brewmaster's Kingdom

It was about a year ago now that I brewed my first batch of beer.  For Christmas, I had received a home brewing supply kit, and I spent a few weeks reading about the brewing process and contemplating what I wanted to start with.  Then on a bitterly frigid January Sunday, I spent a couple hours outside, making my first batch of American style pale ale over an outdoor propane grill.

 

 

 

After the couple hour process of boiling water, steeping grains, and adding the right mixture of hops at the right time, I cooled my brew (which is called wort in this stage) and pitched (added) the yeast.  This is the moment where fermentation begins, and the wort begins its transformation to beer.  The yeast takes the sugar from the grains and changes it into alcohol and CO2; this process takes several days.  After fermentation is complete, you let your beer age to improve the clarity and the flavor. It then ages longer when you bottle it.

 

Though the winemaking process is a bit different than the beer brewing process, they share several of the same steps, including fermentation and aging for taste.  When Jesus performed his first miracle, changing water into wine at a wedding banquet, he was able to take a process that takes several weeks and perform it instantly.  Not only did he change the water into wine, but he changed water into “the choice wine”. It was so good that the banquet master said to the groom, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”  

 

Jesus’ first miracle may seem to hold less importance than some of his later ones, but essentially they’re all the same.  Jesus transforms one thing into another.  He transforms water into wine, sickness into health, blindness into sight, possession into freedom, death into life.  And he is still doing this today as he transforms doubt into faith, fear into empathy, hate into love, and sin into shalom. But like fermentation, this is taking time.  When the Great Brewmaster’s kingdom comes to earth in fullness, all the transformations will be complete, and we will say as the master of the banquet did, “You have saved the best ‘til now.”