Sermon and Worship Resources

These illustrations are based on John 2:1-11
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Sermon Opener – Saving the Best Till Last

The Jews attached great importance to the high moments of life. Thus a wedding was not just a brief ceremony, but an experience shared by the entire community. The typical wedding feast could last up to seven days. That sounds strange to our modern way of thinking, but this offered a bright interlude in an otherwise dreary existence. The ceremony would begin on Tuesday at midnight. After the wedding the father of the bride would take his daughter to every house so that everyone might congratulate her. It was a community experience. Weddings were a time of joy.

Years ago when Johnny Carson was the host of The Tonight Show he interviewed an eight year old boy. The young man was asked to appear because he had rescued two friends in a coalmine outside his hometown in West Virginia. As Johnny questioned the boy, it became apparent to him and the audience that the young man was a Christian. So Johnny asked him if he attended Sunday school. When the boy said he did Johnny inquired, "What are you learning in Sunday school?" "Last week," came his reply, "our lesson was about when Jesus went to a wedding and turned water into wine." The audience roared, but Johnny tried to keep a straight face. Then he said, "And what did you learn from that story?" The boy squirmed in his chair. It was apparent he hadn't thought about this. But then he lifted up his face and said, "If you're going to have a wedding, make sure you invite Jesus!" The little boy was on to something. Weddings are time of Joy.

At the wedding, which Jesus attended in Cana of Galilee, there was great joy but a problem developed. There was a shortage of wine. Not only was that a social embarrassment, it was also a symbol. For a wedding to run out of wine was an omen that there was little chance of this particular marriage reaching its full potential, maybe joy was not meant for this couple.

So Mary approaches Jesus and asks him to do something. His response? "Why do you involve me woman?" Sounds harsh, so unlike him, and it has long puzzled biblical scholars...

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Epiphany: A Faith to Work Miracles

I consider it divine good fortune that we have a scripture lesson so early in the year which encourages us to ponder a miracle. You and I need to become more sensitive to the possibility of miracles. Such a sensitivity will help us recognize present miracles, which we either do not see or which we take for granted; and it will prepare us to receive still more miracles.

Walt Whitman felt that "each part and tag" of his own person was a miracle, and that "a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels." He reminded us that we are surrounded by the glorious and the miraculous and do not know it. Science ought to have increased our sense of awe, as it has unfolded the marvels of the heavens above and mysteries of our bodies within; but we take the attitude that if we know how far it is to a given planet, we have, therefore, encompassed all its significance. We need to know that God is at work in our world. The affairs of this world, and of our individual lives, often seem to be out of control. At such times we can be reassured by the knowledge that God has worked wonderfully in days past, and that he is still at work.

So I direct our attention today to a story from the Gospel of John, generally referred to as Jesus' first miracle. I am impressed that this miracle came to pass, not in the confines of a place of worship, nor even in a uniquely religions occasion; but where people were celebrating one of the happy social events of our common life -- a wedding....

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Soaking Up God’s Goodness

A friend of mine is one of the best chefs in the United States (and has been so acclaimed by people who know what they are talking about). The celebrity chefs on Food Network notwithstanding, most chefs tend to be introverts. My friend, too, is certainly a rather shy and retiring person. He’d rather stay in the background than be center stage with a spotlight shining on him. But like most chefs, the one thing that brings my friend joy is seeing others enjoy his food. More than once when eating in his restaurant, I have seen him standing in the shadows near the kitchen, watching people delight in his culinary creations, and beaming in happiness at seeing the diners’ enjoyment. Most will never shake hands with my friend. Most will never bother to seek him out to say “Thank You” or send a letter of appreciation to the restaurant at some later point. Nor does my friend stroll through the dining room tacitly and subtly soliciting praise. He’s mostly content to look upon people’s delight from afar.

I wonder if God is not accustomed to this as well. At Cana, Jesus watched people enjoy an outstanding wine whose origin most people never learned (and maybe would not have believed even had they been told). And if people did not thank him, it was nothing new. As Augustine first observed—and as C.S. Lewis later enjoyed pondering—what Jesus did at Cana (as in many of his miracles) was really no more than a speeded-up version of what he does every year on a thousand hillsides as vines silently turn water into wine. Millions of people enjoy that wine every year without for a moment recognizing the divine origin of it all. It’s a reminder that we serve a God whose effusive overflow of providential gifts knows no bounds. It’s a reminder that God is also often content to watch people—sometimes even Christian people who should know better—from afar as they soak up the goodness of his creative work.

Scott Hoezee, comments and observations on John 2:1-11.

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What Are You Going to Do When the Wine Runs Out?

The Nobel Prize author Earnest Hemmingway, well known for his book "The Old Man and The Sea," was a person who went for it all. A newspaper reporter, ambulance driver during WWII, involved in the Spanish Civil War, friend to bullfighters as well as authors--he did it all. And, when he did it he did it to the fullest. In a manner of speaking he enjoyed the wine of life. But there came a day when the wine ran out.

Carlos Baker records it in his biography of Hemmingway in this way: Sunday morning dawned bright and cloudless. Ernest awoke early as always. He put on the red “Emperor’s robe” and padded softly down the padded stairway. The early sunlight lay in pools on the living room floor. He had noticed that the guns were locked up in the basement, but the keys, as he well knew, were on the window ledge above the kitchen sink. He tiptoed down the basement stairs and unlocked the storage room. It smelled as dank as a grave. He chose a double barreled shotgun with a tight choke. He had used it for years to shoot pigeon’s. He took some shells from one of the boxes in the storage room, closed and locked the door, and climbed the basement stairs. If he saw the bright day outside, it did not deter him. He crossed the living room to the front foyer, a shrine-like entryway five feet by seven feet, with oak-paneled walls and a floor of linoleum tile. He slipped in two shells, lowered the gun butt carefully to the floor, leaned forward, pressed the twin barrels against his forehead just about the eyebrows and tripped both triggers.

What are you going to do when the wine runs out?

Brett Blair, www.Sermons.com.

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Care for Your Relationships

There was an article in Reader’s Digest recently by a man named Patrick Cooney titled, “Why I Wear Two Wedding Bands.” Cooney says that he has worn two wedding bands for more than a dozen years. When he’s asked about them, he responds, “I have two wives.” He’s kidding, of course.

One day a stranger would not let him off with this glib answer about why he wears two bands. So Cooney spilled the whole story. He explained his father died in 1999. As they were saying their final farewells at his funeral, his mother, who had been married to his father for 50-plus years, removed his father’s wedding band and handed it to Patrick. Surprised, he placed the gold band on his left middle finger, next to his wedding band. There it has remained. He told the stranger that he wears his father’s wedding band to honor his father and his parents’ marriage. He also wears it to remind himself to be the son, brother, husband, and dad that his father wanted him to be. He is now 60 years old and has been married for 30 years. The stranger walked away, then turned back and said, “Sir, you know, I have my father’s wedding band in my sock drawer at home, and beginning today, I am going to start wearing it.”

Powerful story. But isn’t it true of all our relationships? It’s important not only to be faithful and attentive to our spouse, but to our children or our parents and our friends. I can tell you right now, without any hesitation at all that it is God’s will for us to take care of our relationships.

Adapted by King Duncan, www.Sermons.com

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Inviting Christ Brings Joy

Why do we bring Christ into the wedding ceremony? Because if we would only bring Christ into our marriages, we would have better marriages! A few years back psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers was quoted as saying that for about half of all American couples, marriage is a “quiet hell.” Many other marriages have degenerated into a “tired friendship,” as someone put it. I submit to you that this is a tragedy, and in order to prevent such tragedies, we ought to take the traditional marriage ritual seriously and invite Christ to be a guest at our weddings, just as He was invited to the wedding at Cana in Galilee.

Above all, in this quaint and lovely little story, John is proclaiming the Good News that Jesus Christ is the Life of every party, that he is the one who livens things up, brings life abundant for all, even anonymous brides and bridegrooms in an out-of-the-way peasant village located somewhere (where, we are not sure) in the Galilee. As William Barclay put it in his commentary on this passage: “...whenever Jesus comes into our lives there enters a quality which is like turning water into wine. The trouble with life is that we get bored with it. Pleasure loses its thrill. There is a vague dissatisfaction about everything. But when Jesus enters our lives there comes a new exhilaration!”

Donald B. Strobe, Collected Words, www.Sermons.com

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Signs and Hidden Significance

I returned yesterday from San Antonio, Texas. While I was there I remembered my first visit to Houston when I was a student at seminary. As I was interested in history, I visited the battlefield outside the city. There, at San Jacinto, General Sam Houston defeated the Mexican army and won independence for Texas. The Texans have erected a huge memorial tower -- it looks much like the Hoover Tower at Stanford University -- and with typical Texas modesty placed a sign in front of it that says. "This tower is ten feet taller than the Washington Monument."

That is what signs are for: to tell you something that you would not otherwise know; to manifest a significance that might otherwise be hidden. That is what John means when he says that this miracle was a sign. What it pictured was the normal outcome of the combination of human and divine activity. Men can fill water jars; only God can turn water into wine! Men do the ordinary, the commonplace, the normal activity, but God touches it, and brings it to life and gives it flavor, fragrance and effect. That is the meaning of this sign: it is an indication of what the ministry of Jesus is going to be like whenever he touches a human life, not only during his lifetime on earth, but also through all the running centuries to come, whenever his ministry would be present in the world.

Thus it affects us today as well. Bring God into your situation and all the humdrum, commonplace activities are touched with a new power that makes them fragrant, flavorful, enjoyable and delightful, giving joy and gladness to the heart. That is the meaning of this sign.

Ray C. Stedman, Water to Wine

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A Whole New Era

What about the underlying meaning? What did this strange first miracle signify? In a departure from custom, John fails to interpret for us the miraculous "sign," which for him almost always means a symbol, a kind of acted parable. Some commentators see in it a preview of the last Supper, when Jesus transforms not water into wind but wine into blood, his blood shed for all humanity. Maybe. But, I think not.

I prefer a more whimsical interpretation. Tellingly, John notes that the wine came from huge thirty-gallon jugs that stood full of water at the front of the house, vessels that were used by observant Jews to fulfill the rules on ceremonial washing. Even a wedding feast had to honor the burdensome rituals of cleansing. Jesus, perhaps with a twinkle in his eye, transformed those jugs, ponderous symbols of the old way, into wineskins, harbingers of the new. From purified water of the Pharisees came the choice new wine of a whole new era. The time for ritual cleansing had passed; the time for celebration had begun.

Prophets like John the Baptist preached judgment. Jesus' first miracle, though, was one of tender mercy. The lesson was not lost on the disciples who joined him at the wedding that night in Cana. Don't let it be lost on you!

Adapted from Phillip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, Grand Rapids: Zondervan 1995, p. 168.

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Humor: Miracles

There is a time-honored story about a skeptic who was continually harassing the local pastor. His one delight in life seemed to be making the pastor appear inadequate intellectually. The pastor bore these challenges to his theology and faith with great restraint.

One day the skeptic was heckling the pastor about his views on miracles. "Give me one concrete example of a miracle," the skeptic taunted. "One concrete example." Whereupon the pastor hauled off and kicked the skeptic furiously on the shin.

The skeptic couldn't believe it!

The pastor asked, "Did you feel that?"

"Yes," the man said as he nursed his sore leg.

"If you had not," said the pastor, "it would have been a miracle!"

King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com

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Is Vodka Allowed?

There is a legend which states that in the late middle ages, the Russian Czar had come to the conclusion that in order to unite his country, there would have to be one state religion to which everyone should belong.

He considered carefully all of his options. Finally, he settled on a short list of three, Islam, Buddhism or Christianity. He called representatives from each of the three religions to his court in Russia, and asked them each to state the case for their religion before himself and his advisors.

The Muslim representative spoke first. He spoke of the humaneness of Islam, of its tolerance for others, its respect for science and culture, and how it came with a complete legal system that had been refined and perfected through the centuries. When he had finished his pitch, he asked the Czar if there were anything else he would like to know. "One thing," the Czar told him, "Does Allah look favorably upon Vodka?"

The Muslim emissary shook his head and told him no, that alcohol was an abomination to Allah, and was not permitted.

"Next!" cried the Czar, and the Buddhist missionary was ushered in. The Buddhist monk explained the basic teachings of the Buddha, how all of life was suffering and how the Buddha showed the way to end suffering. Finally the King was getting bored and said, "I'll tell you how I stop suffering. Vodka! What does your Buddha have to say about that?"

The Buddhist monk told him that intoxicants were a hindrance to enlightenment, and were not permitted in Buddhism.

"Next!" cried the Czar, and a Christian Orthodox monk was ushered in. But before he could even begin teaching his elementary catechism, the Czar stopped him short. "Just tell me one thing, does your Jesus allow vodka?"

"Are you kidding?" the monk said, "We will give you wine and bread at every service of worship."

"Now I know what I am!" proclaimed the Czar, "I am a Christian! Baptize me, and all of my people." We can imagine that he also ordered them to break out the vodka in celebration.

Now, many people use this story of Jesus turning the water into wine as a way of showing that Jesus didn't have anything against alcohol. While this is true it's the wrong emphases to place on the story. Look at verse 11. The miracle was a sign to reveal Christ's glory. It was a way to help his disciples understand who he was that they might put their faith in him.

Traditional

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ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS NOT IN OUR EMAIL

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In The Service- 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Anyone here remember what they used to call places where you put gas in your car?

They weren’t called “gas stations,” or “fueling centers,” but “service stations.”

When you pulled in, someone (or sometimes even more than one) raced out to greet you, ask what you needed, and proceeded to fill your gas tank with fuel. While you sat, warm and comfy in your car, the “service station” attendant washed your windows, checked your oil, even checked your tire pressure. After filling up the tank they took your payment and wished you well and waved you off.

“Service stations” also used to give out gifts after so many gallons of gas had been purchased (unbelievable, right?!) I will bet that a lot of us here this morning grew up drinking from juice glasses provided by Shell or Texaco, instead of Steuben or Tiffany.

What is the first thing that comes to mind today when someone asks if you ever were “in the service?” There used to be two primary meanings of that phrase “in the service.” The first was military service -- the “service” given by all those men and women who “served” to defend and protect our country. That why George Washington asked for no pay for serving as Commander-in-Chief of Continental forces during the Revolutionary War. He looked at what he was doing as a “service” to his country, so he refused to accept any pay. Nor he did submit expenses, which when added up amounted to nearly ten times what his salary would have been. Before taking office as President, he again offered to serve without pay if all his expenses were covered. This time Congress courteously declined. (Sebastian De Grazia, “A Necessary Evil is Also a Necessary Good,” TLS: Times Literary Supplement, 26 May 2000, 12.)

The second association of being “in the service” is now made bare in a hit television show, now in its third series. Any fans of “Downton Abbey” out there? What did it mean in the early twentieth century to be “in the service?”

Of course, it meant being a “servant” to others. “In the service” meant a life lived in service to others -- whether that service was being a butler, a governess, a cook, a maid, a footman, or a working, serving part of a larger whole, and probably not receiving a whole lot of accolades for doing what you’re doing. Service has always been part and parcel of being “in the service”…

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This Is Where We Came In by Leonard Sweet – John 2:1-11

Not every movie is bathed in theological symbolism or significance. The Denzel Washington movie, The Book of Eli, the story of the man with the last Bible on planet Earth, is one that is rife with spiritual underpinnings. But perhaps the most lasting mark Eli will make on my life is that I’ll never see that word “believe” again without thinking of “Eli” and his story.

There is another movie that will change forever an everyday activity. Once you see this movie, there is no way you can perform this daily rite the same way. The movie is Psycho (1960). The everyday activity is taking a shower.

How many of you know exactly what I mean? How many of you have ever seen this Alfred Hitchcock classic?

Then you know . . . You hear that awful, screechy music. You feel the helplessness and horror of being cocooned in rushing warm water. You shiver at the coming of that unexpected life-extinguishing knife. Notice, you never see any violence. The movie is so scary because everything is masterfully implied by signs and images, not graphically portrayed.

This is the movie by which Director Alfred Hitchcock also transformed the way we watch movies. Before Psycho movie theaters ran the film they were showing on a “loop,” repeating the movie over and over without a break. Just as the film itself was on a looping reel that went round and round, so the movie experience was on a looping wheel that went round and round. Film viewers came and went whenever they wanted. There were no lines to get into a movie, or a starting and ending time. You could enter the theater at any time, and leave when they movie “looped” back to where they had started.

This practice is what led to the phrase “This is where we came in.” And you always wondered what that meant!

Someone in your party with a good memory would read the signs, get up when they started to see things for the second time, and announce, “Time to go. This is where we came in.”

Genius that he was, Hitchcock didn’t want audiences to find out the mysterious identity of his Psycho until they had progressed, step-by-step, through his terror-building tension. He also didn’t want the problem of late-coming movie-goers fretting for much of the movie how come the marquis star Janet Leigh had not made an appearance. Plus this movie was the first one he funded himself, so he wanted to do everything to insure its success.

So Alfred Hitchcock forced all theaters playing his movie to have set times when the film started, and then empty out the theater until the next showing began. For the first time people had to stand in line to get into a movie. For the first time people could watch the faces and listen to the comments of those walking out of the movie. For the first time, you could be “late” for a movie. Hitchcock made “This is where we came in” obsolete in the movie world.

Defining the moment of a “beginning” was something both Alfred Hitchcock and John the gospel writer had in common…

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A Place Where They Care

When Harry Truman was thrust into the presidency at the death of FDR, Sam Rayburn gave him some fatherly advice.

From here on out, you’re going to have lots of people around you. They’ll try to put a wall around you and cut you off from any ideas but theirs. They’ll tell you what a great man you are, Harry. But you and I both know you ain’t.”

When Sam Rayburn discovered that he was quite ill, he announced to the House of Representatives he was going home for medical tests. Some wondered why he did not stay in Washington where there were excellent medical facilities. He supplied the answer when he told Congressman Jim Wright, “Bonham is a place where people know it when you’re sick, and where they care when you die.”

James T. Garrett, God’s Gift, CSS Publishing Company

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Our Town

When I was a senior in high school, we produced Thornton Wilder's Our Town. At seventeen years of age, I thought that a play that had a stage manager talking to the crowd along with people from the graveyard was pure craziness. The problem was that at seventeen I had not experienced heartburn, let alone the loss of someone I love. So my problem was that I could not hear the play rightly. Now that I have seen friends my own age die, I can hear the words of Emily as she comes back from the grave to relive one day.

Emily asks the stage manager, "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?" The stage manager says, "No. The saints and poets, maybe -- they do some." A man from the grave says, "Yes, now you know. Now you know! That's what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those ... of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion or another. Now you know ... that's the happy existence you wanted to go back to, ignorance and blindness." Then another man speaks from the grave and says, "That ain't the whole truth and you know it."

Richard A. Wing, Deep Joy for a Shallow World, CSS Publishing Company.

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Make Sure You Invite Jesus

Brett Blair, www.Sermons.com.

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Emptiness - Internal Weakness

When the Statue of Liberty was remodeled, it was discovered that the entire inside support system had to be replaced. The outside copper skin of the statue was okay; it only had to be cleaned. Rust and corrosion had ruined the inner iron supports. If repairs had not been made, the statue in 20 years would have fallen over. The iron supports were replaced with stainless steel. Now it can withstand 125 mph winds. A nation without inner supports of moral integrity is doomed to lose her liberty.

John R. Brokhoff, Preaching the Miracles, CSS Publishing Company.

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Repealing the Laws

Author Jay Kesler says that shortly after he got his driver's license he wrecked his dad's car. The crash tore away the front fender, two doors, and the rear fender. After Jay found out everyone was okay, he stood in the ditch and prayed, "Dear God, I pray this didn't happen." He opened his eyes and saw that the car was still wrecked, so he closed his eyes, squinted real hard, and prayed again, "Dear God, it didn't happen." Then he opened his eyes, but, he says, it happened anyway.

Have you ever been there? Have you ever asked God to move Heaven and Earth over something trivial, something impossible, something absurd? "Oh, Lord, please don't let it rain for my daughter's wedding," (ignoring the fact that there are others who are depending on rain for their wellbeing.) "Lord, please let the answer to question 8 be four hundred years," (Do we really expect God to change history so that we can pass an exam?). "Oh, God, please let mine be the lowest bid." (Yes, Lord, take your heavenly eraser and blot out everyone's bid and make them higher than mine.)

Have you ever asked God to repeal the laws of gravity, undo the past, change weather patterns or something equally as absurd just for your convenience? I suspect we all have at sometime or another. So, we can appreciate our lesson from the Gospel.

King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com

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When You Have Christ

In the middle ages, Thomas À Kempis wrote: "When you have Christ, you are rich. He is enough. He will provide everything you need so you won't have to count on others without him. People change and fail. You can't depend on them. Those that are for you today may be against you tomorrow. They are as variable as the wind. But Christ is eternally faithful."

Mary Trusted. Mary knew that she could count on Jesus and so can we.

Billy D. Strayhorn, Wedding Bell Blues

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The Font Becomes a Punch Bowl

Imagine if a church member threw a party in the fellowship hall. While the crystal punch bowl is carried down the steps, it accidentally slips and smashes on the floor. Uncle Joe says, “Don’t panic. I know something we can use.” He goes up the stairs into the sanctuary, hoists the baptismal font over one shoulder, and carries it down to the fellowship hall. Then the caterers fill it with Canada Dry and cranberry juice. The font becomes a punch bowl. Get the picture? It’s disruptive ... like what Jesus did behind the scenes at the wedding in Cana.

It goes to show there’s no telling what rules Jesus Christ will break, in order to disclose the presence and power of God. All we can be sure is God’s glory will not be reduced to traditions and rituals. According to the Fourth Gospel, Jesus Christ is not interested in maintaining stale religious customs and established patterns. Rather he is concerned with bringing us into the presence of the eternal God.

William G. Carter, Praying for a Whole New World, CSS Publishing Company.

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Friendship

Jesus went to the wedding in Cana that day, not to perform a miracle, but simply to be with friends. We all need friends who share with us in life’s sorrows and joys.

When Harry Truman was thrust into the presidency at the death of FDR, Sam Rayburn gave him some fatherly advice.

“From here on out, you’re going to have lots of people around you. They’ll try to put a wall around you and cut you off from any ideas but theirs. They’ll tell you what a great man you are, Harry. But you and I both know you ain’t.”

Later on, when Sam Rayburn discovered that he was quite ill, he announced to the House of Representatives he was going home for medical tests. Some wondered why he did not stay in Washington where there were excellent medical facilities. He supplied the answer when he told Congressman Jim Wright, “Bonham [Texas] is a place where people know it when you’re sick, and where they care when you die.”

Jesus put great emphasis upon friendship. He ministered to his friends and was ministered to by them.

James T. Garrett, God's Gift, CSS Publishing Company

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When the Wine Fails

You have heard a bride say it. You have heard a new mother in the maternity ward say it. You have heard a graduating senior say it: This is the happiest day of my life. Some days are like that; they're special. There are great days in all of our lives. I wonder what was your most wondrous moment? For me such days are filled with extraordinary hope and joy. For me it was the birth of my daughter because it was shared with my wife and family. [state yours].

Life involves many happy affairs--the birth of a child, the gatherings of Christmas, a summer vacation. It is often said that to love and be loved is the greatest happiness in the world. For most of us, then, the most significant movement of hope and joy is our wedding day. It's the day we celebrate before God and all our friends the love in our life. Marriage vows are the most profound vows one can make. No other vows are more tender, none are more sacred. No other pledge will so radically shape and claim an individual. The two become one. A home is born. A haven for family is founded. Your place to be is created. But, alas, in too many marriages and in so many lives the wine fails.

Brett Blair , www.Sermons.com. Adapted from John K.Bergland, Abingdon Preacher's Annual, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992.

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Optimism - Turning Water into Wine

In his second year at college, Martin Short lived at home, helping to care for his sick father. Listen to what he says about this tragic moment: "When my dad died at the end of my sophomore year, I stopped and took stock of my life. There was this real sense that my childhood was officially over. I decided that I wanted to be an actor. I knew I was loved as a kid. The thing you can always rely on, your core person, comes from your family's attention and love. When my mother got sick, and I'd see her fight to survive, it gave me an early view of bravery and what life was about. I was able to prepare for it. Your mother dies, and you're 18, and you face a choice. Are you going to take drugs? Become a drunk? Or are you going to try to become more spiritual? Why not go with the thing that seems more positive?"

Then he thought for a moment: "Why do I tend to be optimistic?" And then he answered, "Because the alternative is just crushing to my soul."

Brett Blair www.Sermons.com. Quote taken from "When you're funny, you're blessed," Parade, January 23, 2000, p. 5.

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What Was Mary Thinking?

Just what was Mary thinking? Did she really think that her divinely conceived son had come into this world to do no more than help people save face after committing this or that social faux pas? “Woman, it is not yet my time” Jesus said in reply to Mary’s request. But he could just have plausibly have said, “Woman, this is not my gig. Woman, I have not come into this world full of grace and truth to lubricate the skids of social conviviality.”

What was Mary thinking? Then, what was the evangelist John thinking? When it comes to soaring rhetoric and high-flying promises, it’s tough to beat John 1. From the bracing poetry of the Prologue to John the Baptist’s prediction that Jesus is “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” we have been set up in this fourth gospel to expect . . . well, to expect the WORLD from Jesus. Instead what we get is this homely little story about a wedding party gone bad where Jesus swoops in to save the day by providing a wine cellar’s worth of intoxicating beverages to wedding guests who already had a few under their belts as it was.

“From his fullness we have received one blessing after another” John wrote in chapter 1:16. But not long after saying that, John shows us blessing in the form of one full-to-the-brim wine glass after another. “We have seen his glory” John wrote in 1:14, but then immediately says that Jesus’ first public revelation of this same glory came after the disciples sampled this fine pinot noir in Cana.

Scott Hoezee, Comments and Observations on John 2:1-11.

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How Does Jesus Show He Is the Greatest?

Imagine that the Bible was lost and somebody today was given the task of recording, to the best of their ability, the deeds and words of the Son of God. They were to give an account of the good influence that Jesus had had in people’s lives. What do you think would have been recorded as the first instance through which Jesus showed his greatness? Imagine that there would be a poll among the Christians of the 21st century where they were to answer the question: how does Jesus show you that he is the greatest?

I’ll tell you one thing I don’t think would make it among the top ten: Jesus showing up at a small town wedding, making water into wine. But that’s what the apostle John reports as Jesus’ primary miracle, when he revealed his glory to the disciples, when he showed them his greatness.

Why couldn’t Jesus have found a better purpose when he performed his first miracle? Why couldn’t he have intervened in some of the many political conflicts of the time and put an end to war? Why couldn’t he have done something with the world’s food supply and put an end to world hunger? Why did he choose a small town wedding where he had to provide some more wine? These people had been partying for days and they had probably had enough to drink already. Why does Jesus choose to provide wine at a rural wedding when he would reveal his glory?

This story tells me that Jesus’ concern is to help individuals and make them happy.

How different this is from so many religious ideas about who Jesus is and what he does. Some people have thought that a follower of Jesus should abstain from marriage. Some people seem to think that a good Christian must not be too light hearted, but that a good Christian must be very serious. How very different the real Jesus is. He comes to a wedding. And he decides to perform his first miracle to help people enjoy themselves and have fun.

Sigurd Grindheim, The One Who Gives Abundantly

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Celebrating the New

I once heard a speaker criticize the Lutheran Church by saying, "We have all the right words to a party, but we haven't learned how to pull it off, yet." Seldom do our worship services feel like wedding celebrations -- where 180 gallons of wine would be served during a week-long celebration. Maybe all this talk about 180 gallons of wine can encourage us to be more celebrative and joyful in our receiving and sharing of God's grace. At the same time, I often wonder what Sunday services would be like if we put in as much time, effort, and money as we do for weddings.

The six stone water jars, each holding 20-30 gallons equals 120-180 gallons of wine! That's a lot of wine. I noted above that an abundance of wine was an OT eschatological symbol.

The abundance of God's grace is a theme that can flow out of these huge jars.

Something I hadn't noticed before is that these jars were empty. The servants have to fill them with water before the miracle occurs. Jesus is not transforming the purification water that was in the jars into the wine; but he is transforming new water that has been placed in the old containers. O'Day suggests: "New wine is created in the 'old' vessels of the Jewish purification rites, symbolizing that the old forms are given new content."

Brian Stoffregen, Exegetical Notes

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Yuk!

Weddings can be adventures. I will never forget one several years ago that went just beautifully until the very end of the ceremony. In that tender moment when bride and groom kissed, the bride's five-year-old brother, the ring bearer, let out with a "YUK!" The congregation was on the floor laughing. As people left that afternoon, the place glowed with everyone's grins. And in years to come, when people think of that wedding, the one thing they will remember is YUK!

In a way, that is what we are confronted with in our gospel lesson. This one ALMOST became one of those weddings to remember and for a reason which would have mortified the bride and groom. They had almost run out wine.

David E. Leininger, This Jesus is Something!

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Give Your Dilemma to The Lord

Dr. Charles Stanley, a prominent minister of a large church in Atlanta, tells the story of a time when their church needed two million dollars to relocate to a larger facility. The only problem was they didn’t have the money. One day, the board members told Dr. Stanley to get a loan from the bank because the deal sounded good. However, Dr. Stanley told the group that they needed divine direction, so they all packed their gear and took off for a state park for the weekend for a time of prayer. All weekend they prayed earnestly that God would give them direction and help them resolve the problem that they were facing.

When they finally left the park, they still didn’t have any clear direction about how to purchase the building. But they were committed to waiting on God. A few days later, Dr. Stanley had a message to call a man He had never met. He lived in another state. The man said that he wanted to help Dr. Stanley’s ministry.

Immediately, Dr. Stanley called him back, and the stranger said, “I have had you and your ministry on my mind the past several days. I notice that you never ask for money on the broadcast, and I was wondering if you have any needs.”

Dr. Stanley explained the situation about the building and how they needed two million dollars to purchase it. The stranger said, “I think I can handle that.” And he gave that church two million dollars. That church had a problem; they gave their problem to Jesus; and their problem was solved.

Keith Smith, Anything Is Possible With Jesus