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Sermon
James Garrett
A bonus in being a minister is that I get to share in a lot of weddings. Weddings are joyous and happy times. In the service of marriage are these words:… we are gathered together in the sight of God,… to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony;… which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with his presence in Cana of Galilee. It was a wedding in Cana of Galilee that Jesus does his firs...
Sermon
Steve Swanson
Wouldn't you think that when early man and woman learned to make wine they thought it a miracle - or at least a mystery? Picture some prehistoric person putting a bunch of grapes in a stone jar, then getting so busy hunting pterodactyls for a week or so that they forgot all about those grapes. Imagine their surprise when they finally came back to find the whole business bubbling and gurgling away ...
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
There’s a story about G. K. Chesterton traveling on a train, absorbed in a book. He suddenly awoke to his surroundings and discovered that he was on a train, but he had forgotten where he was going. He got out at the next station and sent a telegram from there to his wife. The telegram said, “I’m here; where ought I to be?” The reply came back from his wife; “Look at your ticket.” Now that is our ...
Sermon
Charles H. Bayer
The story of Jesus turning water into wine has long been a puzzle. It was not just a bit of wine he produced, but a tank full! Those committed to abstinence at best and temperance at least find it hard to imagine Jesus beginning his ministry with such an invitation to drunkenness. Nor is it much comfort to construe the wine as unfermented grape juice. In the first place, the Greek word is wine, an...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
"On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding." (John 2:1-2) It is doubtful than John the Baptist would have been invited. He of the harsh garments of camel's hair and the strange diet of locusts and wild honey. (Although the word translated "locust" in the Gospels probably refers to the fru...
Sermon
King Duncan
Rev. Julie Ruth Harley tells about a couple in Manhattan who got hitched after meeting in a rather unusual way. They were in a car accident. They say love is blind but, according to a report in the New York Times, Joanna Greenwald really did have her eyes closed when she first met Christopher Masters. The reason she had her eyes closed was that a pickup truck had just crashed into the back of her...
Sermon
King Duncan
Larry Davies in his book, Sowing Seeds of Faith in a World Gone Bonkers, tells about a wedding he performed once on a wooden boat dock over a beautiful pond in Amelia county, Virginia. To his surprise, on the night before the wedding the bride (we’ll call her Pamela) called to ask him to read a special set of marriage vows to her new husband after the formal ceremony was through. She would give hi...
Sermon
King Duncan
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 taunt...
Sermon
King Duncan
Have you ever prayed for a miracle? I'm not talking about a really big miracle like praying for a family member near death. I'm talking about little miracles like, Oh, Lord, please let the traffic light stay green! Or Jesus, please help me to ace this test! Or, God, please let our team win! Is there anyone in the room who has ever prayed for that kind of miracle? Author Jay Kesler says that short...
Sermon
King Duncan
It was the stuff that dreams are made of. A seventeen year old girl in Inglewood, California wrote a letter to her favorite television star. Enclosed was a newspaper clipping accompanied by a picture. The article told about a show the girl was to appear in. In the newspaper article the writer noted what this girl's friends had already told her many times beforethe girl's physical resemblance to th...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
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 ...
Sermon
Billy D. Strayhorn
There's an old story about a skeptic who continually harassed the local pastor. His one delight in life seemed to be making the pastor appear inadequate intellectually. The pastor bore those 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 concr...
13. Wedding Day
John 2:1-11
Sermon
Gary L. Carver
It had been a standard practice, in years past, that the most popular month for weddings was June. The idea of someone being a June bride was without doubt not just normal, but expected. As our society has moved in so many directions, it has become the case that June no longer holds the fascination as it once did. We do know that weddings are always the source of much anticipation and, at times, p...
Sermon
Mark Trotter
I imagine those of you who have been hosts at a wedding reception, or anticipate doing that sometime in the future, were interested in the Gospel lesson for this morning, where Jesus attends a wedding and turns the water into wine, not only producing the finest of vintages, but also covering for the host’s bad planning. The host was able to tell his guests, "Well, I was just reserving the best for...
Sermon
J. Howard Olds
The season of Lent has arrived. It's time to repent and believe the Gospel. We are encouraged to remember that we are mortal, as if our bodies would ever let us forget. Lent is a 40-day period of self-examination and self-denial — except for Sundays. Tucked into these forty days are six “little Easters" — days to remember that God in Jesus Christ gives us the victory over sin, over death, over all...
Sermon
Billy D. Strayhorn
I think marriage is one of the most beautiful gifts God ever gave humanity. I don't say that simply because I'm married to the most beautiful and loving woman in the world. I say that as a pastor who has had the privilege of joining together countless couples. And watching their relationship blossom and grow into a thing of beauty. Now true there are rough moments in marriage. Every day is breakf...
Sermon
Charley Reeb
Pre-marital counseling can be an adventure for pastors.  You never know what two people filled with passion will say.  I recall talking with a couple a few years ago about their upcoming nuptials.  I was explaining to them the wedding ceremony.  When I got to the reference of Jesus being at a wedding reception in Cana of Galilee and turning the water into wine, the soon to be groom interrupted me ...
Sermon
Susan R. Andrews
We could always count on it. Every year, on the second Sunday of January, my dad would preach his drinking sermon — or, I should say his anti-drinking sermon. Having seen firsthand in my mother’s family the deathly cost of drunkenness, having spent more nights than he could remember offering pastoral support to families dealing with the fall-out of alcohol, Dad was convinced that alcohol was a dem...
Sermon
King Duncan
Do you mind if I start today with a terrible joke? Did you hear about the two TV antennas that got married? I understand that the wedding was terrible, but the reception was excellent! I’ll let you think about that for a moment. Our lesson today from the Gospel of John is about a wedding reception that went from a near disaster to a roaring success. And it became a roaring success, of course, bec...
Sermon
King Duncan
During a wedding rehearsal, the groom approached the priest with an unusual offer. “Look, I’ll give you $100 if you’ll change the wedding vows. When you get to the part where I’m to promise to ‘love, honor, and obey’ and ‘forsaking all others, be faithful to her forever,’ I’d appreciate it if you’d just leave that part out.” He slipped the priest the cash and walked away. The wedding day arrived....
Sermon
James Merritt
Most of you know I am a huge sports fan and one of my favorite sports is Major League Baseball. There are so many fascinating stories that come out of baseball and I just came across one that I thought was particularly interesting. Probably the greatest knuckle-ball pitcher who ever played the game was Hoyt Wilhelm. He was the first knuckleball pitcher ever elected to the Hall of Fame. What fasci...
22. Only the Best
John 2:1-11
Sermon
Cynthia Cowen
In areas where wine is made, there are places many go to sample the different varieties offered by each vineyard. People who are connoisseurs of wine — those who are critical judges in the matter of taste — can tell a good wine from a poor wine. The chief stew­ard in our text was one of those who knew the difference, as does the winemaker, Leigh. After retiring from a career in special education,...
Sermon
David E. Leininger
Weddings are special. Normally all goes well, even though the happy couple should always be warned that something can easily go wrong and often does (as all the footage on America's Funniest Home Videos through the years regularly attests). My advice to wedding parties is to look for something to go wrong, then consider it God's good gift to keep us on our toes. Weddings can be adventures. Severa...
Sermon
J. Ellsworth Kalas
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 "ea...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
One of our best Christmas presents this past holiday was a dead looking, papery-coated lump stuck in a hand-made pottery bowl full of gravel. Our eight-year-old daughter Soren made the pottery base at school, filled it with crushed rocks, and the teacher stuck in the middle of this mess (sorry . . . this loveliness) a bulb. All we had to do, Soren instructed, was put this lump in the middle of the...
Showing 1 to 25 of 34 results