SERVICE FOR THE LORD’S DAY
January 16, 2022
Gathering
MUSICAL OFFERING
WELCOME AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
Let me remind you quickly of our protocols for everyone’s safety.
· Attendance was taken by Ushers as you entered.
· masks are required by Session, as well as social distancing
bulletins are placed in the pews to help with social distancing
· Offerings may be placed in the plate by the doors.
· Please write your prayer request on the Yellow cards. An usher will pick them up during the 1st hymn.
· Please join us after service for fellowship will be continuing with beverages only, in Calvin Hall
PRAYER REQUESTS
Gary Iverson, Bob Bock, Joan Boyd, Wanda Hirl, Marilyn Neymeyer, Joan Pinkston, Maxine Wagner, Annette Conzett, Jo Lefleur, Dr Dyke, Bonnie and Jon Pillers, Mike Niles, Harlan Marx ,Tom Kelly, Lois Seger, Jon Ryner, Lucy Melvin. Bob Emmert, Abagail Niles, Helanah Niles, Rich Lewis, Kay Werner, Amanda Walston and Arlene Pawlik
PRELUDE
*WORDS OF WORSHIP (Unison) “I will bless the Lord at all times, his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord, let the humble hear and be glad, O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name forever” (Psalm 34:1-3)
*GATHERING PRAYER (Unison) Lord God, we rejoice You have called us Your children. As we come before You today, help us open our ears, our hearts and our minds to hear what You have for us. amen.
HYMN When morning guilds the skies #487
CONFESSION AND PARDON (Unison) O Holy One, we call to you and name you as eternal, ever-present, and boundless in love. Yet there are times, O God, when we fail to recognize you in the dailyness of our lives. Sometimes shame clenches tightly around our hearts, and we hide our true feelings. Sometimes fear makes us small, and we miss the chance to speak from our strength. Sometimes doubt invades our hopefulness, and we degrade our own wisdom.Holy God, in the daily round from sunrise to sunset, remind us again of your holy presence hovering near us and in us. Help us to see and follow that presence now and always. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
ASSURANCE OF PARDON (Pastor) The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting. Because of God’s mercy and love we can say together (Unison) we are forgiven people, thanks be to God, Amen
PASSING OF THE PEACE
OFFERING PRAYER
Interlude
Word
PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to You O God. Amen
SCRIPTURE LESSONS John 2:1-11
2 Now on the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine ran out, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no wine left.”4 Jesus replied, “Woman, why are you saying this to me? My time has not yet come.” 5 His mother told the servants, “Whatever he tells you, do it.” 6 Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washing, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus told the servants, “Fill the water jars with water.” So they filled them up to the very top. 8 Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the head steward,” and they did. 9 When the head steward tasted the water that had been turned to wine, not knowing where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), he called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the cheaper wine when the guests are drunk. You have kept the good wine until now!” 11 Jesus did this as the first of his miraculous signs, in Cana of Galilee. In this way he revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
Sermon Title “And His disciples believed in Him”
Today’s reading begins with the words, “on the third day” and we are left wondering, the third day after what? If we go back a few verses, we discover Jesus had just called Phillip and Nathaniel to be followers. Just before that, John the Baptist had described Jesus as “the lamb of God”. In John’s gospel this is the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. He was beginning to lay out the framework of what His version of the messiah was to be.
Also, there is some hidden meaning in mentioning that it was the third day. The number 3 carried some weight in Jewish thinking. It carried a meaning of permanence or completeness in their thinking. To say something three times meant it was really important and needed to be heard in that way. Later in the gospels, Lazarus will be raised after three days, Jesus resurrection will be on the third day and Jesus will ask Peter three times if Peter loves him. That was a question of deep significance. Do you love me no matter what? Do you love me even though it when imay mean you give your life for me? It was more than a mere question, it was a dividing question and peter understood it that way when he heard it. So, by saying this was the third day, the gospel was saying that what happened here had some importance and needed to be heard as more than a reporting of the events themselves but that it carried some importance and needed to be heard in that way.
The story takes place during a wedding. We need to remember a wedding at that time of history was a different thing that what we experience. Because travel was much slower a wedding then was often a several day affair. Friends and relatives came from some distance and time needed to be allotted for people to make the journey. Planning for a wedding, then, involved the need to allow for the people to arrive and express their good wishes to the couple and the family involved. Instead of thinking only of the day itself, the family needed to plan for 2-3 days for all the people to be taken care of.
When it comes to the people you invite to a wedding, who is usually on the list? Family members, close friends, people hwo are special in some way or another to the family or the couple. We try to think of those who will in some way or another add to the joy of the event. Some conservative voices of the past had tried to downplay this story because they could not accept the idea Jesus might actually drink wine or in some way enjoy being at a celebration but this is not the image we see in the gospels. The gospels, as a whole, do not have this picture of Jesus. Many times we see Jesus in the midst of small children and the children seem to be comfortable with his presence. Little children and animals seem to have a special radar that helps them judge adults. As a whole, children would rather be around people who are easy to be with rather than people who are bristly in some way. They have an ability to separate themselves from those who are doom and gloom types and would rather be around cheerful upbeat people. Jesus was invited to the wedding because, in the eyes of the family, he was one who would not be a wet blanket at the festivities.
Because a wedding was well known to be a several day event, one of the responsibilities of the host was to plan accordingly. It was a mark against a person’s reputation if anything was not well planned. To give a wedding and run out of any of the necessary things was something that would be the gossip of the town. “you know at the levi’s wedding, they actually ran out of wine” would spread like wildfire through the town. When Mary came to Jesus with the report they had run out of wine, she was in effect asking Jesus to do something that would help protect the host family. She seems to assume Jesus can, and would do something though she does not seem to know what he would do because she tells the servants, “ do whatever he tells you” and then seems to leave the matter to Jesus. When Jesus speaks to the servants, he sends them to get the Jars set aside for the rite of purification. They had the wine jars that had been empty. It would be the normal thing to use them if there was a need for wine. The jars set aside for the rite of purification were much larger, John says they held 20-30 gallons of water each. The Jewish ritual of purification involves the need to symbolically cleanse oneself whenever you had contaminated yourself in some way. It may have been contact with some dead thing, it may have been a woman’s monthly cycle, it may have been something else but there was a need to make oneself clean so they could participate in the rites of worship again. A person was required to cleanse whatever part of the body had been contaminated and to wash thoroughly. When they had done this, they were ready to rejoin the worshipping community again. By using these jars, Jesus was acting out a parable which may not have been seen at the time. He was saying the people who received this water were, in fact, being cleansed in a way they may not have understood. What they received was a cleansing preparing them for the events which were to come.
As we are thinking about the water, did you really hear how big they were? John says they were 20-30 gallons each. If the jars were the little ones of 20 gallons, six jars would mean there was 120 gallons of water which was transformed and brought to the master of the feast. That would supply a pretty good-sized party with adequate wine. When this was brought to the master of the feast, he declared it was the best wine that had been served so far.
At this point of the story, I always have to think about the servants and what was going on in their minds. They had gone to the same well they went to all the time. They had filled their jars with that water to supply the needs of the house every day. That was the water they brought to the master of the feast and then, suddenly, he declared it was the best wine of the day. What do you suppose they thought or felt? What was going on in their heads? What if you went into your kitchen, ran a glass of water for a friend and they declared it was the best wine they had ever had? Clearly, something very much out of the ordinary had happened here but no one seems to know what it was.
The last thing the gospel says about the incident is: “and his disciples believed in him”. Again, remember they had only been with him three days. They were going about their everyday business when Jesus came before them calling them to be followers. There was something about him, the way he approached them that urged them to leave their homes, their friends, any occupation they may have had and go after this man. Something urged them to hear more about what this man was saying. They may have decided to “check this out” and see what it was about but there was nothing they had seen as of yet. Now, they had something. They had seen this work and clearly, there was something more there than ordinary. There was something behind this Jesus that was out of the ordinary. We have to remember that they had not yet understood he was the messiah, that comes later on in the story but for now, what they had just witnessed made it clear he was something out of the ordinary and they believed he was worth following.
We are going to look at three parts of the story today: the water Jesus used, how much water was used and the end result of the miracle. Each of those seem to carry a message that is informative about the way God deals with we humans. Each of these seem to carry a message that has something to say to us as we struggle in our own attempts to be part of the gospel story. the word itself can be translated good news or or completeness in their thinking. To say something three times meant it was really important and needed to be heard in that way. Later in the gospels, Lazarus will be raised after three days, Jesus resurrection will be on the third day and Jesus will ask Peter three times if Peter loves him. That was a question of deep significance. Do you love me no matter what? Do you love me even though it when imay mean you give your life for me? It was more than a mere question, it was a dividing question and peter understood it that way when he heard it. So, by saying this was the third day, the gospel was saying that what happened here had some importance and needed to be heard as more than a reporting of the events themselves but that it carried some importance and needed to be heard in that way.
The story takes place during a wedding. We need to remember a wedding at that time of history was a different thing that what we experience. Because travel was much slower a wedding then was often a several day affair. Friends and relatives came from some distance and time needed to be allotted for people to make the journey. Planning for a wedding, then, involved the need to allow for the people to arrive and express their good wishes to the couple and the family involved. Instead of thinking only of the day itself, the family needed to plan for 2-3 days for all the people to be taken care of.
When it comes to the people you invite to a wedding, who is usually on the list? Family members, close friends, people hwo are special in some way or another to the family or the couple. We try to think of those who will in some way or another add to the joy of the event. Some conservative voices of the past had tried to downplay this story because they could not accept the idea Jesus might actually drink wine or in some way enjoy being at a celebration but this is not the image we see in the gospels. The gospels, as a whole, do not have this picture of Jesus. Many times we see Jesus in the midst of small children and the children seem to be comfortable with his presence. Little children and animals seem to have a special radar that helps them judge adults. As a whole, children would rather be around people who are easy to be with rather than people who are bristly in some way. They have an ability to separate themselves from those who are doom and gloom types and would rather be around cheerful upbeat people. Jesus was invited to the wedding because, in the eyes of the family, he was one who would not be a wet blanket at the festivities.
Because a wedding was well known to be a several day event, one of the responsibilities of the host was to plan accordingly. It was a mark against a person’s reputation if anything was not well planned. To give a wedding and run out of any of the necessary things was something that would be the gossip of the town. “you know at the levi’s wedding, they actually ran out of wine” would spread like wildfire through the town. When Mary came to Jesus with the report they had run out of wine, she was in effect asking Jesus to do something that would help protect the host family. She seems to assume Jesus can, and would do something though she does not seem to know what he would do because she tells the servants, “ do whatever he tells you” and then seems to leave the matter to Jesus. When Jesus speaks to the servants, he sends them to get the Jars set aside for the rite of purification. They had the wine jars that had been empty. It would be the normal thing to use them if there was a need for wine. The jars set aside for the rite of purification were much larger, John says they held 20-30 gallons of water each. The Jewish ritual of purification involves the need to symbolically cleanse oneself whenever you had contaminated yourself in some way. It may have been contact with some dead thing, it may have been a woman’s monthly cycle, it may have been something else but there was a need to make oneself clean so they could participate in the rites of worship again. A person was required to cleanse whatever part of the body had been contaminated and to wash thoroughly. When they had done this, they were ready to rejoin the worshipping community again. By using these jars, Jesus was acting out a parable which may not have been seen at the time. He was saying the people who received this water were, in fact, being cleansed in a way they may not have understood. What they received was a cleansing preparing them for the events which were to come.
As we are thinking about the water, did you really hear how big they were? John says they were 20-30 gallons each. If the jars were the little ones of 20 gallons, six jars would mean there was 120 gallons of water which was transformed and brought to the master of the feast. That would supply a pretty good-sized party with adequate wine. When this was brought to the master of the feast, he declared it was the best wine that had been served so far.
At this point of the story, I always have to think about the servants and what was going on in their minds. They had gone to the same well they went to all the time. They had filled their jars with that water to supply the needs of the house every day. That was the water they brought to the master of the feast and then, suddenly, he declared it was the best wine of the day. What do you suppose they thought or felt? What was going on in their heads? What if you went into your kitchen, ran a glass of water for a friend and they declared it was the best wine they had ever had? Clearly, something very much out of the ordinary had happened here but no one seems to know what it was.
The last thing the gospel says about the incident is: “and his disciples believed in him”. Again, remember they had only been with him three days. They were going about their everyday business when Jesus came before them calling them to be followers. There was something about him, the way he approached them that urged them to leave their homes, their friends, any occupation they may have had and go after this man. Something urged them to hear more about what this man was saying. They may have decided to “check this out” and see what it was about but there was nothing they had seen as of yet. Now, they had something. They had seen this work and clearly, there was something more there than ordinary. There was something behind this Jesus that was out of the ordinary. We have to remember that they had not yet understood he was the messiah, that comes later on in the story but for now, what they had just witnessed made it clear he was something out of the ordinary and they believed he was worth following.
We are going to look at three parts of the story today: the water Jesus used, how much water was used and the end result of the miracle. Each of those seem to carry a message that is informative about the way God deals with we humans. Each of these seem to carry a message that has something to say to us as we struggle in our own attempts to be part of the gospel story. the word itself can be translated good news or good story and we are part of that good story as we attempt to live out the things we understand God has called us to do.
When Jesus told the servants to fetch the water, he did not use anything special. He pointed them to the same well they used everyday. The water the house used to cook, care for any livestock, bathe and do all the ordinary things the household needed water to do. There was nothing special about this water that was used. When I used to do baptisms as an active pastor, I would often call the children forward but instead of sitting on the first row for a children;s sermon, I would call them up to the baptism font. I would take the lid off and ask them to tell me what was in the font. After a few seconds, one would say, water. Then I would ask them if there was anything different about the water and they would study a second or two and say no. I would ask them to touch it and see if it felt different and they would say no. then I would tell them God often uses plain ordinary things to do great work and the water itself was not what made baptism special but it was, indeed, an act of God that made it special and that God used ordinary water to make it clear how available the gift was.
Time and time again, Jesus told parables, stories that helped people understand something about God. One thing you notice as you read the parables is almost all of them use common everyday things. The birds of the air, the lilies of the field, a child that abandons their family. Almost always they were things everyone had seen in some way or another and Jesus took those things and wove them into a story that helped us see something about God. He used the common things first because they were common, people knew these things but secondly, he opened a doorway. He put great mysteries about God before them in such a way they could see how these things fit into their lives.
Look at Jesus disciples, fishermen, tax collectors and other second-class people of the day’s society. there were no great officials, none of the movers and shakers of the society of their time. Just plain everyday people with nothing to have any claim to fame. Yet, this group of plain, ordinary people became responsible for the gospel to get into every known country of the world. If Jesus had picked the movers and shakers, if he had taken the leaders and used them as his disciples we would not be surprised at what had been accomplished, after all, look what he had to work with. by using the common, the ordinary, it becomes obvious it is not the group itself that was responsible for what was accomplished but it becomes clear it is the power of God working that leads to the results.
There is nothing exceptional about this church. You are not the largest church in the presbytery, you are probably not the oldest, there are not any senators, congress members, governors or famous sports people who attend here to draw attention to you. There is not much here that seems all that noticeable. Just a few people who gather together on Sunday to worship and sometimes we feel unsignificant. Yet, because this group meets, prays and acts together great things happen. We support some local missions, a food bank, a homeless shelter, some worker across the world because ot the offering we put in the plate. We, and countless others participate in the work and ministry no only of our church, but of the church around the world. Each thing we do can be multiplied because of the each of the denomination of which we are part.
Then there were the jars themselves. Remember, John said they held between 20-30 gallons. To make things simple, I am going to assume they were the small ones, the ones holding only 20 gallons. If there were 6 jars that means there was 120 gallons of water brought to the master of the feast. That means there was enough wine for 1920 eight-ounce glasses of wine now for the wedding party. The host;s problem was over. There was no longer any danger of running out of wine. What had looked, a minute ago, like an embarrassing problem had now been solved more than sufficiently. Not only was there more than enough wine, but the steward had pronounced this was the best wine that had been served.
There are several stories in the Bible where God supplied things that were needed. The great prophet Elijah was in the land of Zarapeth, a gentile country during a time of great famine. He came upon a widow who was preparing the last of her flour to feed herself and her son and then prepare themselves to die of hunger. Elijah asked her for food and she replied she was fixing the last bit she had. Despite that, she gave Elijah what she had and, the flour and oil she used was multiplied to the point we read, “she, her household and elijah had sufficient for many days.” We read in the gospels of a crowd in the wilderness that was listening to Jesus and it was time to eat but there was no food. A small boy’s lunch was brought but even the disciple who brought it said it was of no use in the face of such a crowd. Jesus took the lunch, blessed it and when the crowd was fed there were 12 baskets of food left over. There are many stories in which, when God provides it is never just enough. It is abundant. Full and running over. Like the bandana that comes out of the circus clown’s sleeve, it seems to have no end.
The point of all these stories is God’s care for people is never just sufficient, it is not just enough to meet the situation. It is filled to the brim, it is overflowing, it is excessive. God does not promise he will provide for us, he promises us more than we can imagine. We worry about our daily bread but God promises us eternal bread. God is never stingy in what he provides but in Luke 6:38 we are promised that when we give “It will be given to you, a good measure, shaken down, running over”
Last, we read that when the disciples had seen all this, “they believed in Him” after all was said and done, after the party was over, after everyone had left they knew they had seen something out of the ordinary. They knew they needed to know more about what Jesus was saying. They had followed because when he spoke to them earlier they felt a pull they could not resist. He had found them at their home and spoken to them in such a way they had to see more. Something in that voice made them come after him. Now, they had seen this great work and they knew there was something more than they had originally thought. Now, they believed he was something even greater than they had thought and they wanted to be part of what he was doing.
In the same way, we followed without really knowing what we were getting into. As a youth, we may have taken our confirmation because everyone else was. We went to class, we answered the questions, but we really did not know what we were saying. As an adult, we may have joined the church because it was the thing to do. We were starting our family, we were becoming responsible adults and it was the thing to do but we did not yet understand what we were doing of saying. Not really.
We know from first-hand experience God can take a tax-collector, a fisherman, a farmer, a housewife, a clerk in a store and use them in ways that stagger the imagination. People who can manage a food bank for their community, people who can supply a well for a country they may not even be able to find on a map. Because we have seen these things again and again, we begin to believe with a different understanding. We have seen and read of great thigs and we have had our own experiences of the ways we have been changed in our own understanding of how God has worked right in front of our face to do things we did not think would happen.
We have seen plain ordinary people doing things that were far outside their comfort zones because they were people challenged by the words they read in the Sunday school lesson or read in the newsletter. We have seen times when we thought we were out of the energy, imagination and love it takes to do the work we are challenged to do and suddenly, there was an energy, an enthusiasm that was more than enough to meet the challenge. We cannot explain this any more than the servants could explain what happened to the water they brought to the master of the feast but we know because of what we have seen that we believe and follow.
*Hymn “My faith looks up to Thee” #383
*AFFIRMATION OF FAITH Apostle’s Creed (Ecumenical) p. 14
I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,
Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven,
He is seated on the right hand of the Father,
And he will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
*The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name,
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
forever." -- Amen.
Sending
*CHARGE & BLESSING
Loving God, we thank you for hearing our prayers, feeding us with your word, and encouraging us in our worship together. Take us and use us to love and serve you, and all people, in the power of your Spirit and in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
*Hymn Love divine, all loves excelling # 376
Postlude
* Sections of the service preceded with * are times to stand if you are able to do so.
Bold text is to be read together aloud as a congregation.
January 16, 2022
Gathering
MUSICAL OFFERING
WELCOME AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
Let me remind you quickly of our protocols for everyone’s safety.
· Attendance was taken by Ushers as you entered.
· masks are required by Session, as well as social distancing
bulletins are placed in the pews to help with social distancing
· Offerings may be placed in the plate by the doors.
· Please write your prayer request on the Yellow cards. An usher will pick them up during the 1st hymn.
· Please join us after service for fellowship will be continuing with beverages only, in Calvin Hall
PRAYER REQUESTS
Gary Iverson, Bob Bock, Joan Boyd, Wanda Hirl, Marilyn Neymeyer, Joan Pinkston, Maxine Wagner, Annette Conzett, Jo Lefleur, Dr Dyke, Bonnie and Jon Pillers, Mike Niles, Harlan Marx ,Tom Kelly, Lois Seger, Jon Ryner, Lucy Melvin. Bob Emmert, Abagail Niles, Helanah Niles, Rich Lewis, Kay Werner, Amanda Walston and Arlene Pawlik
PRELUDE
*WORDS OF WORSHIP (Unison) “I will bless the Lord at all times, his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord, let the humble hear and be glad, O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name forever” (Psalm 34:1-3)
*GATHERING PRAYER (Unison) Lord God, we rejoice You have called us Your children. As we come before You today, help us open our ears, our hearts and our minds to hear what You have for us. amen.
HYMN When morning guilds the skies #487
CONFESSION AND PARDON (Unison) O Holy One, we call to you and name you as eternal, ever-present, and boundless in love. Yet there are times, O God, when we fail to recognize you in the dailyness of our lives. Sometimes shame clenches tightly around our hearts, and we hide our true feelings. Sometimes fear makes us small, and we miss the chance to speak from our strength. Sometimes doubt invades our hopefulness, and we degrade our own wisdom.Holy God, in the daily round from sunrise to sunset, remind us again of your holy presence hovering near us and in us. Help us to see and follow that presence now and always. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
ASSURANCE OF PARDON (Pastor) The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting. Because of God’s mercy and love we can say together (Unison) we are forgiven people, thanks be to God, Amen
PASSING OF THE PEACE
OFFERING PRAYER
Interlude
Word
PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to You O God. Amen
SCRIPTURE LESSONS John 2:1-11
2 Now on the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine ran out, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no wine left.”4 Jesus replied, “Woman, why are you saying this to me? My time has not yet come.” 5 His mother told the servants, “Whatever he tells you, do it.” 6 Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washing, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus told the servants, “Fill the water jars with water.” So they filled them up to the very top. 8 Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the head steward,” and they did. 9 When the head steward tasted the water that had been turned to wine, not knowing where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), he called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the cheaper wine when the guests are drunk. You have kept the good wine until now!” 11 Jesus did this as the first of his miraculous signs, in Cana of Galilee. In this way he revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
Sermon Title “And His disciples believed in Him”
Today’s reading begins with the words, “on the third day” and we are left wondering, the third day after what? If we go back a few verses, we discover Jesus had just called Phillip and Nathaniel to be followers. Just before that, John the Baptist had described Jesus as “the lamb of God”. In John’s gospel this is the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. He was beginning to lay out the framework of what His version of the messiah was to be.
Also, there is some hidden meaning in mentioning that it was the third day. The number 3 carried some weight in Jewish thinking. It carried a meaning of permanence or completeness in their thinking. To say something three times meant it was really important and needed to be heard in that way. Later in the gospels, Lazarus will be raised after three days, Jesus resurrection will be on the third day and Jesus will ask Peter three times if Peter loves him. That was a question of deep significance. Do you love me no matter what? Do you love me even though it when imay mean you give your life for me? It was more than a mere question, it was a dividing question and peter understood it that way when he heard it. So, by saying this was the third day, the gospel was saying that what happened here had some importance and needed to be heard as more than a reporting of the events themselves but that it carried some importance and needed to be heard in that way.
The story takes place during a wedding. We need to remember a wedding at that time of history was a different thing that what we experience. Because travel was much slower a wedding then was often a several day affair. Friends and relatives came from some distance and time needed to be allotted for people to make the journey. Planning for a wedding, then, involved the need to allow for the people to arrive and express their good wishes to the couple and the family involved. Instead of thinking only of the day itself, the family needed to plan for 2-3 days for all the people to be taken care of.
When it comes to the people you invite to a wedding, who is usually on the list? Family members, close friends, people hwo are special in some way or another to the family or the couple. We try to think of those who will in some way or another add to the joy of the event. Some conservative voices of the past had tried to downplay this story because they could not accept the idea Jesus might actually drink wine or in some way enjoy being at a celebration but this is not the image we see in the gospels. The gospels, as a whole, do not have this picture of Jesus. Many times we see Jesus in the midst of small children and the children seem to be comfortable with his presence. Little children and animals seem to have a special radar that helps them judge adults. As a whole, children would rather be around people who are easy to be with rather than people who are bristly in some way. They have an ability to separate themselves from those who are doom and gloom types and would rather be around cheerful upbeat people. Jesus was invited to the wedding because, in the eyes of the family, he was one who would not be a wet blanket at the festivities.
Because a wedding was well known to be a several day event, one of the responsibilities of the host was to plan accordingly. It was a mark against a person’s reputation if anything was not well planned. To give a wedding and run out of any of the necessary things was something that would be the gossip of the town. “you know at the levi’s wedding, they actually ran out of wine” would spread like wildfire through the town. When Mary came to Jesus with the report they had run out of wine, she was in effect asking Jesus to do something that would help protect the host family. She seems to assume Jesus can, and would do something though she does not seem to know what he would do because she tells the servants, “ do whatever he tells you” and then seems to leave the matter to Jesus. When Jesus speaks to the servants, he sends them to get the Jars set aside for the rite of purification. They had the wine jars that had been empty. It would be the normal thing to use them if there was a need for wine. The jars set aside for the rite of purification were much larger, John says they held 20-30 gallons of water each. The Jewish ritual of purification involves the need to symbolically cleanse oneself whenever you had contaminated yourself in some way. It may have been contact with some dead thing, it may have been a woman’s monthly cycle, it may have been something else but there was a need to make oneself clean so they could participate in the rites of worship again. A person was required to cleanse whatever part of the body had been contaminated and to wash thoroughly. When they had done this, they were ready to rejoin the worshipping community again. By using these jars, Jesus was acting out a parable which may not have been seen at the time. He was saying the people who received this water were, in fact, being cleansed in a way they may not have understood. What they received was a cleansing preparing them for the events which were to come.
As we are thinking about the water, did you really hear how big they were? John says they were 20-30 gallons each. If the jars were the little ones of 20 gallons, six jars would mean there was 120 gallons of water which was transformed and brought to the master of the feast. That would supply a pretty good-sized party with adequate wine. When this was brought to the master of the feast, he declared it was the best wine that had been served so far.
At this point of the story, I always have to think about the servants and what was going on in their minds. They had gone to the same well they went to all the time. They had filled their jars with that water to supply the needs of the house every day. That was the water they brought to the master of the feast and then, suddenly, he declared it was the best wine of the day. What do you suppose they thought or felt? What was going on in their heads? What if you went into your kitchen, ran a glass of water for a friend and they declared it was the best wine they had ever had? Clearly, something very much out of the ordinary had happened here but no one seems to know what it was.
The last thing the gospel says about the incident is: “and his disciples believed in him”. Again, remember they had only been with him three days. They were going about their everyday business when Jesus came before them calling them to be followers. There was something about him, the way he approached them that urged them to leave their homes, their friends, any occupation they may have had and go after this man. Something urged them to hear more about what this man was saying. They may have decided to “check this out” and see what it was about but there was nothing they had seen as of yet. Now, they had something. They had seen this work and clearly, there was something more there than ordinary. There was something behind this Jesus that was out of the ordinary. We have to remember that they had not yet understood he was the messiah, that comes later on in the story but for now, what they had just witnessed made it clear he was something out of the ordinary and they believed he was worth following.
We are going to look at three parts of the story today: the water Jesus used, how much water was used and the end result of the miracle. Each of those seem to carry a message that is informative about the way God deals with we humans. Each of these seem to carry a message that has something to say to us as we struggle in our own attempts to be part of the gospel story. the word itself can be translated good news or or completeness in their thinking. To say something three times meant it was really important and needed to be heard in that way. Later in the gospels, Lazarus will be raised after three days, Jesus resurrection will be on the third day and Jesus will ask Peter three times if Peter loves him. That was a question of deep significance. Do you love me no matter what? Do you love me even though it when imay mean you give your life for me? It was more than a mere question, it was a dividing question and peter understood it that way when he heard it. So, by saying this was the third day, the gospel was saying that what happened here had some importance and needed to be heard as more than a reporting of the events themselves but that it carried some importance and needed to be heard in that way.
The story takes place during a wedding. We need to remember a wedding at that time of history was a different thing that what we experience. Because travel was much slower a wedding then was often a several day affair. Friends and relatives came from some distance and time needed to be allotted for people to make the journey. Planning for a wedding, then, involved the need to allow for the people to arrive and express their good wishes to the couple and the family involved. Instead of thinking only of the day itself, the family needed to plan for 2-3 days for all the people to be taken care of.
When it comes to the people you invite to a wedding, who is usually on the list? Family members, close friends, people hwo are special in some way or another to the family or the couple. We try to think of those who will in some way or another add to the joy of the event. Some conservative voices of the past had tried to downplay this story because they could not accept the idea Jesus might actually drink wine or in some way enjoy being at a celebration but this is not the image we see in the gospels. The gospels, as a whole, do not have this picture of Jesus. Many times we see Jesus in the midst of small children and the children seem to be comfortable with his presence. Little children and animals seem to have a special radar that helps them judge adults. As a whole, children would rather be around people who are easy to be with rather than people who are bristly in some way. They have an ability to separate themselves from those who are doom and gloom types and would rather be around cheerful upbeat people. Jesus was invited to the wedding because, in the eyes of the family, he was one who would not be a wet blanket at the festivities.
Because a wedding was well known to be a several day event, one of the responsibilities of the host was to plan accordingly. It was a mark against a person’s reputation if anything was not well planned. To give a wedding and run out of any of the necessary things was something that would be the gossip of the town. “you know at the levi’s wedding, they actually ran out of wine” would spread like wildfire through the town. When Mary came to Jesus with the report they had run out of wine, she was in effect asking Jesus to do something that would help protect the host family. She seems to assume Jesus can, and would do something though she does not seem to know what he would do because she tells the servants, “ do whatever he tells you” and then seems to leave the matter to Jesus. When Jesus speaks to the servants, he sends them to get the Jars set aside for the rite of purification. They had the wine jars that had been empty. It would be the normal thing to use them if there was a need for wine. The jars set aside for the rite of purification were much larger, John says they held 20-30 gallons of water each. The Jewish ritual of purification involves the need to symbolically cleanse oneself whenever you had contaminated yourself in some way. It may have been contact with some dead thing, it may have been a woman’s monthly cycle, it may have been something else but there was a need to make oneself clean so they could participate in the rites of worship again. A person was required to cleanse whatever part of the body had been contaminated and to wash thoroughly. When they had done this, they were ready to rejoin the worshipping community again. By using these jars, Jesus was acting out a parable which may not have been seen at the time. He was saying the people who received this water were, in fact, being cleansed in a way they may not have understood. What they received was a cleansing preparing them for the events which were to come.
As we are thinking about the water, did you really hear how big they were? John says they were 20-30 gallons each. If the jars were the little ones of 20 gallons, six jars would mean there was 120 gallons of water which was transformed and brought to the master of the feast. That would supply a pretty good-sized party with adequate wine. When this was brought to the master of the feast, he declared it was the best wine that had been served so far.
At this point of the story, I always have to think about the servants and what was going on in their minds. They had gone to the same well they went to all the time. They had filled their jars with that water to supply the needs of the house every day. That was the water they brought to the master of the feast and then, suddenly, he declared it was the best wine of the day. What do you suppose they thought or felt? What was going on in their heads? What if you went into your kitchen, ran a glass of water for a friend and they declared it was the best wine they had ever had? Clearly, something very much out of the ordinary had happened here but no one seems to know what it was.
The last thing the gospel says about the incident is: “and his disciples believed in him”. Again, remember they had only been with him three days. They were going about their everyday business when Jesus came before them calling them to be followers. There was something about him, the way he approached them that urged them to leave their homes, their friends, any occupation they may have had and go after this man. Something urged them to hear more about what this man was saying. They may have decided to “check this out” and see what it was about but there was nothing they had seen as of yet. Now, they had something. They had seen this work and clearly, there was something more there than ordinary. There was something behind this Jesus that was out of the ordinary. We have to remember that they had not yet understood he was the messiah, that comes later on in the story but for now, what they had just witnessed made it clear he was something out of the ordinary and they believed he was worth following.
We are going to look at three parts of the story today: the water Jesus used, how much water was used and the end result of the miracle. Each of those seem to carry a message that is informative about the way God deals with we humans. Each of these seem to carry a message that has something to say to us as we struggle in our own attempts to be part of the gospel story. the word itself can be translated good news or good story and we are part of that good story as we attempt to live out the things we understand God has called us to do.
When Jesus told the servants to fetch the water, he did not use anything special. He pointed them to the same well they used everyday. The water the house used to cook, care for any livestock, bathe and do all the ordinary things the household needed water to do. There was nothing special about this water that was used. When I used to do baptisms as an active pastor, I would often call the children forward but instead of sitting on the first row for a children;s sermon, I would call them up to the baptism font. I would take the lid off and ask them to tell me what was in the font. After a few seconds, one would say, water. Then I would ask them if there was anything different about the water and they would study a second or two and say no. I would ask them to touch it and see if it felt different and they would say no. then I would tell them God often uses plain ordinary things to do great work and the water itself was not what made baptism special but it was, indeed, an act of God that made it special and that God used ordinary water to make it clear how available the gift was.
Time and time again, Jesus told parables, stories that helped people understand something about God. One thing you notice as you read the parables is almost all of them use common everyday things. The birds of the air, the lilies of the field, a child that abandons their family. Almost always they were things everyone had seen in some way or another and Jesus took those things and wove them into a story that helped us see something about God. He used the common things first because they were common, people knew these things but secondly, he opened a doorway. He put great mysteries about God before them in such a way they could see how these things fit into their lives.
Look at Jesus disciples, fishermen, tax collectors and other second-class people of the day’s society. there were no great officials, none of the movers and shakers of the society of their time. Just plain everyday people with nothing to have any claim to fame. Yet, this group of plain, ordinary people became responsible for the gospel to get into every known country of the world. If Jesus had picked the movers and shakers, if he had taken the leaders and used them as his disciples we would not be surprised at what had been accomplished, after all, look what he had to work with. by using the common, the ordinary, it becomes obvious it is not the group itself that was responsible for what was accomplished but it becomes clear it is the power of God working that leads to the results.
There is nothing exceptional about this church. You are not the largest church in the presbytery, you are probably not the oldest, there are not any senators, congress members, governors or famous sports people who attend here to draw attention to you. There is not much here that seems all that noticeable. Just a few people who gather together on Sunday to worship and sometimes we feel unsignificant. Yet, because this group meets, prays and acts together great things happen. We support some local missions, a food bank, a homeless shelter, some worker across the world because ot the offering we put in the plate. We, and countless others participate in the work and ministry no only of our church, but of the church around the world. Each thing we do can be multiplied because of the each of the denomination of which we are part.
Then there were the jars themselves. Remember, John said they held between 20-30 gallons. To make things simple, I am going to assume they were the small ones, the ones holding only 20 gallons. If there were 6 jars that means there was 120 gallons of water brought to the master of the feast. That means there was enough wine for 1920 eight-ounce glasses of wine now for the wedding party. The host;s problem was over. There was no longer any danger of running out of wine. What had looked, a minute ago, like an embarrassing problem had now been solved more than sufficiently. Not only was there more than enough wine, but the steward had pronounced this was the best wine that had been served.
There are several stories in the Bible where God supplied things that were needed. The great prophet Elijah was in the land of Zarapeth, a gentile country during a time of great famine. He came upon a widow who was preparing the last of her flour to feed herself and her son and then prepare themselves to die of hunger. Elijah asked her for food and she replied she was fixing the last bit she had. Despite that, she gave Elijah what she had and, the flour and oil she used was multiplied to the point we read, “she, her household and elijah had sufficient for many days.” We read in the gospels of a crowd in the wilderness that was listening to Jesus and it was time to eat but there was no food. A small boy’s lunch was brought but even the disciple who brought it said it was of no use in the face of such a crowd. Jesus took the lunch, blessed it and when the crowd was fed there were 12 baskets of food left over. There are many stories in which, when God provides it is never just enough. It is abundant. Full and running over. Like the bandana that comes out of the circus clown’s sleeve, it seems to have no end.
The point of all these stories is God’s care for people is never just sufficient, it is not just enough to meet the situation. It is filled to the brim, it is overflowing, it is excessive. God does not promise he will provide for us, he promises us more than we can imagine. We worry about our daily bread but God promises us eternal bread. God is never stingy in what he provides but in Luke 6:38 we are promised that when we give “It will be given to you, a good measure, shaken down, running over”
Last, we read that when the disciples had seen all this, “they believed in Him” after all was said and done, after the party was over, after everyone had left they knew they had seen something out of the ordinary. They knew they needed to know more about what Jesus was saying. They had followed because when he spoke to them earlier they felt a pull they could not resist. He had found them at their home and spoken to them in such a way they had to see more. Something in that voice made them come after him. Now, they had seen this great work and they knew there was something more than they had originally thought. Now, they believed he was something even greater than they had thought and they wanted to be part of what he was doing.
In the same way, we followed without really knowing what we were getting into. As a youth, we may have taken our confirmation because everyone else was. We went to class, we answered the questions, but we really did not know what we were saying. As an adult, we may have joined the church because it was the thing to do. We were starting our family, we were becoming responsible adults and it was the thing to do but we did not yet understand what we were doing of saying. Not really.
We know from first-hand experience God can take a tax-collector, a fisherman, a farmer, a housewife, a clerk in a store and use them in ways that stagger the imagination. People who can manage a food bank for their community, people who can supply a well for a country they may not even be able to find on a map. Because we have seen these things again and again, we begin to believe with a different understanding. We have seen and read of great thigs and we have had our own experiences of the ways we have been changed in our own understanding of how God has worked right in front of our face to do things we did not think would happen.
We have seen plain ordinary people doing things that were far outside their comfort zones because they were people challenged by the words they read in the Sunday school lesson or read in the newsletter. We have seen times when we thought we were out of the energy, imagination and love it takes to do the work we are challenged to do and suddenly, there was an energy, an enthusiasm that was more than enough to meet the challenge. We cannot explain this any more than the servants could explain what happened to the water they brought to the master of the feast but we know because of what we have seen that we believe and follow.
*Hymn “My faith looks up to Thee” #383
*AFFIRMATION OF FAITH Apostle’s Creed (Ecumenical) p. 14
I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,
Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven,
He is seated on the right hand of the Father,
And he will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
*The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name,
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
forever." -- Amen.
Sending
*CHARGE & BLESSING
Loving God, we thank you for hearing our prayers, feeding us with your word, and encouraging us in our worship together. Take us and use us to love and serve you, and all people, in the power of your Spirit and in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
*Hymn Love divine, all loves excelling # 376
Postlude
* Sections of the service preceded with * are times to stand if you are able to do so.
Bold text is to be read together aloud as a congregation.
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