Scripture/Sermon of the Day. January 16, 2022
John 2:1-11
From Water to Wine
1-3 Three days later there was a wedding in the
village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there. Jesus and his disciples
were guests also. When they started running low on wine at the wedding banquet,
Jesus’ mother told him, “They’re just about out of wine.”
4 Jesus said, “Is that any of our business,
Mother—yours or mine? This isn’t my time. Don’t push me.”
5 She went ahead anyway, telling the servants,
“Whatever he tells you, do it.”
6-7 Six stoneware water pots were there, used by the
Jews for ritual washings. Each held twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus ordered the
servants, “Fill the pots with water.” And they filled them to the brim.
8 “Now fill your pitchers and take them to the host,”
Jesus said, and they did.
9-10 When the host tasted the water that had become
wine (he didn’t know what had just happened but the servants, of course, knew),
he called out to the bridegroom,“Everyone serves the good wine first, and then
the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good
wine until now.” 11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee,
and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
Reflection/Sermon
:
I. This story of Jesus at the wedding in the village
of Cana in Galilee is only in the Gospel of John. In the other three gospels,
Jesus started out his ministry healing people and casting out demons. Not here.
Although — it seems like actually — Jesus was not ready to begin his ministry.
His mother wanted him to but when she asked him to help these people out — these
wedding hosts — he snapped at her: “OH MOM!!! NOT NOW!!!! WOULD YOU GIVE ME A
BREAK FOR GOD SAKE!!!!”
II. How embarrassing! Mary was such the stereotypical
Jewish mother — acting as if her son were God or something. The wedding host was
running out of wine and the party had barely started. What was Jesus going to
do? Make a quick run to the wine store and save the day? Well — whatever it was,
Jesus wasn’t happy.
After Jesus told her “It’s not my time — leave me
alone!” she ignored him and told the servants, “Don’t mind mister grumpy over
there. He’ll help you — just go to him and do whatever he says.”
III. Actually — that’s really all the advice any of us
need. Mary said it: “Go to him and whatever he tells you — do it.” We don’t need
anything more than that.
The problem is — sometimes it seems like we do need
more than that. Because even though Jesus says: “Love one another.” Sometimes
the love isn’t happening. Sometimes try to do the right and loving thing — BUT
THE WINE’S NOT THERE — THE WINE HAS RUN OUT! And all that’s there is the anger
or frustration or disappointment. The wine runs out.
IV. Almost 60 years ago — August 28, 1963 — Martin
Luther King, Jr. was giving the most important speech of his life, in front of
250,000 people in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. He was
giving a speech and he was running out of wine, and he knew it, and the people
around him knew it. It was still a good speech — even on a bad day, King could
do better than most speakers. But on this important day, he knew the WINE WAS
RUNNING OUT.
He’d prepared exactly what he wanted to say but the
words were not taking off, not soaring like they often did. He was using the
metaphor of a bank promissory note and the note for justice and equality
becoming due. He ended his prepared speech, telling people: “Go back to
Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia,
go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our modern cities,
knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.” That was supposed
to be the end.
King could feel that the people wanted more — that he
wanted to give them more — but that’s all he had — the wine had run out.
V. And then someone yelled out from the audience. Not
just someone, but one of the greatest Gospel singers of all time, Mahalia
Jackson. Like she knew the problem, she could feel it — she knew THE WINE HAD
RUN OUT — and she hollered from the audience: “TELL THEM ABOUT THE DREAM MARTIN
— TELL THEM ABOUT THE DREAM!!!”
It was like a bolt of lightning flashed in the sky.
Suddenly everything changed. You couldn’t see it but in that moment Martin
Luther King the public speaker walked off the stage — and now here comes Martin
Luther King the Baptist preacher. THE DREAM — it was a message he’d given
before, but in a church. Well why not? Now King would bring this huge crowd of
250,000 people to church. He put away his prepared text and he said:
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to
you, my friends, we have the difficulties of today and tomorrow. I STILL HAVE A
DREAM…. Deeply rooted in the American Dream — I have a dream….and the words flew
out of his mouth, they soared — they went like an arrow to people’s hearts.
Right there, before everyone’s eyes, people saw it and
felt it — the water of a nice speech was turned into the wine of God’s message
of love and hope.
VI. When we walk with Jesus, every day is a wedding
feast. And there are moments when it feels like the wine is running out, as
frustration grows, as the country divides, as virus spreads, as the prices rise,
as the days seem to drag on — there are times when it feels like the wine is
running out.
And in these times we need to remember the tenacity
and the wisdom and the grace of Mary, the mother of Jesus, because she speaks to
us in these moments. She says: “Go to my son, go to Jesus — and whatever he says
— do it.”
And Jesus will turn the water of our desperation and
weariness into the wine of hope and new possibilities and love.