"When God Touches Something"

Preached by John DeBevoise
At Palma Ceia Presbyterian Church
 On January 7, 2001

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. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine. And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you. Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water. And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward. So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, “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. Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
       John 2:1-11

In the first Sundays of the month, the lectionary gives us early scenes from the life of Jesus:  His first sermon, his baptism, and this story of the miracle of changing the water into wine. We read from the Gospel of John here, where the rest of the year we’ll read from the Gospel of Luke, because John is the only gospel that records this particular miracle.

It speaks at the beginning of Jesus’ relationship with his mother. She’s the one who sees that they are out of wine.  Some scholars have speculated that it may have been a family wedding, because not only Jesus but Mary also is there, and because she seems to have this concern, as a hostess type might, for the way that the refreshments are holding out for the wedding crowd. So she says to Jesus, “They are out of wine. She is the one who is concerned, and she shares her concern with Jesus. She doesn’t say to Jesus, “Please make more wine.  All she does is share her concern with him.

She seems to have confidence in his ability to help, just by sharing with him the need.  He seems to reiterate the sense that indeed Mary is asking him to help with the situation by the way he responds to the information she shares, because when she says, They are running out of wine, he says to her, Woman, what concern is that to you and me?  You know my hour has not come yet.  Or, in DeBevoise’s paraphrase, Don’t ask me to do any miracles yet! It’s not the right time for miracles yet!

Actually he says, “My hour has not yet come. Jesus never bursts onto the scene like the Orange Bowl halftime show. The miracles never function in the life of Jesus that way. He never uses the miracles to draw attention to himself. My own sense is that the primary motivation for Jesus for most of the miracles is compassion.  Compassion.

But in this particular one, it seems like he does it particularly because his mama asks him. They are running out of wine. And Mary. Mary doesn’t respond to his saying to her, It’s not my time yet, she doesn’t respond to that by speaking to him at all. But rather as if she knows what he is going to do, she goes to the servants and says to them, Just do whatever he tells you to do. Do whatever Jesus tells you.

The miracle. What he tells them is to take six stone jars. There are these six large jars nearby. They are there for the purpose of religious washing observances, and they are empty. He tells the servants to take these six jars, which hold somewhere between twenty and thirty gallons each, and to fill them up with water. Twenty to thirty gallons. If you just split the difference and say twenty-five, and times that by six, that’s a hundred and fifty gallons of capacity that we’re talking about here.

So they do. They take the jars and fill them up with water, and then they take a sample of what has been in those jars now over to the master of ceremonies of the wedding reception. Somewhere between the time when they fill the jars up with water and when the master of ceremonies receives that ladle to sample, the water is turned into wine. The water becomes wine. The Bible does not say how it happened and the Bible doesn’t say exactly when it happened, but it tells us the water became wine.

“Ladies and gentlemen, says the master of ceremonies, “I have an announcement to make. You know at these wedding receptions it’s the practice to serve the best wine at first, while we can still taste it. But here, here today, we are well into the reception and the servants have just brought me a sample of what is now being served. And I’m here to tell you, they have saved the best until last! Hurrah! And all of the guests shout, “Hurrah! And everybody runs over to the bar or the table that is spread out there.  The groom says, “Did we do that? Hurrah! He runs over too. 

The Gospel says that the servants knew what had happened. This was the first miracle, the first sign of Jesus’ glory. And John reports Jesus did this, and the disciples believed in him.

Somewhere in your life, in the year ahead, over the next twelve months, there will be something very ordinary around you, maybe as ordinary as water. God is going to touch it. When God does, the ordinary will become extra-ordinary, or extraordinary. 

Other people around you may not even notice it, whatever it is. It may continue to seem to them ordinary.  The same wine they have been drinking all along. They may not recognize that God has touched it. They may even see it as extraordinary but just not recognize the touch of God in it. But you will do both. You will happen upon a moment and you will suddenly see that the ordinary has become extraordinary, and you will sense the presence of God in it. Like the servants who filled the jars with water, you suddenly will become aware that the ordinary has become extraordinary, and in some way you’ll be aware of the fact that Jesus is in the midst of it.

You’ll have to draw your own conclusion:  God did this.

John Muir, the great environmentalist, the first naturalist perhaps in American history, spent six months in the Sierras once.  When he came down, he said, “Most of the miracles we hear of are infinitely less wonderful that the commonest of natural phenomenon when fairly seen.

You see, it may seem very simple. Ah, very simple.  As simple as this: you may walk out to get the paper one morning, and as you pick the paper up, you may notice the sunrise.  This day you may notice that it’s not the standard light sunrise, but suddenly it’s a powerful violet that stretches from one horizon to the next, and it’s reaching up across the sky and pushing the dark of night away. And suddenly it will be extraordinary, and in your heart you will know God did this. 

It’s an awareness. 

You may have been in a friendship, a certain friendship, for twenty years.  And one day, maybe over lunch or maybe in a conversation, or because of some simple act of care – oh, you may be admiring some cross-stitching the friend has done.  Or you may get a letter from a friend in Boston. And suddenly you are aware of just how precious that friendship is to you, and how it has blessed your life and how it has nurtured you.  An extraordinary means of grace. The ordinary used as an extraordinary means of grace. And you’ll be aware God did this.  God is in the midst of this.

Walt Whitman said, “All of the things of this universe are miracles, each as profound as any other.

For you in the year ahead, it may be the birth of a grandchild. Miller and Helen, and Bob and Carol, you may think other people have had grandchildren before, but when it happens to you all, it’s going to be different! It may be falling in love. It may be breaking up. It may be an opportunity to help someone, like teaching at The Spring, or it may volunteering to help in a Habitat project. In the midst of this moment, when it seems ordinary, suddenly it’s going to be extraordinary, and you will realize the living God is in the midst of this.

It may be facing surgery. Or illness. Or even the pilgrimage of pain, in the valley of the shadow of death. In your pain, you will walk into the awareness—no, you’ll stumble into it—clouded by tears.  You’ll stumble into the awareness that you - are - not - alone. That you have not been forgotten. And that some one or some thing is helping you to carry the burden of this grief. And like the servants at the wedding at Cana, you suddenly will be aware. Jesus did this. God is in the midst of it.

Now when, in the year ahead, that happens to you, when God takes the ordinary in your life and suddenly makes it extra-ordinary, suddenly extraordinary, Then you remember what the gospel of John teaches us here. Remember how, at the end of the story of the wedding at Cana, in the second chapter verse eleven, it says, “Jesus did this. The first of his signs that his glory might be revealed, and his disciples believed in him.

Why does God make the ordinary extraordinary? Jesus does this, that his glory might be revealed, that you might believe in him.

© John T. DeBevoise, 2001