Getting Started (John 2: 1-11) 1/20/13

          At Christmas time, we celebrated the birth of Jesus, the Messiah. This is called the Incarnation. A few weeks later, we marked the Epiphany, the time generally associated by Roman Catholics and Protestants with the visit of the Magi. I know what the manger scene looks like. That’s okay.   Many of our traditions are off a little on some of the timing or detail. The Eastern Church identifies the baptism of Jesus by John, rather than the visit of the Magi, as the Epiphany. The word means “manifestation,” so really either event could work as an epiphany. I think of the Epiphany this way.  It’s a coming out party for Jesus, at least for those who are privileged to be there.

In a way the story of Jesus’ first miracle in the Gospel of John is a continuation of that coming out party. It is his first time to show others something of what he is capable of. The timing of the miracle is bothersome to Jesus, for all the gospels assert that Jesus did not want his true identity revealed prematurely. For instance, in today’s passage, Jesus, when called upon by his mother to perform this miracle, says that his “time” has not yet come. Nevertheless, Jesus decides to come to the rescue.

The story seems a little odd. Most of Jesus’ miracles involve either healing or taming nature. He heals the sick, gives sight to the blind, makes cripples walk. He walks on water and calms storms.  He feeds the multitude and raises people from death. In that context, the turning of water into wine at a wedding feast doesn’t seem to fit. In fact, this miracle story is unique to John’s gospel. It does not appear in the others.  But John’s gospel is not like the others. John goes his own way, tells his own story. John’s gospel is not so much about mighty acts as it is about theology and Christology and relationships.  For instance, Matthew relates twenty different miracle events, while John tells only six. The first and last of those miracles that John does narrate are unique to his gospel. The last one is the story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead, literally from the grave, all told in the context of Jesus being the resurrection and the life. It may be the most incredible, most uplifting of all the miracles stories of Jesus. The bookend to this is John’s first narrated miracle, turning water into wine at a wedding feast. If Lazarus is the greatest, the wine thing might be the most obscure, the most easy to dismiss of the miracle stories.

Yet, there it is. The writer of John’s gospel is thought to have been John, the beloved disciple, a member of Jesus’ inner circle, the great gospel theologian. He lived the longest of the Twelve, thought to have still been alive in the 90’s. He had sixty years since Christ’s death and resurrection to think about what he wanted to write. He almost certainly had access to the Synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) and to Paul’s letters. It makes no sense to think other than that he wanted every single line to bring meaning and richness and depth to the gospel story he wrote at the end of his days about his friend and Savior. What is John saying to us in this, the first miracle of Jesus’ brand new ministry?

Cana was about nine miles north of Nazareth, the village where Jesus grew up. According to John, Jesus is probably in his first week of ministry and has at this point picked up five of his disciples. We should assume that they are accompanying him. He has come back home, perhaps to attend the wedding feast of a neighbor. This is one of the few times we hear from Mary since the birth of Jesus, and she seems to be surprisingly assertive here. She says to Jesus: “They have no wine.” I can almost see that look. She knows what Jesus is capable of. She knows what is needed. She looks at her son and she says “they have no wine.” Jesus looks at her and says in essence, “Come on, mom. You know it’s not time yet. This isn’t for me.” To which the sainted mother of our Savior simply looks to the servants and says “Do whatever he tells you.” You don’t have to be a Bible scholar to figure out what is on Mary’s mind. Some commentaries say that this is not the story of a son doing his mother’s bidding. I think I might be tempted to qualify that to say that it’s not just that kind of story. Of course there is more to it than that, but I still get the feeling that there is a son here who wants to do his mother’s bidding as well.

There is an old legend that might explain why Mary was so invested here and why she seemed to have authority to tell the servants to do what Jesus told them to do. One of the Coptic gospels that didn’t make the cut for the New Testament claims that Mary was a sister of the bridegroom’s mother. In fact, in an early set of prefaces to the New Testament called the Monarchian Prefaces, it was asserted that the bridegroom was actually John himself, and that his mother was Salome, the sister of Mary. These are not provable facts, but they make for some interesting possible explanations. The fact that John was one of those first five disciples called makes John an eyewitness at the very least.

 While all of that is interesting, it still doesn’t explain why this particular miracle story is included in John’s gospel. I don’t think he was just taking a trip down memory lane, even if the legends are true. It has often been said about John that his gospel must be read on two levels. There is always the story itself, which never fails to instruct, and which is easy enough to understand on its face. But there is almost always the story within the story. Certainly that theory is at work here in the wedding feast miracle at Cana.

The miracle is actually part of a larger section of John that takes place in Cana and is described over the course of chapters 2-4. Theologian Craig Blomberg calls this section “The Newness of Jesus’ Ministry.”   William Barclay calls it “The New Exhilaration.” In those three chapters, there are six stories. The miracle with the water and wine is the first. It is followed by the cleansing of the temple, the meeting of Jesus with Nicodemus, the question of the supremacy of Jesus over John the Baptist, the meeting of Jesus with the Samaritan woman and the healing of the Nobleman’s son.  Again, all these events are sandwiched into these three chapters where John talks about events in Cana or while Jesus was in and around Cana. In subsequent chapters, Jesus moves to Judea and away from Cana, but here John uses these stories to paint the big picture. Taken together as a unit, they point to the newness that is taking place in God’s people and in how they will come to be defined.

The Cana segment starts with Jesus turning water into wine. This represents a new joy, not only at the wedding feast, but in the coming of the author of the miracle. He has come to open the world to a new ministry. This is the new age, and it is represented by a new worship since the Son of God has cleansed the temple. It is also represented by a new birth, says Jesus to Nicodemus. To enter God’s kingdom, one must be born again, by water and the Spirit. John the Baptist is important as a segway to Jesus, but he represents the old and Jesus represents the new. He comes not to change the law but to finally fulfill it in the way that our heavenly Father always intended.  Then, in chapter 4, we see the stories of the Samaritan woman and the Nobleman’s son, a mixed race woman and a Gentile being healed or included by Jesus.  Now we see that the inclusiveness of Jesus’ message and his new ministry are unquestionably universal. They include not only Samaritans and Gentiles, but also the lowest and the most outcast of society. No one who believes will be turned away from God’s kingdom. This is a revolutionary message revealed in this new ministry for the ages. It is a greater grace than the Law could have ever afforded and it is being introduced here in Cana.

The Cana narrative and the discourses it contains are instructive for our church. We have been here for a long time. We have built, maintained and preserved. All those attributes are good and endearing and important. But there is and should always be a new ministry rising up from within the old story. Core truths never change, but customs do. Bedrock values never move, but practices do. We find our habits moving and changing in response to the changes around us. We celebrate that very ability to grow today as we welcome the ordination of a new elder in this church.

Change is not our enemy; it is our companion. Our challenge is to continue to worship, continue to witness in a society whose values can sometimes be compared to quicksand. Such is not the stuff of the church. Our values do not move. We change our style to achieve the spread of the gospel. We are God’s people. Jesus came to claim us and make our salvation possible. Like the new ministry that Jesus introduced at Cana, we look for new life in our own ministries. We celebrate our opportunity to add new leaders, new ideas, new life to the Church of Jesus Christ.

So the miracle at Cana was not just any old miracle. It was not just a favor to a beloved mother. It was the first miracle of our Lord on earth in a new ministry that would change the world. And, thank God, he was just getting started!       

Holding More Firmly (Heb 3: 12-14, James 1: 2, 12-15) 1/13/13

When you fill out your income tax forms each year, you are asked to list your dependants. In IRS language, a dependant is someone who lives with you at least half the time and for whom you provide at least half that person’s support. That definition works okay for determining a tax deduction, but it wouldn’t work very well in determining our dependence on God, would it? We don’t get full credit for part time dependence. Part time dependence is really not dependence at all.

In part of today’s Scripture, the writer of Hebrews warns us to take care, to watch for an unbelieving heart, causing us to fall away from God, to watch out for the deceitfulness of sin and to look out for each other. He says we have come to share in Christ if…  if we hold our original confidence to the end.

Well, that’s not so hard, is it? Just hold on to the end. Keep your confidence and don’t waver in the truth you have come to know. After all, we became convinced of the truth of it all some time ago. So all we have to do is hold the course. Of course, there are sometimes some life events that might test us a bit, like death  of a loved one or foreclosure or loss of job or a car accident or illness or divorce. You get my drift. For some, holding to the end is short term. For others, it is decades. For most of us, holding firm to the end is a lifestyle, not a moment in time.

Hebrews says to exhort one another daily, “as long as it is called today.” Earlier in the passage (v.7), the writer says “Today, if you hear my voice…”  William Barclay translates the meaning of “today” here as “while life lasts.” If we look back at the passage with that in mind, then we are called to exhort one another as long as we live. The process doesn’t stop until we are at the end of life. Then and only then are we safe from the considerable power and persuasiveness of sin.

Life seemed simpler when you were little, didn’t it? That’s because it was simpler. Your mother helped dress you, put you on the school bus or drove you to school, fixed your snack, put bows in your hair or handed you your ball glove.  Sunday meant Sunday school and probably a trip to Grandma’s for fried chicken and trimmings. The big decision for the day was whether to wear a coat or a jacket.  Your faith came in large measure from your home, but there was plenty of supplemental advice from church and school.

As you aged, the choices became wider, the risks bigger, the consequences more far-reaching. Now, you don’t always come to church. You may never come to Sunday school. You may travel thirty miles or more just to get to work. The decisions from which you were once sheltered now come at you daily with far reaching consequences. You know now that doing right has no shelf life. You have to do it over and over and over. You now realize that faith does not come with an answer book, only a loyalty oath.  

Remember how your mother or father used to make you hold his or her hand when crossing the street? Remember being lifted up and carried across a creek or stream? Remember them standing between you and danger? Today, you do the same for your own children. But who looks after you? The writer of Hebrews reminds us that we are not children and that we face tests that we can handle no better than could our little children trying to cross a busy street by themselves. He pleads with us to hold firm to that which we came to believe in the beginning of our faith.

It’s so easy to get side tracked. Life comes at us fast. We spend much of our time putting out the little fires of life, reacting rather than acting. We feel time constraints, but instead of dropping back and giving ourselves some room, we layer up. We are too busy to think and think too much about matters of little consequence to our faith.  Even when we do stop and think about what we are doing, we are easily persuaded that we know more than others.

I counseled a woman a few days ago. Her husband no longer goes to church because he feels that he has better answers than the church provides. Life has let him down. People have let him down. Now he seeks his answers in the counsel of his own home, forsaking all those who would have fellowship with him. The course he has chosen has little to do with the shortcomings of the church and everything to do with the pride of a man “hardened by the deceitfulness of sin,” just as the writer of Hebrews describes.

James promises us that trials will come our way. We need never question whether as Christians we will face trials. Christians are promised that throughout God’s Word. Jesus himself guaranteed it more than once. It is the price of the cross and a great price it is. But the cross delivers us into glory for eternity. James also promises that a faith so tested makes for steadiness and later, completeness. We are not left alone to do this task. Far from it. Our God is here for us to walk every step of the way at our side.   

We live in a society of individuals. We are bombarded by stimuli which would teach the value of individuals over community, the priority of individual rights over the protection of the society. We have half the guns in the world in this country, but only five percent of the world’s population, and yet we are no more safe in many ways than our third world counterparts who must fight hunger and pestilence to stay alive. We continue to see wholesale examples of self indulgence and violence that have no place in a civilized society. This is the way of the world, and this is precisely what James and the writer of Hebrews cautioned the early Christians about. They remind us as well that we are incapable of overcoming these worldly temptations with our own strength. We cannot hold firmly to God without his help.

A Presbyterian minister named John H. Sammis put the answers to music in 1887. He called the hymn Trust and Obey. He calls on us to “trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, than to trust and obey.” Do you want to hold firm to the end, as the writer of Hebrews admonishes us to do? You can’t do it by yourself. You are God’s creature, created in his likeness, but you also have a sinful nature that will create tension between you and the righteousness you seek. You need help to stay the course. You stand at the edge of a life that can be lived with beauty and promise and fulfillment with God that is far beyond the life that can be lived without him. The hymn from long ago sets that course for us. It tells us what we must do.

First, trust in God. In all the ways over all the days of your life, he is the only one to trust, the only way to find real, lasting security. Institutions will let us down. People will let us down. God never lets us down. And God teaches us that once we believe, we have to claim his promises. We have to live with him in charge.

Second, we have to obey God. Never mind that we sin. God knows our imperfections. That does not stand in our way. What does is our stubbornness to do things our way, our impatience not to wait on God. This is not obedience. Obedience is letting God have the reins and doing his will instead of our own.

These are the markers of the Christian, to trust and obey. Perhaps most importantly, we need to realize that the world we live in is not set up to accommodate that kind of thinking. We are called upon to be in the world, but not of it. In spite of what the world teaches us to the contrary, we are called to be dependent upon our Savior.

The path of God is narrow and less traveled, but it has room. God will walk beside you if you let him.  He will lead the way when you follow him. He will carry you when you can’t walk. As you grow from the tests he brings to you, don’t rely on your newly found strength. It is an illusion. The real strength we possess comes from our Savior. Hold his hand and hold on to your faith more firmly as you grow. He never meant for you to walk alone.

         

Signed and Sealed (Ephesians 1:3-14) 1/6/13

  

Last week, the Electoral College met and made official a vote that had already been taken. The people of the United States had already elected their next President. It only remained for the Electors to put the seal of approval on what had already been decided. Well, of course, this message is not about American politics or the Electoral College. But it is about sovereignty. In the case of the Electoral College, it represents the sovereign power of the several states to wield that power to elect the chief executive of the nation. In the case of Paul, here speaking to the church in Ephesus in the first century, it represents his understanding of the sovereignty of God.

The doctrine of election is closely identified with the Reformed Church, with which the Presbyterian Church is identified. To be honest, I don’t quite understand that. What I mean is, I don’t yet understand why it is that the entire Christian Church does not identify more closely with the doctrine. It has its roots planted in numerous places in the Bible in both the Old and New Testaments.

In the New Testament alone, the terms “Predestination” or “Elect” are mentioned in each of the synoptic Gospels (Mt 24:31, Mk 13: 22, Lk 18:7), and in Acts (13:48). Peter talks about the doctrine twice (1 Pe 1:2,  5:13), and it is also discussed twice in 2 John 1:1, 13). Paul talks about it not only in today’s passage, but also eight other times in his letters. 1

In the first chapter of Ephesians, Paul is speaking to a church he planted. He first visited Ephesus briefly during his second missionary journey. It was a stopover on his way to Jerusalem, but  Paul later returned to Ephesus for a three year stay.  Even later, Paul wrote to his former flock from prison, probably in Rome. His friend and helper Tychicus was the bearer of the letter.  If you’re reading Ephesians 1: 3-14 aloud, be sure and take a deep breath first. The entire passage is one sentence in the Greek. I have a sense that Paul did not have pen in hand for this passage. I would think more likely that he was dictating, perhaps to Tychicus, and that the more he said, the more he thought. The more he thought, the more he said. The result is a rambling recitation of blessing, choice, predestination, adoption, redemption, forgiveness and grace, all wrapped together in a divine plan. I can almost see the great apostle pacing the floor, occasionally punctuating the air with his fist or an outstretched finger as the words came pouring from his lips so fast his scribe could hardly keep up.

As I was preparing for this message, I couldn’t help but notice that what Paul said in a paragraph, it took the great reformer John Calvin about seventy pages to explain and defend in his famous work, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. Paul’s English teacher may not have approved of his writing style here, but his Theology teacher would have given him high marks, for the Sovereignty of God is on marvelous display here.

If the great John Calvin could take seventy pages explaining this doctrine, far be it from me to begin to simplify that which Paul has spoken here to the Ephesians and to the church at large. But I can take note of the obvious. While Paul can be difficult to read and seldom knows when to end a sentence, he is very sure of his subject matter. He tells us that God loves us so much he has blessed us with Jesus Christ, that God chose us before the foundation of the world was laid, that in love, he predestined us for adoption as his sons through Jesus.

Take a breath. That’s a lot to handle. But there’s more. Paul goes on. It was all done according to God’s will, God’s purpose, says Paul. Jesus’ sacrifice brings us redemption and forgiveness. Christ is God’s plan to re-unite all things, all people, with him.

And…we get our Godly inheritance through Jesus. We are predestined by God. He works it all out according to his will. Now listen. This is where it gets good! When we hear and believe in Jesus, we are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. He guarantees our inheritance until we take possession.

Nothing bad there, except twice Paul mentions predestination.

Don’t we have a choice? Is the election over, and we didn’t even get to vote? That’s not the point, so don’t get all tied into knots over it. Election is about God’s sovereignty. Who’s in charge here anyway?

The answer is all over the Bible. God is in charge. Always was. Always will be. God is also omniscient, a fancy word for all-knowing. So, if God is all powerful and all knowing, how can God not know outcomes before they happen? That could only mean that he is limited in some way, that he doesn’t know everything. But God does know everything. Always has. Always will.

          It is not for us to worry about whether we are elected. The question for us is whether we believe in Jesus Christ and in the gospel he teaches, that he is God’s son, that he came for us, that he died for us, that he rose from the dead and ascended  into heaven, that he lives and will come again for us. Jesus tells us that God loved the world so much he sent his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him shall live eternally (3: 16). He tells us again in John 5 that whoever hears his word and believes him who sent him has eternal life (v. 24). These and other passages make it abundantly clear that if we believe in Jesus, we are elected. Paul agrees. He says to us in today’s passage that “when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, [you] were sealed with the Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance…” (1: 13).

           The thing is, we just can’t get there from here, at least not without help. In the sixth chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus tells the crowd outside Capernaum that his Father’s will is that “everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life…” (v. 40). He goes on to say that “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” (v. 44). 

          The Bible is clear. God is sovereign and omniscient. He is all powerful and knows everything that will happen before it happens. In his divine plan, he has given us free will. We can reject him and many continue to do so. Paul reminds us of our tendency toward sin in Romans 11, where he beckons the Roman Christians to “Note then the kindness and the severity of God; severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you too will be cut off” (11: 22, 23). The writer of Hebrews further cautions us, saying “it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the Word and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance…” (6: 4-6).

These passages are evidence of the signs of God’s call, but not the call itself. John Calvin explains the difference as two kinds of call. There is the general call, by which God invites all through the outward exposure to the Word. But there is a second, special, call, as Calvin characterizes it. This comes to believers alone, who are illumined by the Holy Spirit, which causes God’s Word to dwell in their hearts. This is the church whose true membership is known only to God.

So where is the fear in predestination? If not called by God, then by whom? We cannot call ourselves, can we? If you think about it, it must be as the Bible says. God must call us, in order that our ears may be open enough to hear him. God must draw us in order that our hearts may accept the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. As Calvin said it: “Faith is fitly joined to election, provided it takes second place.” Think of it this way: faith is the tool God provides us to come to him once we are called. To believe otherwise would be to accept that some sort of work is required to find God, and that won’t “work.” By grace we are saved. The good works we offer up to him can be only our testament of the love we have learned from him to feel for him. My daughter Emily reminded me of that just yesterday. She sent an email from Dahab, Egypt, a sleepy little coastal town two hours from Mt Sinai. She climbed the mountain during the night in order to see the sun come up. Then she walked down the mountain. The locals call it the three thousand steps of repentance. What a beautiful way to describe the descent from God’s mountain. As her steps traced those of Moses, she gave pause to send some love back to the God who made her, formed her, claims her and protects her. This is what he wants. Love him. Show your love by your acts. And if you believe in him, then that’s your destiny, or “predestiny”, signed and sealed!        

1 See Romans 8: 29-30, 2 Thess 2: 13-14, 2 Tim 1: 9, Romans 8: 33, 11:7, Colossians 3:12, 2 Tim 2: 10, Titus 1: 1.