A Private Miracle, John 2:1-11
Introduction
William Jennings Bryan wrote this about miracles: “Some skeptics say, ‘Oh, the miracles. I can’t accept miracles.’ One may drop a brown seed in the black soil and up comes a green shoot. You let it grow and by and by you pull up its root and find it red. You cut the root and it has a white heart.
Can anyone tell how this comes about—how brown cast into black results in green and then red and white? Yet you eat your radish without troubling your mind over miracles. Men are not distressed by miracles in the dining room—they reserve them all for religion!”
We live in a world which is chalked full of everyday miracles. They are all around us and yet we seldom consider the miraculous nature the created world in which we live and the miraculous of the God we serve.
The founding father and author, Thomas Paine once stated that “In the same sense that everything may be said to be a mystery, so also may it be said that everything is a miracle, and that no one thing is a greater miracle than another. The elephant, though larger, is not a greater miracle than a mite; nor a mountain a greater miracle than an atom. To an almighty power it is no more difficult to make the one than the other, and no more difficult to make a million worlds than to make one.”
While the secular world often denies miracles, the Church, as often, ignores them.
Transition
This morning my focus will be one the miraculous nature of the God of our salvation; indeed, the miraculous nature of our faith in Jesus Christ. We serve a God who is too vast to comprehend. We serve a God who is able to do unfathomably greater things than we can ever hope, dream, or ask!
We live “down here” in our brokenness and sorrow, wallowing in it as though there is no power sufficient to free us from the mundane plagues of this life, all the while acting as though we are alone, as if God is “up there” and out of reach for my pain, my problems, and my circumstances.
We pray but are disappointed with the results so we stop praying. We read the Bible but are likewise disappointed with our inability to understand it or disappointed when we don’t find the answers that we seek, so place it back on the shelf, where it will stay until the next time, if there is a next time.
This morning, while I won’t go line by line through the first miracle, the transforming of the water into wine at Cana of Galilee, I will draw from this miracle, the first recorded miracle of Jesus, one chief theme and focus on applying what it says to our everyday lives.
Exposition
Jesus is more than merely a miracle worker, but through His coming God built a bridge between His eternal power and our need for the miraculous intervention which Christ brings and freely offers to each of us collectively and individually.
This is the major line of demarcation or distinction between the miracles of God; there are those miracles which are cooperate to creation, broad to nations or to all of humanity, which we can all observe.
Then there are those profoundly personal miracles which can only be felt, known, and experienced on the inside, though their fruit is plainly seen by all.
The Corporate Miracles of God: Creation itself, the choosing of Israel and their being freed from Pharaoh, the Establishment of the Church and the free offer of salvation made in Christ to all who would receive it.
Even miracles like the healing of the paralytic in Mathew chapter 9, while they affect an individual are public miracles. In Matthew 9:8 it says “When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to men.” (NIV) These are things which God does broadly; in the open; for all to see.
There are some miracles which God performs so that the masses may understand His glory and goodness generally, broadly. Then there are those miracles which are of a more intrinsically personal nature, which the Lord performs to impact us directly personally, definitely. Corporate miracles must be interpreted to be understood. Personal miracles can only be experienced, known.
The Private Miracle of God: Christ breaking into your brokenness; unmistakably.
The wedding miracle as it is sometimes called; the first miracle of Jesus of turning the water into wine at Cana of Galilee, in many ways is one such personal miracle. Unlike the feeding of the 5,000 this was a fairly quiet miracle. It is entirely likely that the only people who knew what was happening were a very small group.
Mary had always known of the miraculous nature of her Son’s conception and that God had a distinct purpose on His life, but one wonders if even she fully grasp who her son was. This was the first major sign of Jesus divinity, as He exercised divine authority over the material world that is recorded in the gospel accounts. This was the first demonstration of that power to the disciples.
That is chiefly what makes this a personal miracle. Jesus used this opportunity, though perhaps somewhat reluctantly at first, telling His mother than “His time” [time for ministry] had not come yet, to demonstrate His power to them.
The text seems to indicate, or at least, certainly imply, that the majority of the guests at the wedding didn’t even know what Jesus had done.
In John 2:8-10 it says, “Then he told them, "Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet." They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, "Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now." (NIV)
The miracle was not so much for the drinkers of the wine, those who celebrated the marriage, (though ultimately the truth of the coming of Jesus is for everyone); this miracle was personal to the disciples to show them who Jesus was, just as He still performs personal miracles in our lives to show us who He is.
It occurs to me that none of the disciples ever set out to be disciples. Nowhere in the record of antiquity, in the writings of the Church Fathers, or in the pages of the Bible does one read of Peter, the fisherman, or Mathew the tax collector graduating from Disciple College with a B.A. in discipleship.
Indeed, the Lord chose these men according to His own free choice, sovereign will, and good pleasure to use them; His servants. Along the way of following after Christ these men discovered, through personal interaction, through personal miracles, that Jesus was the Son of God, worthy of adoration; full of love.
So it is with us as we travel this pilgrim’s journey through life that often what we set out to be is quite different than what we have become. The path that we envisioned is not always the same as the path that the Lord takes us through.
Joe business sets out to transform the corporate world, full of idealism and integrity, only to become cynical and corrupt, as the influences, temptations, and pressures of business push him off course.
His wife, Suzie homemaker, sets out to be the best mother and wife that she can be but eventually becomes lonely and disillusioned because of Joe business late hours and misplaced priorities.
Rural Ralph, Big City Al, Clerical George, their stories are all different and yet there is a common thread, seldom few find that the journey of this life is the same as the painting of it that they had in their head the day that they took the first step.
The truth is that all of us are at some point, to some extent, to varying degrees, just like those disciples of Jesus; in need of the personal miracle of Jesus where He pulls us close to His breast, wraps His arms around us, and speaks to us, quietly in the depth of our hearts, personally, intimately, demonstrating His power, love, and mercy into the innermost depths of our being.
He declares, even now: “I am able! I am here! I am willing! I am longing to transform your brokenness and sorrow into life! I am longing to redeem your disappointment and use it for my glory!”
The Lord is available and longs to pour out faith for the private miracle of doubt, skepticism, the maladies of our day; unbelief! Jesus stands knocking at our hearts to miraculously turn our disappointment into ways for us to minister to others. Christ, even now pursues us with fervent love, seeking to heal our brokenness, to turn our mourning into joy!
If we will but open our hearts, He will flood our souls with the healing balm of His mercy. If we will but open our minds, He will free us from the chains of heartache, past failure, and regret. Christ brings healing! Christ brings newness of life! The Christian faith is one of miracles and this life is nothing if it is not a grand adventure, chalked full of the miraculous.
Conclusion
There is an epitaph in Bristol, England, that goes like this: Here lay John and Richard Ben, two lawyers and two honest men; God works miracles now and then.” Indeed, God does work miracles. If He can take a broken man like me, replacing the heart of stone with the heart of flesh, a heart for Christ; if He can transform the world with a dozen imperfect men, then surely He is ready, He is able, He is willing, if we call on Him, yield to Him, listen to Him, to perform the personal miracles of which we are in need. He has not changed. Amen.
