[Propertalk] Fw: Sermon Resources for January 17th

[Joe Parrish]

Sermons for the Epiphany 2:

     John 2:1-11  - "Saving the Best Till Last"
     John 2:1-11  - "This Is Where We Come In" by Leonard Sweet

John 2, the sermon titled "Saving the Best Till Last"

The Jews attached great importance to the high moments of life. Thus a
wedding was not just a brief ceremony, but an experience shared by the
entire community. The typical wedding feast could last up to seven days.
That sounds strange to our modern way of thinking, but this offered a
bright interlude in an otherwise dreary existence. The ceremony would
begin on Tuesday at midnight. After the wedding the father of the bride
would take his daughter to every house so that everyone might congratulate
her. It was a community experience. Weddings were a time of joy.

Years ago when Johnny Carson was the host of The Tonight Show he
interviewed an eight year old boy. The young man was asked to appear
because he had rescued two friends in a coalmine outside his hometown in
West Virginia. As Johnny questioned the boy, it became apparent to him and
the audience that the young man was a Christian. So Johnny asked him if he
attended Sunday school. When the boy said he did Johnny inquired, "What
are you learning in Sunday school?" "Last week," came his reply, "our
lesson was about when Jesus went to a wedding and turned water into wine."
The audience roared, but Johnny tried to keep a straight face. Then he
said, "And what did you learn from that story?" The boy squirmed in his
chair. It was apparent he hadn't thought about this. But then he lifted up
his face and said, "If you're going to have a wedding, make sure you
invite Jesus!" The little boy was on to something. Weddings are time of
Joy.

At the wedding, which Jesus attended in Cana of Galilee, there was great
joy but a problem developed. There was a shortage of wine.  Not only was
that a social embarrassment, it was also a symbol. For a wedding to run
out of wine was an omen that there was little chance of this particular
marriage reaching its full potential, maybe joy was not meant for this
couple.

So Mary approaches Jesus and asks him to do something. His response? "Why
do you involve me woman?" Sounds harsh, so unlike him, and it has long
puzzled biblical scholars. But you have to look at this scene in its
historical context. Jesus, at this moment, had not performed a single
miracle. He was thirty years old and he had just gathered together his
disciples. He knows that if he performs a miracle, a clock will start
ticking and it will not stop until he gets to Calvary. Crowds will flock;
investigators will be dispatched. Is this the appropriate moment? Jesus
thus makes his move and gives his first public sign that he is different;
he transforms water into wine. It is a crucial moment for Jesus and the
disciples. Let's take a look at:

1. The Miraculous Sign
2. His Glory Revealed
3. Their Faith Begun

The rest of this sermon following the outline above can be obtained by
joining www.eSermons.com.
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John 2, the sermon titled "This Is Where We Came In"

Not every movie is bathed in theological symbolism or significance. The
Denzel Washington movie, The Book of Eli, the story of the man with the
last Bible on planet Earth, is one that is rife with spiritual
underpinnings. But perhaps the most lasting mark Eli will make on my life
is that I'll never see that word "believe" again without thinking of "Eli"
and his story.

There is another movie that will change forever an everyday activity. Once
you see this movie, there is no way you can perform this daily rite the
same way. The movie is Psycho (1960). The everyday activity is taking a
shower.

How many of you know exactly what I mean? How many of you have ever seen
this Alfred Hitchcock classic?

Then you know . . . You hear that awful, screechy music. You feel the
helplessness and horror of being cocooned in rushing warm water. You
shiver at the coming of that unexpected life-extinguishing knife. Notice,
you never see any violence. The movie is so scary because everything is
masterfully implied by signs and images, not graphically portrayed.

This is the movie by which Director Alfred Hitchcock also transformed the
way we watch movies. Before Psycho movie theaters ran the film they were
showing on a "loop," repeating the movie over and over without a break.
Just as the film itself was on a looping reel that went round and round,
so the movie experience was on a looping wheel that went round and round.
Film viewers came and went whenever they wanted. There were no lines to
get into a movie, or a starting and ending time. You could enter the
theater at any time, and leave when they movie "looped" back to where they
had started.

This practice is what led to the phrase "This is where we came in." And
you always wondered what that meant!

Someone in your party with a good memory would read the signs, get up when
they started to see things for the second time, and announce, "Time to go.
This is where we came in."

Genius that he was, Hitchcock didn't want audiences to find out the
mysterious identity of his Psycho until they had progressed, step-by-step,
through his terror-building tension. He also didn't want the problem of
late-coming movie-goers fretting for much of the movie how come the
marquis star Janet Leigh had not made an appearance. Plus this movie was
the first one he funded himself, so he wanted to do everything to insure
its success.

So Alfred Hitchcock forced all theaters playing his movie to have set
times when the film started, and then empty out the theater until the next
showing began. For the first time people had to stand in line to get into
a movie. For the first time people could watch the faces and listen to the
comments of those walking out of the movie. For the first time, you could
be "late" for a movie. Hitchcock made "This is where we came in" obsolete
in the movie world.

Defining the moment of a "beginning" was something both Alfred Hitchcock
and John the gospel writer had in common.

The rest of Leonard Sweet's sermon can be obtained by joining 
www.Sermons.com
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A Sense of Awe

I consider it divine good fortune that we have a scripture lesson so early
in the year which encourages us to ponder a miracle. You and I need to
become more sensitive to the possibility of miracles. Such a sensitivity
will help us recognize present miracles, which we either do not see or
which we take for granted; and it will  prepare us to receive still more
miracles.

Walt Whitman felt that "each part and tag" of his own person was a
miracle, and that "a mouse is miracle enough to confound sextillions of
infidels." He reminded us that we are surrounded by the glorious and the
miraculous and do not know it. Science ought to have increased our sense
of awe, as it has unfolded the marvels of the heavens above and mysteries
of our bodies within; but we take the attitude that if we know how far it
is to a given planet, we have, therefore, encompassed all its
significance.  We need to know that God is at work in our world. The
affairs of this world, and of our individual lives, often seem to be out
of control. At such times we can be reassured by the knowledge that God
has worked wonderfully in days past, and that he is still at work.

J. Ellsworth Kalas, Epiphany: A Faith to Work Miracles, CSS Publishing.
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Soaking Up God's Goodness

A friend of mine is one of the best chefs in the United States (and has
been so acclaimed by people who know what they are talking about). The
celebrity chefs on Food Network notwithstanding, most chefs tend to be
introverts. My friend, too, is certainly a rather shy and retiring person.
He'd rather stay in the background than be center stage with a spotlight
shining on him. But like most chefs, the one thing that brings my friend
joy is seeing others enjoy his food. More than once when eating in his
restaurant, I have seen him standing in the shadows near the kitchen,
watching people delight in his culinary creations, and beaming in
happiness at seeing the diners' enjoyment. Most will never shake hands
with my friend. Most will never bother to seek him out to say "Thank You"
or send a letter of appreciation to the restaurant at some later point.
Nor does my friend stroll through the dining room tacitly and subtly
soliciting praise. He's mostly content to look upon people's delight from
afar.

I wonder if God is not accustomed to this as well. At Cana, Jesus watched
people enjoy an outstanding wine whose origin most people never learned
(and maybe would not have believed even had they been told). And if people
did not thank him, it was nothing new. As Augustine first observed-and as
C.S. Lewis later enjoyed pondering-what Jesus did at Cana (as in many of
his miracles) was really no more than a speeded-up version of what he does
every year on a thousand hillsides as vines silently turn water into wine.
Millions of people enjoy that wine every year without for a moment
recognizing the divine origin of it all. It's a reminder that we serve a
God whose effusive overflow of providential gifts knows no bounds. It's a
reminder that God is also often content to watch people-sometimes even
Christian people who should know better-from afar as they soak up the
goodness of his creative work.

Scott Hoezee, comments and observations on John 2:1-11.
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Inviting Christ Brings Joy

Why do we bring Christ into the wedding ceremony? Because if we would only
bring Christ into our marriages, we would have better marriages! A few
years back psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers was quoted as saying that for
about half of all American couples, marriage is a "quiet hell." Many other
marriages have degenerated into a "tired friendship," as someone put it. I
submit to you that this is a tragedy, and in order to prevent such
tragedies, we ought to take the traditional marriage ritual seriously and
invite Christ to be a guest at our weddings, just as He was invited to the
wedding at Cana in Galilee.

Above all, in this quaint and lovely little story, John is proclaiming the
Good News that Jesus Christ is the Life of every party, that he is the one
who livens things up, brings life abundant for all, even anonymous brides
and bridegrooms in an out-of-the-way peasant village located somewhere
(where, we are not sure) in the Galilee. As William Barclay put it in his
commentary on this passage: "...whenever Jesus comes into our lives there
enters a quality which is like turning water into wine. The trouble with
life is that we get bored with it. Pleasure loses its thrill. There is a
vague dissatisfaction about everything. But when Jesus enters our lives
there comes a new exhilaration!"

Donald B. Strobe, Collected Words, www.Sermons.com

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Signs and Hidden Significance

 I returned yesterday from San Antonio, Texas. While I was there I
remembered my first visit to Houston when I was a student at seminary. As
I was interested in history, I visited the battlefield outside the city.
There, at San Jacinto, General Sam Houston defeated the Mexican army and
won independence for Texas. The Texans have erected a huge memorial tower
-- it looks much like the Hoover Tower at Stanford University -- and with
typical Texas modesty placed a sign in front of it that says. "This tower
is ten feet taller than the Washington Monument."

That is what signs are for: to tell you something that you would not
otherwise know; to manifest a significance that might otherwise be hidden.
That is what John means when he says that this miracle was a sign. What it
pictured was the normal outcome of the combination of human and divine
activity. Men can fill water jars; only God can turn water into wine! Men
do the ordinary, the commonplace, the normal activity, but God touches it,
and brings it to life and gives it flavor, fragrance and effect. That is
the meaning of this sign: it is an indication of what the ministry of
Jesus is going to be like whenever he touches a human life, not only
during his lifetime on earth, but also through all the running centuries
to come, whenever his ministry would be present in the world.
Thus it affects us today as well. Bring God into your situation and all
the humdrum, commonplace activities are touched with a new power that
makes them fragrant, flavorful, enjoyable and delightful, giving joy and
gladness to the heart. That is the meaning of this sign.

Ray C. Stedman, Water to Wine
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A Whole New Era

What about the underlying meaning?  What did this strange first miracle
signify?  In a departure from custom, John fails to interpret for us the
miraculous "sign," which for him almost always means a symbol, a kind of
acted parable.  Some commentators see in it a preview of the last Supper,
when Jesus transforms not water into wind but wine into blood, his blood
shed for all humanity.  Maybe. But, I think not.

I prefer a more whimsical interpretation.  Tellingly, John notes that the
wine came from huge thirty-gallon jugs that stood full of water at the
front of the house, vessels that were used by observant Jews to fulfill
the rules on ceremonial washing. Even a wedding feast had to honor the
burdensome rituals of cleansing.  Jesus, perhaps with a twinkle in his
eye, transformed those jugs, ponderous symbols of the old way, into
wineskins, harbingers of the new.  From purified water of the Pharisees
came the choice new wine of a whole new era.  The time for ritual
cleansing had passed; the time for celebration had begun.

Prophets like John the Baptist preached judgment.  Jesus' first miracle,
though, was one of tender mercy.  The lesson was not lost on the disciples
who joined him at the wedding that night in Cana. Don't let it be lost on
you!

Adapted from Phillip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, Grand Rapids:
Zondervan 1995, p. 168.

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Humor: Miracles

There is a time-honored story about a skeptic who was continually
harassing the local pastor. His one delight in life seemed to be making
the pastor appear inadequate intellectually. The pastor bore these
challenges to his theology and faith with great restraint.

One day the skeptic was heckling the pastor about his views on miracles.
"Give me one concrete example of a miracle," the skeptic taunted. "One
concrete example." Whereupon the pastor hauled off and kicked the skeptic
furiously on the shin.

The skeptic couldn't believe it!

The pastor asked, "Did you feel that?"

"Yes," the man said as he nursed his sore leg.

"If you had not," said the pastor, "it would have been a miracle!"

King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
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Is Vodka Allowed?

There is a legend which states that in the late Middle Ages, the Russian
Czar had come to the conclusion that in order to unite his country, there
would have to be one state religion to which everyone should belong.

He considered carefully all of his options. Finally, he settled on a short
list of three, Islam, Buddhism or Christianity. He called representatives
from each of the three religions to his court in Russia, and asked them
each to state the case for their religion before himself and his advisors.

The Muslim representative spoke first. He spoke of the humaneness of
Islam, of its tolerance for others, its respect for science and culture,
and how it came with a complete legal system that had been refined and
perfected through the centuries. When he had finished his pitch, he asked
the Czar if there were anything else he would like to know. "One thing,"
the Czar told him, "Does Allah look favorably upon Vodka?"

The Muslim emissary shook his head and told him no, that alcohol was an
abomination to Allah, and was not permitted.

"Next!" cried the Czar, and the Buddhist missionary was ushered in. The
Buddhist monk explained the basic teachings of the Buddha, how all of life
was suffering and how the Buddha showed the way to end suffering. Finally
the King was getting bored and said, "I'll tell you how I stop suffering.
Vodka! What does your Buddha have to say about that?"

The Buddhist monk told him that intoxicants were a hindrance to
enlightenment, and were not permitted in Buddhism.

"Next!" cried the Czar, and a Christian Orthodox monk was ushered in.

The conclusion to this illustration and for many additional illustrations
and sermons for Epiphany 2 can be accessed at www.Sermons.com.