For the week of January 19 – 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany
Morning Prayer: O God of steadfast love, at the wedding in Cana Your Son Jesus turned water into wine, delighting all who were there. Transform our hearts by Your Spirit, that we may use our varied gifts to show forth the light of Your love as one body in Christ. Amen. (Lectionary prayers)
Opening Hymn: #400 Come, Thou Fount of every Blessing
- Come, Thou Fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it, mount of Thy redeeming love. - Here I raise mine Ebenezer; hither by Thy help I'm come;
and I hope, by Thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger, interposed His precious blood. - O to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above.
Psalm 36:5-9
5 Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens,
Your faithfulness to the skies.
6 Your righteousness is like the highest mountains,
Your justice like the great deep.
You, Lord, preserve both people and animals.
7 How priceless is Your unfailing love, O God!
People take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.
8 They feast on the abundance of Your house;
You give them drink from Your river of delights.
9 For with You is the fountain of life;
in Your light we see light.
Prayers of Intercession: Thank You, Lord, for hearing our prayers for those dear to our hearts. We now pray as You have taught us: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us, not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Offering spotlight: Cheryl Dent volunteers at Your Loving Choices, a crisis pregnancy center in Bloomsburg. This ministry cares for women and men who are in a vulnerable situation. Lightstreet United Methodist Church supports the value and sanctity of children, and all human life. If you designate part of your offering to missions, a portion is given to Your Loving Choices for their work with vulnerable women and families.
Offering prayer: Generous God, who turns water into wine and scarcity into abundance, we offer our gifts to You with grateful hearts. May these offerings be transformed, just as You transform our lives with Your grace. Guide us to use these resources to meet the needs we see around us, to share Your love, and to build Your kingdom. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. (Discipleship Ministries)
Hymn of preparation: #472 Near to the Heart of God
- There is a place of quiet rest, near to the heart of God;
a place where sin cannot molest, near to the heart of God.
Refrain: O Jesus, blest Redeemer, sent from the heart of God,
hold us who wait before Thee near to the heart of God.
- There is a place of comfort sweet, near to the heart of God;
a place where we our Savior meet, near to the heart of God. (Refrain) - There is place a place of full release, near to the heart of God;
a place where all is joy and peace, near to the heart of God. (Refrain)
2 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and His disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to Him, “They have no more wine.”
4 “Woman,[a] why do you involve Me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”
5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.”
6 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.[b]
7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.
8 Then He told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”
They did so, 9 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 10 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.”
11 What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which He revealed His glory; and His disciples believed in Him.
Message: Dwayne Deska
Let us pray, Lord let the meditations of our hearts and those words from my lips be pleasing to your sight, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.
A man came home from work one day and found a monkey in his house. He looks all over the house until he finds his wife and asks, “Where did the monkey come from?” She replies, “Oh it was so cute I just had to have him, so I bought him!” The man was so furious about sharing the house with a monkey so he asks his wife, “Where will the monkey sleep?” “In our bed with us,” she replies. “But what about the odor?” asks the man. To which the wife replies, “Well I got used to you, so I guess the monkey can too!”
Read John 2:1-11 again.
Wow – just wow! So, what have we learned here – yes, that’s right, Jesus changed water into wine at a wedding. Let me elaborate on a few other things that are happening here. There is just so much to unpack.
John, at the end of these verses says “This, the first of his miraculous signs.” He doesn’t use the word miracles, he says miraculous signs – believing these “signs” to be pointing to His glory. John also starts off with “on the third day,” why? Well, it could be because Jewish traditions for weddings is that they lasted a long time because they were such a grand event, usually a week. Alluding to this was the third of the wedding ceremony or more in depth because John knew that Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead three days later to overcome His death.
Next, Mary, Jesus and the disciples were there, because they were invited, it was probably someone close. In pages that I’ve read at this time they are thinking there are about 5 or 6 disciples because Jesus’ ministry really hasn’t gotten going yet, but he doesn’t tell us. John is the only writer to have an account of it in his texts. So, what is told to as no more wine, Jesus’ mother says “They have no more wine!”
Now, and out of respect Jesus addresses his mother, “Dear woman, why do you involve me, my time has not yet come.” Now Mary knows the specialties of Jesus and who He is and I think her bringing this up to Jesus is two-fold. 1, to let Him know about the running out of the wine and 2, to give Him a little push. She then says to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you!” Why? – just so they will listen to Jesus? I think not. I think she is pre-empting Jesus’ commands to us, sort of like she is telling all of us to. “Do whatever He tells you”
Next, we read, six stone water jars are nearby. When I was younger, I thought these jars were used to fill pitchers to give everyone water to drink with their meal besides having wine, and why would Jesus change that to wine, now how were people supposed to get water. But they weren’t, those jars are for the guests to get water out of to ceremonially wash or cleanse themselves as they entered the ceremony.
Now Jesus instructed the servants to fill them to the brim, each jar holding 20-30 gallons. He then performed the miraculous sign. In ministry, God uses people when we fill our spiritual water pots, which may be in the form of reading our Bible, tithing, church faithfulness, praying or witnessing. This is where Jesus turned ceremonial cleansing water into the best wine men ever drank.
This was a Miracle! But Jesus kept silent about it. He could have brought attention to Himself by saying “HEY, over here, I’m changing water into wine,” but He didn’t. Did you know most people never even knew that this miracle had even happened, only His Mary, His mother, the servants and the disciples were aware. Then He told the servants to “Draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet,” they did, and they listened, do we?
Then, 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.
This is the Grace in our lives. From John 2:1, “from fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another.” And in verse 2, “This is the first of His miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed His glory, and His disciples put their faith in Him!” I think at this point we are starting to talk about a transformation. A transformation of a sinner, where in the next chapter, Jesus talks to Nicodemus. But that’s a story for another time.
One Sunday as a mom and her little girl drove home from church, the girl turns to her mother and says, “Mommy, there is something about the pastor’s message that I didn’t understand.” The mother says, “Okay, what is it honey?” “Well, he said that God is bigger than we are, he said that God is so big that He could hold the whole world in His hand, is that true?” The mom replies, “Yes, honey, that is true.” “But mommy he also said that God comes to live inside us when we believe in Jesus as our Savior, is that true too?” Again, the mother assured the little girl that what the Pastor had said was true. With a puzzled look on her face the little girl then asks, “If God is bigger than us and He lives in us, wouldn’t He show through?”
As one wife put it after her alcoholic husband encountered the transforming power of the resurrected Christ, “Jesus changed beer into furniture;” that is money that had been spent on beer, was now being spent on the family. I think this means: Jesus turns things.
Jesus can change sour into sweet, turns bitterness into peace, turns hatred into love, turns anger into joy, turns sinners into saints. He changes people who feel meaningless into people who feel they matter; He changes blindness into sight and bondages into deliverances. Today, Jesus wants to turn us from a fan to a follower.
I could have said this in the very beginning, but then you wouldn’t have heard about the monkey and it wouldn’t have been as fun. Jesus gives us the hope and glory in Him as He transforms us from sinners to saints, and in the end when we meet Him, we can say “You have saved the best for last.”
Closing Hymn: #382 Have Thine Own Way, Lord
- Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Thou art the potter, I am the clay. Mold me and make me after Thy will,
while I am waiting, yielded and still. - Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Search me and try me, Savior today!
Wash me just now, Lord, wash me just now, as in Thy presence humbly I bow. - Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Wounded and weary, help me I pray! Power, all power, surely is Thine!
Touch me and heal me, Savior divine! - Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Hold o'er my being absolute sway. Fill with Thy Spirit till all shall see
Christ only, always, living in me!
The blessing: May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face shine upon you this week.
