Michael Hansen
Narrative Sermon
I am Ready
12/4/17
Focus: Jesus intervenes in our lives even when we don’t expect Him.
Function: So that we come to experience salvation as a present reality.
Are you ready?
There’s a young man, well, at least now he’s a man, in a place called Cana.
He’s in the process of celebrating the marriage to his new bride. It’s been going well
so far. The arrangements have been made, debts have been paid, promises have
been fulfilled, contracts signed, a betrothal has taken place and so has the public
ceremony. This is the biggest moment of his and his new brides lives. Now all that
there is left to do is celebrate. It’s time for the feast; let’s have a reception. I’m
talking buffet, open bar, live entertainment, speeches, a master of ceremonies, and
guests upon guests upon guests. We’ll invite family, friends, associates, and
townspeople! Get down here and celebrate with us! After all, this is a once in a
lifetime event and the Groom is taking care of all of it. Looks like we have everything
in place for the celebration, the feast! Please don’t misunderstand; this is going to be
big! Not just a few hours on a weekend night, not just a whole day and night, but
seven days! To put this into perspective this is the kind of party that would require
not one, but SEVEN trips to Costco for us, so you know it’s serious.
The young man
was thinking “The feast started of so well, everybody is celebrating, dancing, singing,
and rejoicing. The people are eating and drinking and everything is perfect, so many
of them showed up I think I even saw Joseph’s wife Mary come from Nazareth! But
we’re a few days in now and I’m starting to realize that people are a lot thirstier at
weddings than they usually are. We’re running out of wine. Maybe the bar should
have been just a bit less open.” I mean, can you imagine going to a dry wedding that
lasts for four days? That’s what I thought.
Now imagine having to host one. Yeah,
you might get some “polite” comments and people might talk a little about it before
they forget, but your culture is different. Your culture isn’t based on honor and
shame. His is though. He must have thought “And the very first thing I do as an adult,
as a host, as a man in my community, is not serve my guests wine at a feast. This is
not good. People aren’t just going to forget this. How does this make me look? I’m off
to a bad start for sure but it doesn’t just end with me. People will question my father
and how he raised me, then the rest of my family. I don’t know what to do. We have
no wine. There is no place to get wine. We have no time to make wine.
I guess this is
it. I’ll just live with my shame and hope that somehow, somehow I can redeem
myself in the future. Maybe I can make up for it in time. Perhaps If I host another
feast people will forget about this one? Let’s be honest, I don’t have the time or
money to do this again, I am too busy to make up for this by sucking up to everyone.
Like I said: this is it. People are noticing the lack of wine and are starting to sober up.
I can hear them talking, bringing it up to the master of the feast, thinking he just
needs to go tell the servants to refill it, but soon they’re going to find out that I, the
groom, am at fault for not providing enough. Even Mary is talking murmuring to her
son, Jesus about this. Wait, why is he ordering my servants around? Why are they
getting so much water? Maybe he’s trying to water down the little wine we have
left? That won’t work; it’ll be mostly water. We just fully ran out of wine.”
Next thing you know, the young man experienced something he wasn’t ready
for; something hard to believe, even after seeing it with his own eyes. The young
man thinks, “The water jars, they’re filled with wine. This was enough wine to last a
lot longer than a week. Not watered down wine, not the cheap stuff either. I just got
word from the master of the feast that it’s outstanding. It’s the best wine of the
entire feast. Are you serious? Mary’s son? Jesus, the guys from Nazareth? It just
seems out of nowhere, you know. I always thought I knew Him, but He surprised me
today, big time. All I know is that my preparation was not enough and by the time I
realized it, it was too late. I was set for embarrassment and judgment, but thanks to
Jesus I get none of that. There’s nothing lacking, there is nothing to be sorry for
anymore. There is no guilt, there is no shame, and there is no scandal. I don’t have to
make anything up and I don’t have to do it all over again. Instead there is joy, there
is deliverance, and there is a feast!
Today, Jesus is the true host of the feast.”
I think when many people read this scripture they wonder why Jesus first
recorded sign is making party wine for teenagers. Don’t get me wrong, this sign is
incredible, it’s not something any of us could do or explain by our own reason. It’s a
miracle. But the fact that Jesus changed water into wine is not the entirety of the
story. There’s more to it. I can’t help but to think that as a first sign, it surprised
people. I don’t think people were expecting anything like this, or anyone like Jesus.
Why would they?
But what baffles me about all of the gospels is that nobody is ready
for Jesus, no matter how many warnings or predictions or prophecies they have
been given about him and from Him. Were people ready and expecting the savior to
be born the Son of God of a virgin? I don’t think so. Was the groom ready and
expecting this sign that would save the feast? No. Were the disciples ready and
expecting Jesus to walk on water? No way. Were they ready for His death even after
all the times he explicitly told them about it? Somehow, no. Were they ready and
expecting his resurrection from the dead? No, try again. Did they expect His death
and resurrection to cover the sin of mankind so that we could be blameless before
God and enter His kingdom? What do you think? But eventually, even the disciples
got it. They listened to the words of Jesus and after he ascended they were ready
and expecting Him as He worked through them and people heard the Gospel and
were saved by grace through faith. They were expecting the Spirit he had promised
them as a helper. They were ready and expecting Him to return to usher in His
Kingdom once and for all and they actually started to live like it.
Having read the scripture, knowing the story of the gospel, are we ready? Are
we expecting Jesus? Yeah, sure. But if you’re anything like me you’re expecting him
to come back in like a billion years. But in the meantime, most of us don’t expect
much from God. All of that salvation and joy and hope, that’s for heaven. we’re
expecting that when God calls us home. Until then we wait. And as we wait, life is
hard, it can put us down, we run into trouble, we find that we can’t do it on our own.
Eventually the wine runs out. We’re overcome by shame and guilt and defeat. It
would be nice if God would do something, but I don’t expect anything now, Let’s be
honest, this is it. What’s there to be ready for, I’m not dying anytime soon.
Jesus performs the sign of turning water into wine. It is a sign that Jesus is the
master of the feast. He is the host. He will provide in His kingdom and those who sit
at the table will never lack. They will never hunger or thirst or have anything they
need be out of reach. Jesus is the true groom. And on the last day he will celebrate
His unity with His bride, the Church. What a sign, what a promise, what a hope we
have for that last day when He returns to usher it all in.
But let’s not forget that He’s
not just communicating about Himself and His kingdom in the end times, He’s also
helping this poor kid with his wedding feast in the meantime. Jesus is actually doing
something and intervening in the lives of the people, even as he has the big picture
in mind. Turns out God can multitask.
Jesus is not some far away and distant God who is silent and idle until He
returns. I know He seems that way sometimes. Can you think of all of the times that
you ran out of wine? When you just weren’t enough? Remember the times
something was missing and it exposed you and crushed you and put you to shame
and just defeated you? I do. What’s your most recent one? Did your marriage run out
of steam? Are you scraping the bottom of the barrel with those parenting skills of
yours? Did any of you buy a house at market value in 2007?
Obviously, in those
times something isn’t going right, but we don’t expect God to help us. Yet he always
does, whether we see it or not. You shouldn’t just be expecting him in a billion years.
Expect him now. Be ready for him now because He is at work whether you’re ready
or not; whether you recognize it or not; whether you expect Him or not.
One of my best friends has struggled with his mental health for years now.
He’s an incredibly faithful Christian. He goes to the doctor for it, he takes his
medication, the goes to therapy, he talks to his friends and shares in his suffering. He
knows the right answers to his questions toward God, but there are times when he
doesn’t feel it. You know what I mean? He knows God is there because he told us,
but is he really? Because it doesn’t feel like it. And in those times it feels like God is
absent. Like he doesn’t care. There’s nothing to expect, there’s nothing to be ready
for. All of that joy and salvation is for later, right. So why not just move later up to
now? He told me last week that there were only a few times in his life where he
thought about taking drastic action, but he didn’t because he sought help in time,
when he had nothing left to give, when he reached his limits, when he ran
completely out of wine and thought “this is it”. But when he received the help he
asked for, He realized that God had been far from absent. While his suffering didn’t
go away, he realized after the fact that God was with him and closer than he knew.
God worked through us, his friends, his family, his caretakers, and through so many
more.
Salvation wasn’t just for later; it was a present reality for my friend. He had
always known that Christ secured eternal life for us in the end. But it is in the times
that he suffers the most, when he is completely empty and expects nothing, when
the wine has run out, that God unexpectedly breaks into his life and works in
amazing ways to make salvation and deliverance and joy and rejoicing a present
reality. To make him realize that eternal life as a reconciled and whole and loved
child of God doesn’t start when we die. It is something that we already live in.
So my prayer is for you to take that emptiness, that shame, that guilt, that
struggle, that defeat, that sin and don’t just save it for later. Don’t just accept that
“this is it” until some other far away time. I want you to take them and put them at
the foot of the cross and I want you to be ready. I want you to expect Jesus. I want
you to see that he is working for you and in you and through you right now and for
the rest of eternity because salvation is yours NOW through the death and
resurrection of Christ. Amen