OPENING

Leader We come from scattered lives to meet with God. Let us recognise his presence with us.

Silence

Leader As God’s people we have gathered:

All Let us worship him together.

All Lord, direct our hearts, and teach us to pray.  Lift up our hearts to worship you in spirit and truth, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

HYMN Hail to the Lord’s anointed

CONFESSION

Leader The grace of God has dawned upon the world with healing for all.
Let us come to him, in sorrow for our sins,
seeking healing and salvation.

All Lord our God,
in our sin we have avoided your call.
Our love for you is like a morning cloud,
like dew that goes away early.
Have mercy on us;
deliver us from judgement;
bind up our wounds and revive us;
in Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Leader May the God of love
bring you back to himself,
forgive you your sins,
and assure you of his eternal love
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

All Amen.

Psalm 128

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn5y_Sj8J58 

Reading Revelation 19: 6 - 10

A Song of Triumph (The Venite)

Leader Come, let us sing to the Lord our God

All raise the roof to the Rock of rescue.

Leader Come into the presence of the Lord with thanks

All raise the rafters with songs of praise.

Leader The Lord is the great God, over all;

All greater than every other power.

Leader He holds the depths of the earth in his hands,

All and the mountain peaks belong to him.

Leader The ocean is the Lords; it was made by God;

All the land was formed by his own hands.

Leader Come, let us bow before the Lord our maker;

All with humble heats we worship God.

Leader The Lord is God and we are his;

All we are the Shepherd’s very own flock

Paraphrase of Psalm 95: 1 - 7

Hymn As man and woman we were made

Reading John 2: 1 - 11

Revelation 19: 6 – 10; John 2: 1 – 11

Just imagine the embarrassment.  You’re hosting a wedding, or a special birthday party and somehow the amount of wine needed has been underestimated.   The wine runs out.  It would be a social faux pas if it happened today, but for the unknown bridegroom of Cana, it was far more than that.

Wedding feasts lasted for nights on end.  A lot of wine was needed, and the guests were thirstier than this bridegroom thought they would be.  This is a social faux pas far worse than we can imagine.  Apparently it was not unknown for wedding guests to sue the groom if they did not receive hospitality appropriate to the value of the wedding gift they had given.  

Against this background to Jesus’ performs his first miracle on the third day of his public ministry.  Running out of wine is not a matter of life and death; at worst, the bridegroom would have lived with the social stigma of running out of wine, and a hole in his pocket caused by legal expenses… but it is a memorable first miracle which tells us something important about Jesus and his ministry.

It is no mistake this miracle took place on the Third Day.  John was writing his Gospel after the resurrection; already in Chapter 2, he gives us a hint of resurrection life.  Abundant life which, after the resurrection, can be experienced in unlikely and very ordinary situations.

And what a demonstration of abundance Jesus’ first miracle was.  This is not a few bottles of the very best wine. Here we have enough water being turned into enough wine to fill about 800 bottles with the very best vintage.  There is nothing grudging, or stingy about this miracle.  It overflows with abundant generosity.  The kind of abundant generosity God loves to share with his people.

In the Old Testament, God even challenges us to discover just how abundant his generosity is.  In Malachi 3: 10, God challenges his people to put him to the test by bringing him the full offering so that he might: open the windows of heaven… and pour down an overflowing blessing.

That might be related to money.  Four friends were spending time together just before Christmas.  Down the stairs floated the sound of children’s voices talking about the Christmas presents they were anticipating.  One of the friends began to cry.  They were her children.  There wasn’t enough money to buy even essential food for the family.  Christmas presents were impossible.  The friends prayed, and 3 of them offered to money as a loan to their friend the next day.

One of those friends was in her first job on a low wage, but wanted to loan the amount that the other friends were offering. At lunchtime the next day, she went to the bank and withdrew a quarter of her wages for the month.  She almost skipped back to work with joy at being able to help her friend.  Needless to say the loan was for an unspecified period, but that young woman never had to ask for the money back.  It didn’t make sense, but what remained in the bank was sufficient for her needs.

That is the kind of warm fuzzy story preachers like to use, but could it really happen.  Well, I was that young woman, and yes, it is. I learned a valuable lesson, not just about the importance of generosity in the giving of money, but in offering everything we have to God, and doing so joyfully.  

In the turning of water into wine, we glimpse the sheer abundance of God’s generosity.  A generosity we have already witnessed when we gathered at the manger to gaze at God’s son; a generosity we have glimpsed as we have gazed at the cross on Good Friday; a generosity we glimpse in the resurrection.

When we reflect this kind of abundant generosity in our own lives, and our attitudes towards everyone, we will come to experience, in so many ways, God’s abundant generosity to us.  Not just in this life,but in the abundant life of heaven at the end of our lives. A time when we will take our place at the marriage feast of heave which we glimpse in the Book of Revelation.

There was not a random act that Jesus performed his first miracle at a wedding feast on the third day; It was not random that his first miracle is a demonstration of non-essential generosity.  It is glimpse of our own future at the abundant marriage feast in heaven.  A future which will follow when we mirror the generosity of God in our own lives, and share the abundance of resurrection life with those we meet.  Amen.

S Anne Lawson