“The Only Way is One”
January 16, 2022
Dear brothers and sisters, grace and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.
I believe I’m contractually obligated to ask: who won the wild card game against the Raiders last night? And how many years has it been? That’s right! Not just after thirty one years, but after the last two years, we’ve needed something encouraging, to lift our spirits and morale, especially after the demoralizing and discouraging past couple of years as we’ve battled through the coronavirus and everything else that’s been going on in our state. Often times it’s looked like nothing could possibly happen to lift our spirits and give us a reason to be happy and celebrate. Especially with the Bengals, because apparently there’s been a theory that the Bengals have been cursed because of a certain player tackling another certain player, ending his football career, thirty one years ago. But then, after thirty one years, the Bengals do the unexpected and win a round in the wild card playoffs. As one headline put it, the curse has been lifted. We might even call it a miracle!
That itself is actually a word that gets tossed around a lot, without any real thought about what it really means. But what is a miracle? One definition of a miracle is “a highly improbable or extraordinary event, development, or accomplishment that brings very welcome consequences.”
In today’s Gospel reading, that’s exactly what happens: Jesus, His mother, and His disciples are at a wedding, and at this wedding the wine runs out. Back in Jesus’ time, this would have been considered disastrous: as long as the wine continued, the party continued. Sometimes a wedding feast could last for up to a week, as long as the wine continued. Making sure that enough wine was available was also considered a sign of responsible hospitality, since the bride and groom were expected to provide for their guests and make sure they had the best, and their guests felt good about being there celebrating. In short, as long as the wine was available, joy was available. Especially since, for many people, life was hard, difficult, discouraging, and provided few reasons to celebrate and be happy, so an event like a wedding feast provided a wonderful time for joy, happiness, and encouragement. Not only did a wedding feast give everyone a time to celebrate the couple’s new happiness and wish them well for their life together, but it also gave them a chance to catch up with each other, and provide special love and support for each other in the midst of their struggles and hard lives. But unfortunately, in this case, the wine has run out, the party is over, and there’s no more reason to celebrate. What to do? Jesus simply comes in and turns water into wine. Which may seem like a small act, but it makes a big difference. Jesus, in more ways than one, saves the day by keeping the party going. He gives the . He not only turns water into wine, He turns it into the best wine, showing that He wants the best for everybody, whatever that best might be. Whenever our joy seems to have run out, Jesus comes through in just the right way at just the right time to lift us up and give us joy and hope again – often in an unexpected way. It can be an encouraging word from a friend, or even a stranger; a gift; a visit, phone call, or text; or some other message which lifts us up and gives us joy and encouragement again. Just like the wedding feast gave everyone a time to love, encourage, and support each other, Jesus gives us times, often unexpected times, for people to love, encourage, and support us. At times when we feel discouraged, defeated, or downtrodden, we can, and should, expect for Jesus to cause those times to happen, and for Him to lift us up and encourage us in an unexpected way. This is what hope is – and we can have this hope in any situation, because of Jesus.
But what it also demonstrates is the primary definition of a miracle: “a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.” As Isaiah prophesied in our First Reading, God made Jesus higher than any other being, more glorious than any other ruler on earth. He restored God’s people to their rightful place – lifted out of hopelessness, despair, and humiliation, and bringing them to hope, happiness, and their rightful place of being exalted by God. He did this by dying on the cross, offering Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of every person, and then rising again, defeating the laws of nature, by defeating death, promising eternal life to everyone who believes in Him. Jesus, being God, is not bound by the laws of nature. He can operate in any way He wants to, even breaking the laws of nature to give us what we need in just the right way. If He can turn water into wine, there’s no telling what He can’t accomplish to turn things around for us and make things better again. We also tend to forget that Jesus wants us to be happy. Jesus wants the best for us. We tend to think that following Jesus, and being a Christian, means that we have to be sad, beat ourselves up over everything we’ve done wrong, and feel bad about ourselves. But that’s not what Jesus actually wants for us. Being a Christian means having a close, personal relationship with Jesus. He wants to have a relationship with us, and having a relationship with us means one where He loves us: He wants us to feel good about ourselves, and, most of all, feel joyful about Him. When there seems to be no hope and encouragement, Jesus overcomes all odds and obstacles to bring it into our lives again. And, often times He does so in ways that are hidden, behind the scenes, like secretly turning water into wine – He causes small, secret things to happen to turn things around, make things better for us, and encourage us. He still works miracles, even small ones, to this day. We can be encouraged by this.
As another point, the greatest encourager we have in today’s story is Mary. We tend to remember Mary only at Christmas, as being the mother of Jesus. But actually, Mary doesn’t always get the proper credit or honor she deserves. She actually plays a bigger role in Jesus’ life, and does a lot more in the Bible than we realize, especially in this case. Being Jesus’ mother, and having lived with Him for the past thirty years, and seen who He really is and what He can do, she recognizes that He has the power to be able to turn things around and make them better again. Mary, doing what every loving and responsible mom does, encourages her son to use His particular gifts and talents. So, even though He is reluctant at first, she encourages Him to use the special powers He has to bring joy and happiness to the celebration again. In doing so, Mary is the example for how we are to approach challenges, for ourselves and for each other: by asking Jesus for help, to use His power and abilities to help us.
We actually need more people like Mary: people who are willing not just to look for the positive solutions to problems, but who know where exactly where to go to find those solutions – directly to Jesus. We need more people who encourage us not just to think positive, but to go right to Jesus, to pray to Him for help whenever we’re facing an impossible, demoralizing, or discouraging problem, and to believe that, just as He was able to turn water into wine, Jesus can do the impossible to overcome the impossible. If you are that person right now, I encourage you to use your gift and talent – we need you right now. We need you to encourage us to go to Jesus with every need. We need you to pray for us. We need you to encourage us to pray to Jesus and trust Jesus to help us. We need you to remind us we’re not alone – we have Jesus. Again, we need more people like Mary – and if you are that person, I encourage you, be like Mary: don’t be afraid to speak up, don’t be afraid to encourage us and give us the hope we need, don’t be afraid to give us the right perspective, don’t be afraid to point us in the right direction, don’t be afraid to pray for us, don’t be afraid to ask Jesus to help us, don’t be afraid to encourage us to keep trusting Jesus. Also, don’t be afraid to encourage us by telling us what you love, admire, and affirm about us. We need you – in fact, we need you more than ever. We need to encourage each other to want the best and seek the best for each other. We need more voices which encourage us to ignore the negative we hear, whether inside ourselves or from other people, and listen to God’s encouragement and affirmation instead. We need more voices which encourage us to keep moving forward. We need more voices of support. We need to believe that, just as Jesus is the God who is in total control of nature, and can even operate outside of nature to accomplish great things, He is the same God who can come through for us and do things to give us hope and joy, and make us happy again. We need to believe that He is the same God who causes things to happen to pick us up when we’re down and discouraged, and when we need extra encouragement to lift us up. We need to believe that God can still cause miracles to happen – even if we can’t always recognize them, we can still expect them.
One of the greatest miracles we are experiencing right here, right now, is the fact that we are all here together. Even despite overwhelming odds, such as the coronavirus, or any other struggles we may be going through as a church right now, we’re still able to worship and fellowship together. And the reason we are able to be here is because of the Holy Spirit.
As St. Paul remind us in today’s Second Reading in 1 Corinthians 12:3, we can’t even say “Jesus is Lord” unless the Holy Spirit gives us the power to do so. We can’t follow Jesus, especially when our own energy and hope is spent, unless the Holy Spirit helps us to do so. The Holy Spirit has been who has kept encouraging us to keep trusting Jesus, trusting that He has the best for us in mind, and following Him where He leads us. The Holy Spirit has been the one who has been encouraging us to keep going and keep moving forward. The Holy Spirit has also been using each one of us to encourage each other, to keep going and not give up. Sometimes the Holy Spirit has told us the opposite of what we expected to hear, especially for how to move forward, but where the Holy Spirit has led us has always turned out for the best.
At this point, I would like to take a few moments to lift up and recognize our Church Council and Staff. Our Church Council and Staff are a wonderful demonstration of how we all can follow the Holy Spirit by using our gifts and talents to encourage and support each other as a church family. If it were not for each and every member of our Church Council and our Staff, our church family would not be in the position we’re in right now to be able not only to keep going, but look forward and move forward with hope. Even though it has been a challenging past couple of years, our Church Council and Staff have gone above and beyond to make sure we are able to adapt to the present circumstances and move forward safely as a congregation, especially by making sure that our building is safe and maintained, our worship practices keep everyone safe and healthy. I encourage all of you to encourage and affirm our Church Council and Staff for the wonderful work they’re all doing. Also, not only our Church and Staff deserve our encouragement and affirmation: each and every one of you are just as much an invaluable part of the direction and ministry of our church family. The many wonderful things each of you do help us all to experience God’s love, and help our community to experience God’s love. Everything you do for each other, for our church family, and for our community, makes a big difference. So I want to encourage all of you: keep doing what you’re doing. Everything you do is valuable, more than you may realize, and makes a big difference.
Even though, after everything I’ve said, today’s Sermon should technically be titled “Encouraged by Miracles,” the original title, “The Only Way is One,” still remains true. The only way for us to be able to continue to keep going, even with our current struggles caused by the pandemic and other factors, is to remain one and be united. We are to remain united with Jesus, in a relationship with Him, enjoying a relationship with Him – experiencing joy from Jesus, and the miracles He does for us, even small ones, every day. Being happy in a relationship with Jesus means that we receive encouragement from Him – often in ways we don’t expect, but we can expect to happen, because Jesus always comes through for us. We can also be united in one purpose: as Jesus wants the best for us, we can also want the best for each other. This means encouraging, uplifting, and affirming each other. We can especially encourage, uplift, and affirm each other as a church family, as we continue to struggle together. We can continue to use our gifts and talents to build each other up and build up our church family. Even though we may be tempted to lose hope, lose perspective, and lose sight of what our true purpose is, we can encourage each other to stay focused on Jesus – the same Jesus who turned water into wine is the same Jesus who helps us, and even works miracles, for us. Jesus is with us, is for us, and is on our side – let’s encourage each other with this truth.
Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
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