Saturday, February 09, 2008

Lenten Devotional: Day Four, Saturday Feb. 9th "Turning the Ordinary into the Extraordinary."

Gospel Reading: John 1-2
Devotional Emphasis John 2:11 “This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.”

The gospel of John begins with what some scholars believe is a hymn, proclaiming that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was God and that the Word has now been made flesh in Jesus and came to dwell among us. After this powerful introduction, John’s gospel takes us to the story of John the Baptist who points out Jesus to his followers as the one who is the messiah. The next day Andrew and Simon Peter become followers of Jesus. The day after that Philip and Nathanael choose to follow Jesus and Jesus tells them that they are in for a big treat because they will see some wonderful things.

Sure enough, on the third day, Jesus is with his new companions at a wedding and they run out of wine. Jesus’ mom asks for Jesus’ help, so he eventually gives in and has them fill some jars up with water and turns it into wine. This wine is even better than the expensive stuff that was being consumed at the beginning of the party. At the end of the story, we read that Jesus “revealed his glory and his disciples put their faith in him.”

This miracle is the first of seven famous miracles that are written about in John’s gospel. Each of the stories reveals God’s glory to the disciples, the first witnesses, to John’s original readers and to us who read it today. The purpose is for us to read the stories, see God’s glory revealed in Jesus and to place our faith in him. Just as Jesus can take ordinary jars of water and turn them into wine, Jesus can take our ordinary life and make something miraculous happen if only we will put our faith in him.

No comments: