Epiphany 2 - Jesus is the Real Deal

Text: John 2:1-11
Series: ILCW C – Epiphany 02
Theme: Jesus is the Real Deal!
Place: Amazing Grace Lutheran Church, Myrtle Beach, SC
Date: January 17, 2010

In my daughter’s playroom is a box filled with plastic eating utensils, pots, pans, and plates, and soft plastic food. Food like corn on the cob, a drumstick, eggs, eggplant, peas, a red pepper, a small turkey. What amazes me about those plastic pieces of food is how real some of them look, especially the fried egg. It looks edible, but it’s plastic and therefore can’t be cut, chewed, tasted, or digested. It possesses no nutritional value. It is a toy meant to entertain my daughter while she expands her imagination.

I wonder how many people think of Jesus this way. Not as a toy, but someone who isn’t real. Sure this past Christmas they may have put out on display a ceramic or porcelain or plastic or wooden Jesus. Maybe spent some time looking at that figurine and pondered his lowly arrival. Maybe even sang songs about the birth of that boy. But since December 25th, that figurine of Jesus has been packed away in a box until next year. His birth has made no difference or influence or impact on their day to day lives. After all is said and done, it is as if Jesus isn’t real to them.

We might know better, but isn’t that sometimes how we are too? We worry or become afflicted. Concerns and conflicts consume us. Depression or discouragement drive us to doubt. We feel helpless and act hopeless. All of it screams and shouts time and again, “Jesus isn’t real!” I act as if what the Bible says about him isn’t true. My friends, that why these eleven verses from John’s gospel are so beautiful. They reveal to us how real Jesus is by showing us his power, his wisdom, and his love in action. A powerful reminder of just how real Jesus is!

It wasn’t a wooden Jesus who would tell those servants what to do! It wasn’t a plastic or porcelain Jesus who turned a hundred and fifty gallons of water into a hundred and fifty gallons of wine at the wedding in Cana. It was a very real Jesus who used his real power to perform a real miracle. A miracle performed in such a way that no one could deny it or question it. After all it was witnessed by Jesus’ disciples, his mother, the servants at the wedding. Not just that! It was experienced by the wedding couple and their guests. There could be no doubt about the could be no doubt about the reality of that miracle.

But why do it? Did Jesus want to help the newlyweds avoid embarrassment? Did Jesus do it because his mom told him to act? Because he wanted to show off in front of his followers? No! The gospel writer tells us this is the beginning of Jesus’ miraculous signs. Signs Jesus performed to show who he was. To substantiate exactly who he claimed to be; the all-powerful Son of God and Savior of the world. So that we stand in awe of who he really is, in the way those first disciples did.

For this Jesus, an invited guest at the wedding in Cana, isn’t some figment of human imagination. He isn’t a superhero like Spiderman or Superman. He is not limited to doing only what is possible to do in the make believe world of movies or comic books or TV shows. No, Jesus is real; able to do immeasurably more than we could ever ask or imagine as we read in our Second Lesson. Jesus is real, the God-man for whom nothing is impossible. Our real Savior whose almighty power is greater and more real than the problems that rob us of peace, the struggles that stifle and snuff out our energy, and the cares that crush our hearts.

How do you know? Look forward in his ministry and see his real power at work. When he speaks, the winds and the waves obey. When he takes a step out of a boat, he literally walks on water. When he shares lunch, thousands are fed. When he announces who he is, his enemies fall to the ground. When his garment is touched, an anemic woman is healed. His power is so real it casts out demons, cures diseases, conquers death.
But you know what’s sad? We know that! Yet, we freeze with fear or become crippled with concern. We allow the littlest things in life pile up into a mountain that then looms so large that we needlessly panic, acting like Jesus who is omnipotent is some plastic or porcelain impotent figurine.
Why? Because your mortal mind dismisses Jesus’ declaration: “I am with you always.” It deletes from your memory Jesus’ promise: “Ask and it shall be given you.” It ignores Jesus’ invitation: “Come to me you who are weary and burdened.” This all-powerful Jesus who makes such bold promises isn’t some museum worthy painting or inanimate figurine packed away in a box. He is instead the very real all-powerful God-man who has entered our world and is present in our lives.

So I can expect he will always use his almighty power the way I think he should, right? Like maybe using his power to prevent that 7.0 magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti? I can expect he is always going to use his power to cure my every disease or solve my every problem, give me that extra and unexpected check in the mail AND do it in a way that meets my timeframe? Ask Mary, Jesus’ mother. She went to her son and said, “They have no more wine.” Remember his response? “Dear woman, why do you involve me? … My time has not yet come.” Calloused? Cold? Dismissive? Disrespectful? No, not at all! For with those words Jesus spoke he reminded Mary of something that all of us tend to forget at times. It’s this: Just as Jesus’ omnipotence, his almighty power is real, so his omniscience, his infinite wisdom, is real. He not only has the ability to act, he knows, as only God can, when to act and how to act.

That’s so hard for us to grasp isn’t it? And even when we think we grasp it, it is still hard for us to handle. We think we know when God should step up and step in and bring about a solution. Maybe that’s why Martin Luther’s words are a perfect picture of you and me at times, “Most Christians have little difficulty trusting in the power of God but have great difficulty trusting the wisdom of God”. Isn’t that true?

We believe that God can do anything. But then we wonder if he can, then why doesn’t he do it? My friends, his thoughts are not your thoughts. They’re infinitely different. More than that; they’re infinitely wiser. We think, “Preserve the body;” he’s thinking, “Save the soul.” We avoid pain and seek peace. He says, “You must through much tribulation enter the kingdom of God. We say, “I’m going to live before I die,” He says, “Die, so you can live.” We love what rusts. He loves what endures. We rejoice at our successes. He rejoices at our confessions. We show our children the Nike star with the million dollar smile and say, “Dream Big.” He points to the cross and says, “Follow me.”

My friends, he knows, he acts, and does so according to his divine plan. Remember that the next time you turn to him in prayer and it seems as if the heavens are made of cement and your prayer is bouncing off the wall. Remember that when things are going from bad to worse; when God delays his answers to prayers for days and weeks and months and years; let’s remember that Jesus’ infinite wisdom which promises to work for your good is just as real his infinite power at work for your good. His time might be “not yet” but you can be confident that when the time comes it will be the right time because Jesus is real. And just as Jesus is real, his power is real, and his wisdom is real, so his love for you is real.

I say that not because of the fact that Jesus performed that miracle of changing water into wine. Yes, that was an act of love! It’s rather the fact that Jesus, God’s Son from all eternity is walking around at a wedding in Cana. This God of infinite power and infinite wisdom is present in our world living our life, doing things that we do, like going to weddings.

Isn’t that just an overwhelming thought? It’s not just a line: Jesus really did come to live as our substitute. He experienced life just as we live it, with all the joys and all the sorrows, all the pains and the pressures, all the hurts and heartaches, all the trials and temptations. Why? The answer is because of his overwhelming love for us. He loves us so much that he wanted to come into our world and live life the way we should have lived it but couldn’t because we are sinful.

And that love led a very real Jesus to the very real cross of Calvary. That love led a very real Jesus to really take on himself all your real sins, especially those times you doubt his almighty power, or question his infinite wisdom. And he did a very real thing. That love led a very real Jesus to endure a very real suffering that you really deserved. He paid the ultimate penalty for those sins. There, at the very really cross he proved his love; he proved that your soul was more important than his blood; that your eternal life was more important than his earthly life; that your pitiful condition on earth was more important than his prominent position in heaven. He left it all, to give it all, so you might have it all. That’s love! And that’s as real as it gets, my friends

(Holding the fried egg from my daughter’s play kitchen) It looks edible, doesn’t it? It’s plastic and therefore can’t be cut, chewed, tasted, or digested. It possesses no nutritional value. It is a toy meant to entertain my daughter while she expands her imagination. My friends, Jesus revealed to you this day at the Wedding in Cana, isn’t a ceramic, plastic, porcelain, or wooden figurine. He’s the real deal. Real with power! Real with wisdom! Real with love! And you know what, he uses it all on your behalf.
 AMEN