Welcome to Pastor Jack Buckley's weekly blog and podcast.
You have three ways to hear his weekly message:
- Read Pastor Jack's GODblog.
- Listen now to an audio of the scripture reading and Pastor Jack's sermon.
- Listen anytime. You choose the time and place. Download Pastor Jack's GODcast to your MP3 player.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Jesus Saves... A Wedding!
 Psalm 36:5-10; John 2:1-11
On the day after Christmas I officiated a lovely wedding in a church on the other side of town. While I would normally decline such an offer because of family holiday priorities, this time I jumped at the chance. For the bride was a longtime friend of mine and I was delighted to be the minister who tied her matrimonial knot. The ceremony itself was short and sweet, by the book, embellished only by an Irish blessing and a Spanish prayer. The reception followed in the grand ballroom of the Elks Club Lodge. Fine food and drinks, fun music all night long, smiles and hugs and happy talk as the bride and groom worked the room.
Just imagine if Jesus had shown up in the midst of those festivities.
That's what danced around in my mind when I sat down to prepare this Sunday's sermon on the very first miracle Jesus ever performed. It happened at a wedding, to which he and his entourage had been invited, along with his mother and kid brothers.
I'm so glad he chose that setting to show his messianic stuff for the first time, instead of (for example) doing a swan dive off the Temple, turning stones into bread, or some other devilish stunt in a grab for public power and glory. (See Matthew 4:1-11 for the story of his temptation by Satan to do just that sort of thing.)
What he did do was to save the whole wedding reception from collapsing, by turning water into wine just in the nick of time. And the wine he made turned out to be the party's blind-taste first prize winner!
Cheers went up around the room, toasts were proposed, someone tapped a spoon against a glass and the blissful couple kissed, the band struck up again, and everyone danced until dawn.
This miracle story says loud and clear that there's no part of our lives too small, or insignificant, or secular for God to care about and want to fill up to the brim with joy. While we expect God to smile on our Sunday worship meetings, God is just as interested in our Friday night dancing to a Zydeco beat over at the Eagles Hall. And why be surprised if God wants to bless your soccer game, or to smile invisibly over there by the chili bowl at your Super Bowl party?
If what you're doing is the kind of thing God likes to see done, then enjoy it to the full. If you're doing it in the kind of place where God likes to show up, then eat up and drink deeply right then and there.
And, need I say it? If what you're doing, and where you're doing it, are not the kind of things and the sort of places that give God joy... Well, a word to the wise is sufficient.
But enough of that. Let the party begin -- and go on and on and on!
Listen to the GODcast!
P.S. That's Joanne and me in the photo ;-]
posted by Jack Buckley at
3:53 PM
<< Home
|
|
 |
|
|
