Friday, December 12, 2014
Download MP3 (right click to save)
A boy from the south side of Chicago; a girl from the Ozarks and they lived happily ever after. It's the story of my wife and me. As we approached our wedding day several years ago, (ahem!) it was a week after our college graduation. We had a lot of love, but no money to speak of.
So we prayed for a little wedding miracle. We were also heading into full-time Christian ministry, and there wasn't going to be very much income from that. So we prayed that God would use people as they brought gifts to our wedding so we'd have what we needed for housekeeping. We didn't need a lot. But we couldn't even afford the basics at that point.
We did receive several of the things that we needed, including four teakettles! Hey, don't ask me to explain how we ended up with four teakettles. What is this? Like a gospel quartet? Or maybe not. Well, as we were unwrapping the gifts, it was clear that God had answered our prayer. And it looked as if He had shopped for our wedding gifts. We got all the basics! We didn't know how we were going to get our startup needs met, but this one wedding guest made all the difference.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Couple, the Need, the Miracle."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from John 2, beginning at verse 1. "On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there and Jesus and His disciples had also been invited to the wedding. And when the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to Him, 'They have no more wine.'" Verse 6, "Nearby stood six stone water jars, each holding twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, 'Fill the jars with water', so they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, 'Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.'"
They probably thought, "I don't really think he's interested in a drink of water" Well, they did it anyway. "And the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine." And verse 11 says, "This is the first of His miraculous signs that Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee and revealed His glory."
Now, notice what brought Jesus to Cana that day – a marriage. Notice where He did His first miracle. At a wedding. We saw our own personal miracle at our wedding, and we've seen an awful lot since. Maybe your marriage could use a miracle right now, like Cana revisited. See, that day there was a change that no man or woman could have made. I mean who could change water into wine? But Jesus did. There was a need that no man or woman could ever meet, but Jesus did.
Maybe right now change is urgently, maybe desperately, needed in your home. Or, there's a need that needs to be met if your relationship is going to be what it needs to be. Maybe it's time for Cana again; a marriage miracle. Maybe right now there's strain, and resentment, distance, frustration, possibly bitterness, maybe even thoughts about just giving it all up. But have you brought that marriage, its brokenness, its struggles, your home; have you poured it all out to Jesus? Have you poured out your dark feelings to the Lord and cried out together for Jesus' healing in your marriage?
See, the less you feel like doing it, the more you've got to do it. And if your partner absolutely will not, don't let that stop you. This says Jesus had been invited to this wedding, to this marriage. Why don't you invite Him into your marriage? Close the door to leaving, to quitting, to giving up. Ask God to show you the hope factors that maybe you can't see because of all of the strain. But there are hope factors you can build on. You've looked at the negatives enough. Can you pray this: "Lord, we can't make it work, and I don't know how you would, but we beg you to do what we can't do in this marriage"?
Two thousand years ago in the midst of a marriage, Jesus met an impossible need with His supernatural intervention. Today the scene is set again with you and the one you promised your life to: The couple, the need, and the miracle.