H. Michael Brewer
Crescent Springs Presbyterian
14 January 2007
FULLNESS
John 2:1-11
Jesus is at a party—a wedding reception—minding his own business, having a good time with his
friends, and the wine runs low. Mary, the mother of Jesus, nudges her son and says, “Do something.”
He says, “Look, Mom, this is not the time or the place. I’m not getting mixed up in this. Okay?”
At which point Mary calls over the waiter and says, “Listen, this is my son Jesus. He’s going to take
care of this wine situation. Just do whatever he tells you.”
And Jesus—who’s thirty years old and on a mission from God to save the world—Jesus caves in, and
to please his mother he turns water into wine. Thanks to Mary, this is Jesus’ debut miracle—not a blind man
with sight restored, not a healed leper, not a demon-possessed woman made whole, but instead some really
big jars of wine.
Mothers… You gotta love them.
But there’s more here than a heart-warming vignette about Jesus and his mother. This is also a story
about scarcity and abundance. This is a story about emptiness and fullness, about life running dry and what
to do about it.
In the 1st Century, a wedding party might last for several days, even a week. So when the wine ran out
early, it was a disaster for the family, a major humiliation. Or it would have been, except that Jesus was at the
party.
He told the servants to fill with water the big stone jugs that were used for Jewish purification rituals,
and at the command of Jesus that water became wine. Do the math. Six jugs holding twenty or thirty gallons
apiece means Jesus made somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 gallons of wine. Cana was a small
village. This was not a huge party. Jesus made more wine for that occasion than they could possibly drink.
Seeing a need, Jesus gave beyond all need.
John the Gospel writer loves to take a simple story about Jesus and find a deeper meaning. In this
story, wine becomes a symbol of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is for Christians what the Law was for Jews: the
presence of God in daily life. So Jesus takes the water of the Law and converts it to wine of God’s Spirit.
Jesus invites his followers to move from ritual purification to joyous celebration.
What Jesus Christ did at the wedding feast in Cana, he still does today. He gives us what we need. He
gives us the Holy Spirit, and he gives the Spirit so abundantly, so plentifully, so generously that we could never
in a lifetime exhaust the power, grace and gifts of that Spirit. That’s why the essential quality of a Christian life
is not fear but trust, not dread but hope, not shortage but abundance.
If this is true, why do so many of us so often experience scarcity in our Christian discipleship—scarcity
of power, scarcity of conviction, scarcity of devotion and holiness? Perhaps the words of Mary offer us the key
here. She points to Jesus and then says to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
“Do whatever he tells you.” That is a nugget of gold, a keen insight as to what Christianity is about. “Do
whatever he tells you.”
We Protestants have always insisted that we are saved by grace through faith. We are saved by
believing, not by doing. Well and good. I’m willing to bet eternity on that. But let’s be careful that we don’t
create a Christianity that lives only in our heads. Discipleship is more than just believing the right theology or
confessing the right creeds. When we give ourselves to Jesus Christ, it is not just our heads that we dedicate;
it is also our hands and our feet, our arms and our legs. Believing and doing are the two halves of a whole
Christian life.
That’s why Jesus extended a two-fold invitation to those who came to hear him preach. Think about it.
What did Jesus say over and over, both to the crowds and to his inner circle? He said, “Believe in me,” and he
said, “Follow me.” Believing and doing. Faith and works. The inward life and the outward life must both be
given to Christ.
Perhaps the name of Francis Xavier is no more than a name to you, but his life is a powerful story.
Xavier was born in the early 1500s in Navarre, a kingdom between France and Spain. Xavier was a prince; in
fact, he was the heir to the throne. Popular, rich, intelligent—Xavier had it all. He went to Paris to lecture in
philosophy at a major university and to enjoy the good life with his friends. But one day a Spaniard came
limping into Xavier’s classroom. His name was Ignatius. He was a former soldier, disabled in battle, fifteen
years older than Xavier.
After class Ignatius hobbled over to Xavier and congratulated him on his lecture. And then the grizzled
veteran looked the young prince in the eye and said to him, “But what good does it do you if you gain the world
and lose your soul? Eh? What good is that?”
It was the first of many conversations between the two men. Not that there was much Ignatius could
teach Prince Francis Xavier. Xavier knew all about the faith, he could recite the creeds. But Ignatius kept
saying, “What is Jesus asking you to do with what you believe?”
In the end, Xavier decided to do what Jesus was telling him to do. The heir to the throne gave up his
crown, he was ordained and spent the rest of his life preaching the good news of Jesus Christ in Asia. He
founded churches from India to Japan and through his efforts tens of thousands of people in Asia came to
confess Jesus Christ as
Lord and Savior.
It wasn’t easy work, but it filled his heart to overflowing. It wasn’t a pampered life, but it was an abundant
life. The servant of Christ found freedom the king of Navarre could never know, found adventure no throne
could afford, and in the end received a greater crown than the one he surrendered.
It is fullness of obedience that leads to fullness of life. Think again of the wedding feast and the first
miracle. Jesus tells the servants to fill the big jars with water. I’ve done enough camping to know that fetching
water is hard work. Five gallons of water is a heavy load, and the servants must tote one hundred fifty gallons.
Yet they obey fully and completely. John says they filled each jug “to the brim,” filled them until they would hold
no more.
Could they have shirked a bit? Could they have filled the jugs three-fourths full and gotten away with it?
Sure. But they didn’t, and one doesn’t have to be a math whiz to see that the abundance of wine that Jesus
creates is the result of the abundant obedience of the servants.
Here’s something else to ponder. Do you really think Jesus needed the servants to fetch the water?
Don’t you suppose that Jesus could have waved a hand and turned empty jugs into jugs of wine without any
help? He chooses instead to be a partner with the servants. He purposely ties together the outpouring of his
power and the outpouring of their obedience.
It is so easy and so tempting to water down our discipleship, to settle for lukewarm devotion, to
compromise here and fudge there until our obedience becomes half-hearted and half-empty. Jesus offers us
abundance, “a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over.” But he also warns us, “The
measure you give will be the measure you get back.” A skimpy obedience yields a skimpy life.
We had a car that would stall and die for no apparent reason. You’d come to a stop and the engine
would shut down. It turned out that some gunk had built up in a fuel line and was restricting the flow of
gasoline to the motor. It didn’t matter how much gas you poured into the tank, the fuel barely trickled past the
blockage.
A full tank and sputtering engine, that’s the way some of us live. God pours abundance upon us—
pours out blessings, pours out love, pours out the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ poured himself out for us, emptied
himself so that we can be filled. There’s no scarcity on God’s side. If our lives are stalling out, perhaps it is
because we have clogged up the channels of grace. Divided loyalties, unrepented sins, timid service, and
skimpy obedience will finally choke God’s abundance into a mere trickle.
That’s a risk for Christians, especially long-time Christians. We are forgetful. We fall into habits of
neglect. And slowly, bit by bit, we diminish our capacity to receive God’s fullness. If we want abundance we’d
better be sure that we are open to the Giver of abundance. Next week we’ll consider some ways to unclog our
lives. We’ll look at some teachings about clearing the way for God’s abundance.
We hear about shortages all the time, and we’re bound to face some shortages in our lives. But a
shortage of grace? A shortage of power? A shortage of Spirit? No, where Christ is, there is no shortage of
what we really need.
Soli Deo Gloria!