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听完此讲道,我理解持枪自由的根源了:
送交者: 雅1 2013年01月20日17:06:23 于 [彩虹之约] 发送悄悄话

人的天性喜欢指责,有酗酒的人就责备造酒的神,可是神依然变水为酒:

 

January 20, 2013 (Epiphany 2 C)
John 2:1-11
“Tough Questions raised by the Wedding at Cana:”

 

(Please NOTE: the text of John 2:1-11 is not found in this manuscript, I recommend that you read it before reading the sermon message.)
 
I have never preached on Jesus turning the water into wine at the wedding at Cana. This week I was wrestling with HOW to apply this event . . . . to our lives today. Of course – it’s a miracle – and it’s the season of Epiphany – this REVEALES the glory of Jesus, and His disciples put their faith in Him . . . but that would make for a short sermon, people would complain, and there’s got to be something more we can take from this lesson. I decided to dig around and find out what other preachers did with this text – especially Baptists and Evangelicals who believe that we shouldn’t consume alcohol at all. Strangely enough, the sermons I found all seemed to “gloss over” the difficult questions raised by this text . . . and focus on loose applications such as, “What do you do when ‘the wine runs out’ in YOUR life?” They would then encourage people to turn to Jesus, and leave it in His hands.
 
Well – here’s what I decided to do with this lesson: we’re going to face the tough questions raised by this text HEAD ON . . . and see what God wants us to learn.
 
The first question is this: How did the wine run out? That was a HUGE embarrassment for the family, and a disgrace for the newlyweds. Families back then took these celebrations very seriously – they hosted, fed, and entertained people for DAYS – to celebrate the beginning of a new family unit. What happened? Were some of the cousins drinking more than their fair share? Perhaps. Did the couple ask the wrong person to take care of getting the wine? When we have a Halldorson family get together at my parents house – we know better than to ask my mother to get the wine. She’d pick out a skinny bottle of organic wine – thinking that would be enough for the whole group. No . . . the boys know; we’re going to need a couple of boxes here. Two years ago my brother hosted the WELS Canada annual general meeting at his church – and following the meeting we always have a fellowship and enjoy a few drinks together. But . . . he was so busy with things that he sent his wife to get the beer. Big mistake. It was some sort of raspberry wheat ale, or something. There were actual fruit chunks floating in it. Well . . . we didn’t run out of it, that’s for sure. There’s really no way to know WHY they ran out of wine at that wedding – all we can do is speculate – so we’ll go on to the next tough question raised by this text:
 
#2: Why does Jesus respond to Mary the way He does? Notice verse 3 and 4: “When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, ‘They have no more wine.’
 
‘Dear woman, why do you involve me?’ Jesus replied.” It sounds rather rude and out of character for Jesus. Translators often try to soften His response by adding that word “DEAR [woman]”. It’s not in the original text. Jesus literally responds to Mary like this, “Lady – what does it matter to you or me?” He didn’t sin, or show her disrespect, he just cut right to the point and hit the nail on the head. He was right – it’s wasn’t their problem to deal with. Let those responsible handle the situation.
 
Then He adds a rather curious statement (verse 4): Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.” What does He mean by that? Some people think He’s talking about the events of Holy Week – because, as Good Friday approached (in John 13) Jesus says, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him.” But . . . would that really make sense here? “They have no more wine. How is that our problem? It’s not time for me to die and rise yet.” I don’t think that interpretation fits real well. I’ve always thought it referred to the onset of His public ministry. Once He began His 3-year ministry, He would perform many miracles – to prove His identity and Divine Nature. But . . . I’ve since come to yet another possible understanding of these words: After His death and resurrection – all things would be placed under His control, and He would rule all things for the good of His Church. But – here, during His earthly ministry, he humbled himself, setting aside what was His according to His Divine Nature – and living as one of us to accomplish His saving plans. The time for all the requests of God’s people to be brought before Him was not yet at hand . . . he was just a guy at a wedding, and the wine was not his problem.
 
This brings up another question: Why did He change His mind, and perform the miracle? He was right – He could have just stayed out of it – they would have got over it, and we wouldn’t be talking about it today. Why did He change the water into wine? We’ll have to wrestle with that question later – because we just raised something else that we need to deal with:
 
WINE? Wouldn’t it be healthier for them to just drink the water instead? He could have purified and carbonated the water for them, providing nice lemon wedges on the tables. Many Christians don’t think people should consume alcohol AT ALL. They say it causes nothing but problems – it has no redeeming value / it kills brain cells and wrecks the liver / it causes huge problems in society / it ruins lives / it causes SO MANY tragic deaths / etc. People who think alcohol itself is the problem, have a real problem with this Scriptural account. They (to fit their way of looking at things) have to twist the words and claim that Jesus made non-alcoholic grape juice here. Twisting God’s Word to fit with our understanding of things is a horribly dangerous thing to do – so, we’re just going to let it stand. The master of the banquet would have been able to tell the difference between wine and juice . . . and this was fine wine. He remarks (verse 10): “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”
 
People had already been drinking – some, perhaps, had already had enough. So . . . Jesus made one little jug, just enough so that each adult could have a little taste of the wine . . . and no one would sin by getting intoxicated. Nope . . . He made a TONNE of it! Six 20-30 gallon jars of it . . . that’s roughly 2000 glasses of wine, maybe even more! And . . . it was awesome wine. This is what causes so many Christians to cover their ears and shudder at the mere thought of it: He provided more than enough wine for EVERYONE to get drunk . . . and, I’m guessing, some of them probably did. “NO (many would respond) – Jesus would not lead people into temptation and sin, there MUST be another way of understanding what really took place at this wedding!”
 
I don’t have a problem with this text – exactly as it stands. And, if Christians DO have a problem with Jesus turning water into vast quantities of fine wine at this wedding . . . the problem is with THEM – not with Jesus, not with what He did, and not with what God’s Word says.
 
Here’s what the problem is: we human beings love to blame others when bad things happen. It started in the Garden of Eden: the woman YOU put here with me / the serpent tempted me . . . and people keep asking, “Why did God put the Tree there to begin with?” It’s such a part of our lives and our culture, that we don’t even notice it anymore. We think it’s totally logical, and completely natural. But – God doesn’t operate that way.
 
If you have an open bar at your wedding – and someone gets drunk, how long before his wife or mother comes up to YOU and says, “What were you THINKING – putting all that free alcohol in front of him – YOU are partly to blame!” Consider this: Jesus provided an abundant supply of free wine at that wedding . . . and if anyone abused alcohol at that wedding, you can not blame Him. The father of a son in a car accident naturally looks for someone to blame, “Why do they need to make cars that go so FAST – can’t they limit them all to 100 km/h – why would anyone need to go faster than that? Why didn’t they properly salt the roads? Why have they left that dangerous curve in the road? Why did I let him buy that car? Why did I let him go out that night? O Lord – why didn’t YOU stop him from getting behind the wheel?” Blame, blame, blame – and it all eventually winds up in God’s lap. Think of the “nanny state” government we have – why do they feel this need and responsibility to protect us from ourselves? Because we might abuse our freedom, and they don’t want to be responsible for THAT, so they will just take that freedom away . . . for our own good.
 
God doesn’t operate that way. Having an abundance of things He designed to be blessings and having open access to things people might abuse . . . is NOT the problem. The REAL problem is the one everyone is trying to squirm around: We are sinners. We abuse God’s gifts. We are accountable for those sins. We have no one to blame but ourselves. And we are responsible for the mistakes we make.
 
Watch for it in your own life – when something bad happens or you mess up somehow – you will naturally look to BLAME someone or something else . . . stop it. Open your own heart and show it to your Lord – Jesus will come in to fix everything, to cleanse us, and to turn us into people who take responsibility for our own lives and our own actions, as He would have it.
 
But . . . Jesus was not responsible for the wine at this wedding, so why did He perform this miracle? Well – we can speculate based upon what we DO know about Him: does He care? Yes. Even about the relatively minor things in life? Yes. Does He care about Mary’s feelings – and the situation those newlyweds found themselves in? Yes. Did He see this as an opportunity to reveal his glory at the beginning of his ministry, so His disciples would know for certain that He is the Son of God? Yes – I suppose so.
 
So . . . now that He is on His throne in the Glory of Heaven – ruling all things and in control of the whole universe – when I come to Him with difficult situations that I must face in life . . . how come He doesn’t bail me out – like He did at that wedding?
 
I can’t really answer that, but I’m going to try to anyway. Consider this: when a foreign company wants to buy up a Canadian company, or buy up our natural resources . . . what question does the government wrestle with? “What is going to be the net benefit to Canada? Would this foreign investment benefit or harm the country in the long term?” That’s what they try to figure out. Is it possible that, when His children here in this world, ask their Saviour to intervene and fix some problem . . . that He wrestles with whether or not stepping in would be of “NET BENEFIT” for the Kingdom of God? If He stepped in and bailed us out every time we got ourselves in a mess – what would we learn? What would our faith be based upon? What would we think when He decided NOT to step in and intervene? We can never know how / how often / in what ways He intervenes in our lives . . . BUT, it seems to be that He prefers to hide His intervention rather than to flaunt it. And, I think even we, limited human beings, can understand why.

Let’s just stick with what we DO know for certain: He is God and Man – his miracles prove that. He does care about us – his death and resurrection prove that. He cares about the small things in your life too – the wedding at Cana proves that. He doesn’t want us to play the “blame game,” but rather to admit our sins and take responsibility for our own actions – what happened in the Garden of Eden is proof of that. He wants to bring us people into His glorious home, where we will all, in freedom, enjoy the excess of all His wonderful gifts, without a sinful nature that would lead us to abuse His good things – and the whole plan of salvation is proof of that.

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