Daily Lesson for February 23, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from John chapter 2 verses 9 and 10:

 9 When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 

A few weeks back I preached the memorial service for L.E. Anderson, one of the best caterers in town. I chose as my text the story of the wedding feast at Cana -- where the party ran out of wine.  I said the couple had chosen the wrong caterer!  But thank God they invited Jesus, who turned the water into wine, and his mother who put him up to it.  Colossal party foul averted.

But at L.E.'s funeral I asked people not to focus their attention so much on Jesus in the story, but to watch the servants.  It was those guys and/or gals got to play a first hand role in Jesus' first miracle.  They got the privilege of filling the huge stone jars with the water; and then they got to watch him turn that water into wine.

And then a really interesting thing happened -- something I wouldn't have seen had I not been memorializing a caterer; they kept their mouths shut about the whole thing. A full-fledged wedding disaster was averted, and they went on as if things went off without a hitch. And when the water was turned into wine, and it was the really good stuff, I mean the REALLY good stuff, Jesus and the servants just disappeared. Instead, it was the groom who got all the credit. And the servants -- the caterers -- made sure it stayed that way.

I want to be caterer today. Sure, nobody will notice me unless disaster strikes. But I will have the pure joy and privilege of helping Jesus make others look good; and I won't have the need to write a tell-how about how it might have been otherwise had it not been for me and Jesus. I mean, come on.  Me and Jesus?  No, Jesus; and I get the privilege of being asked to take part in what He's doing for somebody else.  And that's more than I could really ever ask for.