French Toast, Good Wine, and Grace

John 2:1-11

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 

And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to me and to you? My hour has not yet come.”  His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 

Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.”  And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the person in charge of the banquet.” So they took it.  When the person in charge tasted the water that had become wine and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), that person called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 

Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

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I empathize with the groom from our story today. Let me tell you why. We had less than a year to plan our wedding, which was less than ideal for Katelyn. And between other weddings and moving off to seminary, we really only had one date that worked: June 11th, which was a Sunday.

But we had this great idea. We love breakfast, so we thought we would do a Sunday morning brunch for the reception, replete with mimosas, the Sunday paper, and the best brunch spread you’d ever seen. It was a great idea; the only problem was, we didn’t have any money. Katelyn was in her senior year at Valpo, working two jobs as her schedule allowed. I was doing an internship at a church in Milwaukee where I got paid $500 a month. That was hardly enough to pay for the drinks, let alone the food. And food really is the centerpiece of the reception. 

So we had the impossible challenge of finding a caterer who was good and affordable on our measly budget. After searching and searching, I found her: Judy Baker of Chesterfield, IN.  No website listed, just a landline phone number. When we met with her, Ms. Baker was well into her 80s and told us she had been catering weddings longer than Katelyn and I had been alive, combined. We told her what we were hoping for: brunch theme, eggs, potatoes, shrimp and grits, croissant sandwiches, French toast, and mimosas. 

Then we told her our situation: I was just a poor pastor-to-be, and we only had this much budgeted for the food. Without hesitation, Ms. Baker looked at me and said, “Corbin honey,” (that’s what she called me the entire time we planned this wedding") “that’ll be plenty. I’ll have no problem getting all of that. It’ll be a great Sunday brunch.”

Katelyn and I were elated. We couldn’t believe it—we had found the perfect person. We went about the rest of the planning, amazed that it was all coming together. Katelyn planned 90% of the details, but the one thing I put together was our newspaper. I wrote all these articles, and most important to everyone else was the menu: scrambled eggs, breakfast potatoes, southern-style shrimp and grits, build-your-own croissant sandwiches, delectable donuts (instead of wedding cake), and to top it all off, Ms. Baker’s famous French toast.

On the day of the wedding, it was brutally hot, but Ms. Baker had a team working at full force to get our Sunday brunch ready. At the start of the reception, people made their way to get their food while Katelyn and I said some hellos. Finally, we walked outside, jumped ahead of the line to get our food, and what we saw shocked us. 

This supposedly great brunch was nearly gone! Half the guests still needed to go through the line, and certainly more than half the food was gone! I got no eggs, the croissant sandwiches were picked over, I don’t recall any shrimp and grits, and worst of all, Ms. Baker’s famous French toast was nothing more than French toast sticks, straight out of the box from Gordon’s, accompanied by your own syrup cup like you’d get at Hardee’s. I was embarrassed, humiliated. It was a tragedy.

The food was supposed to be the centerpiece of this brunch. And now all of our friends, who were also planning weddings at the time, were gonna say, “Well, we don’t want to be like the Blackmons!” And to be clear, this wasn’t Ms. Baker’s fault. There is only so much a woman can do with not even $2,000 for all the food and tableware. On the day I was supposed to be the host, to show hospitality, I was found lacking.

The groom from our story today was also found lacking, not in food but, even worse, in wine. The very thing he needed most was gone all too early. Talk about a buzzkill. Now, this problem is much easier to preach about to Lutherans than, say, Baptists, who wouldn’t see that as a problem at all. But in Jesus' time, for a Jewish wedding reception to run out of wine was one of the worst failures that could happen. 

The wine wasn’t just for a good time, though, as the Psalmist tells us, it does gladden the heart. 

Wine was the centerpiece of hospitality; when there was plenty of wine, it was a sign of God’s blessing. The prophets of old spoke of a time when the vats would overflow and the mountains would drip with sweet wine. In fact, the coming of the Messiah would be marked by an abundance of wine. Conversely, when the vineyards didn’t bear fruit and there was no wine to drink, that meant God’s blessing had been removed. And if there was ever an occasion to not run out of wine, it was a wedding, because not only would you be lacking in hospitality, but you’d be lacking God’s blessing, too. And that’s a tragedy.

Somehow Mary, Jesus’ mother, learns of the problem, and she takes it upon herself to find a solution. Why she felt the need, we are not told. But I like to think that Mary really felt for the couple because they were having the reception she and Joseph likely never had. And the last thing she wanted was for it to be ruined by the lack of wine, and for this newly wedded couple to experience any of the social scrutiny that she undoubtedly did.

So Mary found Jesus, and why she thought he could, should, or would fix this problem we don’t really know. But she talked Jesus into it. So Jesus had the servants fill the huge stone jars that had gone empty with water. And sometime in between doing that and filling a cup for the steward, the water became 150 gallons of the best wine imaginable.

Which is absolutely ridiculous! Why would Jesus make an unfathomable amount of the best possible wine at a time when the guests were already shwammied! They had been partying for days by this point; they couldn’t even appreciate such deliciousness. And did they really need that much? Couldn’t Jesus have made just enough to last the rest of the reception? And then to top it all off, when the steward tasted the wine and thought the best had been saved for last, the groom got all the credit! Somehow from all of this, the disciples walk away having seen the glory of Jesus and believed in him.

We all can empathize with the groom because, at some time or another, we’ve all been found lacking the very thing we need. As a parent, your jars of patience and attention run dry. In your marriage, your vats of love and forgiveness go empty. Or just as a person in a world with such pain, your cup of concern for your neighbor gets poured out. 

You will need something, someone besides yourself, to fill you back up because, like the groom and his party, when left to do it all by yourself, the relationship, or the marriage, or your faith, will come to an early end. It is only by the grace of God that comes to us in Jesus that our once-empty jars will be filled back up, and we are given not just what we need but an abundance of the fruit of the Spirit: patience, peace, love, joy, kindness, faithfulness.

That’s what I love about this story. It reminds us that sometimes in this life, the grace we receive isn’t just enough to get us by. No, every once in a while, we experience the grace of God as an abundance of the best thing we’ve ever had, shared with the people we love most. And it’s not just about getting by; it’s about the overflow, the ridiculous generosity, and the joy of abundance—a glimpse of God’s kingdom breaking into our lives.

Where have you experienced God’s abundance in your life? Where has God’s overflowing grace surprised you, exceeded your expectations, or come just when you were sure you didn’t have enough? And how might you share that abundance with someone else— your spouse, your kids, a friend, a stranger—who's jars have all but dried up? And how might we, as Cross of Grace, share our abundance of welcome and hospitality with a community, a world lacking in both?

You’ll be happy to know no one went hungry at our reception. And I’d like to think the abundance of love and joy more than made up for the food’s quality. Months later I talked with one of my good friends about my wedding and told him how embarrassed I was about the food. He turned to me and said, “Are you kidding me? I loved it! French toast sticks are my favorite, and there were so many of them!”

Thanks be to God for French toast, good wine, and an abundance of grace. Amen.

Reflecting Light

John 1:1-18

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” ’) From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

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Everything is in crisis now. Or at least that's how it feels. And I don’t mean that flippantly. As we look back on 2024, there were and still are crises that touch nearly every aspect of life and corner of the world. There’s the climate crisis, with 2024 being called the hottest year on record. All last year we heard about the crisis of democracy leading up to the election. There’s the immigration crisis, the housing crisis, and humanitarian crises too many to count.

Last month, we talked about the communication crisis—our inability to talk and see one another—which is connected to the social media crisis, the loneliness crisis, and the mental health crisis, especially among teens.

Not to mention the crisis of the church, with a new report from Gallup just a few days ago saying that communal worship is at an all-time low. Undoubtedly, there are more that come to your mind. And when you think of all these crises, the world seems like a dark, dark place.

It’s easy to think that by calling something a crisis, everyone else will understand it as such. We assume they’ll drop everything and urgently do all they can to address the problem. Nat Kendall-Taylor, a communications specialist, put it this way in a recent New York Times article,

“There’s this expectation that, ‘if only people knew how bad the problem was, they would trip over themselves, running to support my initiative.’” But is that how it works?

All around us, people are yelling about another crisis and how terrible things are. Then there’s a command: “Do this, or the world—or people—be damned.” And while they may be right, people don’t like being told what to do. If anything, all the noise wears us out. As Kendall-Taylor put it, “We tire very quickly of being told that everything is on fire,” because it makes the world seem beyond repair and convinces us that nothing we do will make a difference. Naming crises without more leaves us feeling like, well, how the law makes us feel.

“The law indeed was given through Moses,” writes John. The law is all the commands and rules given to not only the Israelites but to us too, so that we live as God’s holy people—set apart from everyone else, yet a blessing to them at the same time. Think of the 10 commandments, or the command to love God and love your neighbor, or the commands for justice.

For generations, the Israelites tried to keep the law and do all the commands, but they never did. It was always God forgiving, renewing, and upholding their relationship. We know what that’s like. We try to do all those things and fail just the same. The law though was never meant to be the ladder by which people climbed out of their darkness to God. It was the thing that showed our need for God to come down into our darkness. If all we had was the law, we’d be left in despair, knowing we can’t keep it, that we are helpless when left to ourselves.

That’s how I feel about all these crises, too! They point out how bad things are and give commands, but leave us feeling in despair; like the darkness is not only all around, but has made its way into our hearts too; because not only can we do nothing to stop the crisis, nothing and no one can help us either.

Yet there is something that can help our fatalism, and the world’s too. Rather than simply alerting everyone to a crisis, Kendall-Taylor suggests, “A far better strategy for instilling urgency and inspiring action toward a problem is to show people that real solutions lie at the ready.”

Give a solution to the darkness. Share a story that inspires action! In other words, after the law, tell the good news.

Nativity at Night by Geertgen tot Sint Jans

And the good news for us and for all the world is that God couldn’t leave us to a darkness of our own making. So God entered our darkness to give us light. “The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” Grace always follows the law because grace is what saves us. So often, we think of grace as a thing, but it’s not. Grace is a person. And grace comes to us as a baby in a manger, giving not just us but all of creation life and light.

It is the light of Jesus that dispels all the darkness. Not even the darkness of death could stop it from shining.

But in the manger, the light doesn’t look all that bright. If you look at many of the masterpiece paintings of the nativity, like this one by Geertgen tot Sint Jans, you see small rays of light coming from the manger. Everything else around it is dark, illumined only by how close it is to the manger. That captures the truth of what God’s coming into the world means for us and the darkness all around.

We are not the light of the world. Our job is not to expel all the darkness in the world. We can’t even get rid of the darkness in our hearts, let alone someone else’s. No, our job is to get as close to the manger as we can. And by doing that, we reflect the light of Jesus Christ in the darkest of places.That’s the story we have to share: one of light coming into our darkness, of abundant grace when it’s least deserved, of a loving God who would not and will not leave us to face our crises alone.

Our job is to reflect the light, to come close to the manger, to share the grace and truth we have seen and received through Jesus Christ. And I see that light reflected here, like in your generosity as you helped our grace quest kids hit their fundraising goal and in just one month you gave nearly $9,000 to help people quite literally living in darkness recover. I hear about the light shining through the service of our agape ministry, in the meals served and relationships formed. I witnessed it when our young families gathered together in Advent, growing in community and staving off loneliness.

These small acts may not solve all the crises of the world, but they shine Christ’s light in powerful ways.

That’s why at baptisms, we give just a small candle with a single wick. We don’t give out spotlights saying, “so let your light shine before others.” No, the light of Christ is passed on by a single, small flame, reminding us that just a little light scatters so much darkness.

As you look back on this year, where have you seen the light of Christ reflected in the world?

For me, I can’t help but think of Jimmy Carter, who became a beacon of light after his presidency. Through the Carter Center and Habitat for Humanity, he brought dignity to lives overshadowed by poverty and illuminated paths to peace and justice in some of the world’s darkest corners. Even in the twilight of his life, you could find Jimmy Carter nearly every Sunday sitting under fluorescents in a sanctuary in Plains, Georgia, leading Bible study. He knew that he himself was not the light but lived as close to the light as he could, reflecting the grace and truth of Jesus in all that he did.

As we enter 2025, we will face crises old and new, but we do not face them alone. The light that began in the manger still shines, calling us to draw near, reflect its grace, and share its truth.

The darkness is undeniable, but it is not final. So as we step into this new year, let’s keep reflecting the light — through our generosity, our service, and our care for one another and the world around us — believing that light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome. Amen