CLERGY CORNER: “. . . stand ye in the ways and ye shall find rest for your soul.”

Posted on 31 January 2019 by LeslieM

Our God teaches us the things we need to know in many different ways. He is the God of Creation, and gives us the wonder we see with our eyes and feel in our souls when we look out at His world. He is the God of Order, and assures us that His world evolves exactly according to His design. He is the God of History and, although things may look bleak in the short term, the long view shows that He is in charge of the final outcome. He is the God of Love, and teaches us how to find rest in our souls by teaching us about Himself. And, to make sure we don’t misunderstand His teachings, He has given us many wonderful stories that reveal Himself to us. The story of the Wedding at Cana is such a story.

We have all read the story of how the wine was about to run out before the end of the wedding festivities and how this would have been a great embarrassment to the bridegroom. So what was our Lord’s response to this situation? He merely took jugs of water and miraculously turned them into jugs of wine! We learn something wonderful about our Lord’s character in the way He reacted to the young bridegroom’s predicament. We learn that our Lord knows, and is sympathetic to, what takes place in our lives and, when our best interests will be served, He will come to our assistance.

The next thing we learn about the character of our Lord has a lot to do with where the miraculous event at Cana happened — it happened at a wedding. We see our Lord perfectly at ease at such an event. He was no killjoy! Why? Because our Lord had a missionary spirit and He loved to share in the joy and happiness of all the people He encountered. Someone a lot smarter than me once said, “More souls will be led to heaven by people who have heaven on their faces then by those who have hell in their looks.”

And then, we learn something about the character of our Lord from the place in which the miracle happened. It happened in a home, a humble honest home in a tiny village in the Galilee. It did not happen at some great state event or in the presence of a vast crowd of people, or within the walls of a royal palace. Our Lord chose to be among simple people, in an ordinary home, to show us the side of His character that honors the places we call home, the places where nothing but our best is good enough – either for our families or for the friends we invite to the places where we live. Our Lord showed us the side of His character that wants to be one with us in our bodies, in our homes, and in all our days.

The story of the Wedding at Cana is a miracle story about something our Lord did at one time in Galilee but is doing again and again to this very day. It is a story that teaches us that when our Lord comes into our lives and reveals his divine character of joy, humility, understanding and love – he brings a miraculous new quality into our lives. And what do you and I get out of this story? Saint John tells us, “If you want a new life, then become a follower of our Lord, and there will come a change in your life which will be like turning water into wine.

Rev. M. Tracy Smith, SSA, Rector is from the Saint Peter’s Anglican Church, 1416 SE 2 Terr., Deerfield Beach, FL 33441. For more information, call 954-695-0336. Wednesday: Holy Communion at 10 a.m., Sunday: Holy Communion at 10 a.m.

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