Drowning in Mercy

sermon by Torin Eikler
Isaiah 62:1-5 John 2:1-11

When I was in high school – ages and ages yet not so long ago, my interest was sparked in a process called “cold fusion” that promised to make energy cheap and clean for the foreseeable future.

How many of you are familiar with “cold fusion?” Probably most of you have heard that phrase before, but if you haven’t, the concept crept into the relatively main stream some years ago with the experiments conducted by Dr. Octavio Octavius in the Spiderman 2 movie. So, you may know something about it after all.

Basically – and if I’m wrong about this, please let me know after worship … basically, cold fusion is a controlled nuclear fusion reaction that produces very little heat, manageable radiation, and no nuclear waste. In essence, it’s a process that seeks to harness the power of the sun without all the heat so that we could produce electricity without all the dangerous byproducts of the nuclear power we already use. (See note at bottom)

As I said, it came to my attention in 1989 when two scientists, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, published a claim that they had succeeded in creating a cold fusion system in the lab. Right away, many people began to envision a revolution in the energy industry. No more burning messy coal or oil or even natural gas to power our society. No more dangerous nuclear reactors around melting down and producing three-eyed fish. The questions raised by the energy crisis of the 1970s had finally been answered, and we would be flooded with enough energy to do whatever we wanted.

But while some heralded the discovery as a miraculous triumph of human ingenuity, others were a bit more skeptical. In short order, the researchers were discredited. It seems that their experiments couldn’t be recreated, and others found that similar results could be easily explained by faulty wiring or other imperfections in the lab. In the end, Fleischmann and Pons dashed everyone’s hopes when they admitted that some of their evidence had been made up. So, the search for cheap, clean energy continues.


It was hopeful moment that sold a lot of papers before the truth came out, but it wasn’t really anything new. We have quite a history of trying to create something new out of the everyday stuff of our world. Remember the quest to turn lead into gold … or the attempt to create an elixir of life that would heal every ailment. Neither of those has, to my knowledge, been successful despite the claims of Harry Potter’s mentors and the many snake-oil salesmen in our country’s past. Though the results of these efforts are mostly benign and silly, some – like the miracle drug Thalidomide – have produced disastrous results. Despite warning stories from the tower of Babel to Frankenstein to Spider Man, humanity seems to have an obsession with pursuing the power of creation.

Maybe “fascination” would be a better word, but it amounts to the same thing in the end. We are all captivated by any hint that someone has been able to move beyond the normal rules of nature. … The only thing that rivals the excitement we feel when someone claims to have produced something unique and new is our dedication to the challenge of disproving their claim. Part of the fun of a magic show, as the children showed us this morning, is watching someone do the impossible …, and part of it is trying to figure out how they did it. And so every claim brings out supporters and disbelievers lining up to duke it out until the miracle is either picked apart or accepted, becoming just a part of the everyday assumptions we make about life.

But somehow miracles like the water becoming wine fall somewhere in between. Many, many people – believers included – dismiss the miracle stories in the gospels as cultural artifacts of a less sophisticated time. Healings and exorcisms become psychological phenomenon akin to hypnotism. The multiplication of the bread and fish at the Sermon on the Mount becomes a story of how one boy’s willingness to share encouraged others to do so as well. The raising of the Lazarus or Jairus’ daughter hinges on the recognition that they were not actually dead to begin with.

Still, we are hesitant to deny the power behind the signs – or at least the experiences of those who were present. We desperately want them to be real so that we know there is something special to the stories of the man called Jesus. We need to know … to believe that Jesus was the Christ so that our faith and the hope it brings us doesn’t fizzle out – so that the living water doesn’t become flat and stale … life-less. But we just can’t quite ignore the voice in the back of our minds that wonders if he actually did it all. Was he really just pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes the whole time?

We could listen to that voice today – we may have already done so as we listened to the scripture being read. And, if we all work together and put our minds to it, I expect we could come up with several plausible explanations for Jesus’ amazing wedding gift. … Yes, We certainly could … but why? Why would we want to take the life-giving power out of the story? Why does it always seem that we want to tame the miracles and domesticate the power of God they reveal?

Let’s not do that today. Instead, let’s put aside our doubts for a time, and quiet the voice of cynicism that drowns out wonder. Let’s free our imaginations so that we can jump into the story for a time. I know this will be harder for some of you than for others, but I invite you to step into the world of the wedding at Cana.

Imagine that you’re one of the servants. The wine has run out, and you are beginning to hope that the party may be almost over when one of the guests calls her son to come and take care of the problem. (So much for an early night.) As you prepare yourself for the order to go and wake up the local wine merchant and somehow convince him to sell you a few amphora of wine, the man tells you, instead, to fill the washing jars with water. You and the others get to work carting the 150-or-so gallons of water needed, chatting about what’s going on as you work. When the last jar is finally filled to the top, you sit down for a rest, curious to see what will happen next.

But there is no big show. Nothing happens … nothing at all … until Jesus tells you to draw some of the water back out of the jars and take it to the chief steward. “What now,” you think. “The guests may be getting drunk and rude, but they’re not so far gone that they won’t notice their cups are full of water instead of wine. And, what will the chief steward think when ….

And your thoughts cut off as you dip out a deep, red liquid that nearly glows when you pour it into the cup for the steward. A few drops spill on you hand, and you lick them off just to get a taste. You stand there, dazed by the transformation you have just witnessed – though you saw nothing happen. Finally, one of the others nudges you, and you get moving, holding the cup gently so that you won’t spill any on the way.


Now, before you leave that world behind, I have a few questions for you to answer out loud or to yourselves (and there are no wrong answers so let your imagination guide you):

What did you think when you first realized that there was wine in the jars?

How did you feel when you tasted the wine?

What did you tell your friends and family the next day?


Okay, you can come back to the world where water is water and wine is wine and you pastor only has the power to make Cool Aid, but don’t forget what you felt. Hold onto your awe, your surprise, your disbelief, your wondering…. And for those of you could get to Cana, let me share my own feelings though they are no more right than anyone else’s….


You see, miracles have power when you witness them – when you believe in them. For the guests who didn’t see or hear anything that was going on, this miracle may only have been no more than a welcome surprise. They may have thought, as the steward did, that it was simply a mark of hospitality on the part of the host.[1] For us it is so much more. For us, as we sit with the knowledge of who Jesus was and what he revealed to humanity, it was a miraculous sign speaking of the transforming power of God and the promise of abundant life offered by Christ.

Jesus works an unprecedented act of hospitality and blessing – amazing even when compared to the steward’s impression of the host. One hundred and fifty gallons of water – one hundred and fifty - turned into good, rich wine. It was a miracle of abundance, of extravagance beyond anything we could need – even beyond anything we would want. It shows us the nature of God’s endless love for us and the depths of mercy and grace that we are offered. More than that, the changing of water into wine speaks of the transformation and the new possibilities awaiting all who choose to believe and follow Christ.

Here, in this passage, we catch a glimpse of the identity and character of God:
the One who created all things,
the One who seeks to transform us, making us new and whole once more, the One whose grace and mercy is as abundant and rich as the wine flowing through that gathering.

What need have we of a tame sun sitting in some power plant somewhere?
Yes, it would be lovely to have our electric bills drop.
Yes, it is important for us to find some way to live at peace with our environment – to care for the creation we have been given in the way we should. Yes, clean, cheap energy could revolutionize the world in which we live. But life is about so much more than those things.

Created in the image of God, our lives are about passing on God’s love and shaping the world with gentle compassion. And we are made so much richer – so much fuller by the abundant grace and mercy we receive so freely. It is a gift with the power to transform us – to recreate us in the image of Christ to be the presence of Christ in a world that thirsts for grace and hungers to be made new.

Let us drink deeply from the jars placed before us;
so deeply that the rubble of our worries, our distractions, and our doubts is washed away;
so deeply that the flood of new life carries us out of ourselves;
so deeply that we find compassion and caring, love and acceptance, hope and promise flowing out of us toward everyone we meet each day.

Note: I learned after worship that cold fusion actually produces a large amount of heat, which is what facilitates the production of electricity. The word “cold” refers to the search for a way to initiate the fusion reaction without using a large input of heat which is what supports the process in the heart of the sun.

[1] Gail R. O’Day in the New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary.