John 2:8

THE TRANSFORMING POWER OF CHRIST

‘Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast.’

John 2:8

We cannot regard the physical character of this act as exhausting its whole import. We may, therefore, regard this act as suggesting that transforming influence which Christ came to exert for man.

I. Some of the transforming influences in the world.—It will be found in general experience that there are, apart from physical cause, three great moral and spiritual transforming influences in operation in the world.

(a) There is love, that great magician of life.

(b) The second great transforming power is thought.

(c) The third great influence is personality.

But these influences, great and beneficial as they are, have still their defects; they are at first mixed with the follies, the weakness, the faults which belong to our imperfect natures. They are also accidental in their operation, for too often this love and thought and noble companionship are denied to those very unfortunate ones who stand most in need of them.

II. Let us consider, then, the transforming power of Christ.

(a) That power was exercised over men.

(b) It was exercised upon life.

(c) Lastly, Christ transformed religion. From being a superstition, a gloomy oppression, or a lifeless theory, it became under His touch a thing of the highest spiritual comfort, of sublime beauty, noblest inspiration, and loftiest hope and service: a thing which reached up to the Heaven of heavens of the highest spirituality, even which yet came down to touch with light Divine the simplest things of earth: a great love and inspiration, and trust and zeal, and ennobling thought and impulse impelling to the highest aims and purest of services.

—Rev. A. B. Boyd-Carpenter.

(SECOND OUTLINE)

ACHIEVEMENT

John would not have had this incident fixed fast in his memory unless he had detected, according to his manner, the presence of a deep universal law emerging and making itself felt through some tiny circumstance, apparently remote and casual and unmarked. He always loved to trace the mystic symbolism which makes a passing incident to become a sacrament, through which the inner reality of things breaks and gleams and vanishes.

Something of this there was, he felt, in the chance phrases that fell from men’s lips unaware, under the pressure of a domestic trouble round a table in the Galilæan village. Behind it all, in the accidental experiences and expressions, he caught the powers at play. We, too, may take the flying hints, enjoying, as he did, the remote unconsciousness that gave their hidden meaning all its force.

I. And first—achievement, we can remind ourselves, is more especially to be left in God’s own hands.—Achievement is exactly that which we cannot ensure. Man can but lift the cry of dismay as he sees his own succours fail, his own resources lapse. ‘We have no wine.’ Only the Lord Himself, entering upon the scenes of our distress, has authority to pronounce the signal, ‘Draw out now, and bear.’ Effort is ours. We can set ourselves to it. We can surrender ourselves to the discipline. We can study and try, and work and try again, and never give in, and still begin at the beginning, and still renew the labour, and still win new experience and skill. But we can never make ourselves wholly masters of the favoured hour when the consummation will be sealed and crowned.

II. All fulfilment is God’s; and this, because fulfilment is always just beyond our human powers. God enters into action just at the point where our effort flags and drops; and we always flag or drop before the end is touched, before the consummation is attained. That is our essential human characteristic. At our very highest we prophesy. Prophecy is our vocation; and prophecy means that we suggest that which is more than ourselves. We indicate what might be true, but is not. We point on to something further than ourselves.

III. You and I will win no particular crown; you and I will do no very wonderful thing here on earth. We shall not bring in the Kingdom of God amongst men. Why should we? Are we worth it? But yet, believe me, God is doing His great wonder all the time; He is bringing His Christ into the world; He is winning His victory, and this not without us. Nay, rather invoked into action by our unavailing effort, if only we still sustain it, and still plead its inadequacy. God wins; God achieves; and never more so than at some moment when we, sick and disheartened, spent and dry, are filled through and through with that bitter lamentation—‘There is no wine. We have no wine.’ No wine! Life has lost its savour, its richness. Supplies and success that once ran freely at our need have strangely lapsed. Nerve fails us and energy is sucked out of us, and we are come to an end while still the pressure is on us. No wine! We are no good; we never attain; we cannot last out; we must give in; we see no result; we gain no footing; we cannot go on; there is no wine!

Then it is, at such hours of our depression, that we hear the signals of the Divine arrival. Then it is that we are to look up. When we come to an end, God is sure to begin.

Rev. Canon H. Scott Holland.

Illustration

‘In Mr. Wells’s brilliant book on America there is no more vivid scene than that in which he challenges the President, Mr. Roosevelt, to say how he can be sure that this stupendous American civilisation will arrive anywhere, will not end in collapse after all. “Mr. Roosevelt,” he says, “with one of those sudden movements of his, knelt forward in his garden chair, and addressed me very earnestly over the back, clutching it, and then thrusting out with his familiar gesture a hand first partly open, and then closed, ‘Suppose it all ends in collapse,’ he said slowly, ‘that doesn’t matter now. The effort is real. It is worth going on with. The effort is worth it, even then.’ ” An heroic word. “It is the very expression of the creative will of man, in its limitations, its doubtful adequacy, its valiant persistence amidst perplexities and confusion.” ’