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Sunday Message for June 25, 2006
It’s a Miracle
The title of my talk today is “It’s A
Miracle.” I’m sure that all of us at times wish that
a miracle could take place in our lives. There are times when we
may feel that a miracle is the only thing that can help us. Miracles
do happen! The life of Jesus is often most dramatically associated
with miracles. The Bible says that this is the way. He originally
displayed His divine power and awakened His disciples’ faith in Him.
WEDDING AT CANA
The miracles of Jesus began at a wedding in which
He transformed water into wine. This event is a significant story and covers
an important lesson. It was the first activity of Jesus’
ministry. After His baptism and the temptations, He went to Galilee with
His disciples, apparently for a short visit with His mother, Mary. She
greeted them with good news; they had all been invited to a wedding at Cana.
In those days a wedding feast was the most important social event in the lives
of the people. It was the one event that could bring laughter and gaiety
into lives that were most often hard, bleak, and austere. Large weddings,
therefore, often lasted as long as a week, and a great deal of food and drink
had to be provided. This was furnished by the guests with a definite
order of protocol in which the older guests presented their food and wine first
and the young followed in descending sequence.
WATER TO WINE
Apparently, Jesus and His party arrived late in the
week, and the provisions were running low. Mary pointed this out
to Jesus. He, at first, seemed reluctant; but Mary persisted by telling
the servants to do whatever Jesus told them to do. Then Jesus transformed
water into wine so that the wedding could continue.
First of all, this was an act of loving-kindness. To run out of wine
at the wedding would have been a lifelong humiliation to the bride and groom. They
would have lost face – the worst social tragedy in the East.
Christians have sometimes had trouble with the idea of the wine. There is a
story about a fundamental Christian who was lecturing someone about drinking.
The man said:
“Jesus drank wine.” And the religionist said, “Yes,
and I would have thought a lot more of Him if He hadn’t”
There is also a story about someone who used this event to his own advantage. His
name was Pat and he had a problem with drinking. He took the pledge, but he “slipped.” With
a bottle in his hand, he ran right into the priest. The good father said, “Pat,
what’s in that bottle?” And Pat answered, “Just water,
Father.” The priest asked to smell it, and then said, “Pat,
that’s wine.” And Pat said,
“Faith and begorra, Jesus Christ has pulled off another fantastic miracle!”
SYMBOLOGY
The lesson of the Bible story has nothing to do with
drinking wine. We need to get past the literal interpretation of
the story or we will never grasp its true meaning.
Within the story itself are symbols. Symbols are the universal language
of Spirit, and the true value of this story is found in its spiritual significance.
In the Bible, a wedding represents an inner union – a marriage between
two complementary internal processes in us that produces a positive, constructive
attitude. On the psychological level, it is the right combination of
thoughts and feelings. Glenn Clark once illustrated this in a story about “hind’s
feet.”
A young man who was struggling in life met a very wealthy and successful man
on a train. When the young man asked about the secret of his success, the older
man replied, “Hind’s feet.” The young man searched
for several years for the secret of the symbology and eventually found the
older man again. This time he explained it, “There is a type of
mountain goat that has the ability, when walking on narrow, dangerous mountain
passages, to place his hind foot exactly in the same footing where his front
foot had been. Other animals cannot do that, so they often tumble down
the mountain.” The old man’s secret of success was that he
was able to place his feelings and emotions exactly behind the intellectual
and mental images; and that brought his success.`
This is an important thing to know about your formative power of thought. It
is the idea behind what we now call “success motivation” – establishing
positive thoughts behind our own goals. It is important to have goals,
for they mobilize and give direction to our consciousness. But there
is an even higher way that our minds can function. Through intuition
and inspiration, the truly creative mind action draws directly on the fount
of infinite intelligence and transforms our ordinary consciousness. We
are lifted into inspired new levels of expanded awareness that exceed the limits
of anything we can plan or accomplish with our normal rational-deductive-intellectual
thinking. Paul stated the true goal we should all aspire to: (Philippians
3:14)
“the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of
God in Christ Jesus." Anything less than this is diluted “wine” and
eventually runs out.
STORY SYMBOLS
Let’s look at the story in this light. The
wedding symbolizes a spiritual union within us – a marriage between
the natural human side and the spiritual side, which is our true nature. Certainly,
this idea’s time has come, for we are now entering the new age in
which we will really begin to live from our spiritual potential. Water, in
the Bible, can have several meanings – one is external cleansing. Another
meaning is the concept of unlimited possibilities. It can also mean
unsteady, as unstable as water, which
in this story symbolizes the state of the natural human life. Wine means spiritual life.
When the wine runs low, it is lacking the vitalizing power of Spirit – it
is flat and tasteless or run down.
The ruler of the feast is that part of us that is in charge of our natural,
human level of life – the goals, motivations, and concepts of our strictly
human consciousness. Mary, the mother of Jesus, represents the purest,
highest emotion that we can experience – intuition
– which prepares the way for the Christ power to follow. Jesus,
as He always does in the Bible, represents the Christ – the I Am Spirit of God in man – the miracle-working
power of the universe in each of us. The disciples represent the twelve
powers or faculties of man – the potential to become spiritualized in
us. The servants at the wedding represent the part of our human personality
and intelligence that can respond to intuition. This represents a change
in our level of dependence from things of the world to the source or the kingdom
of Spirit. We can then obey and serve the indwelling Christ Spirit.
Jesus, at first, was a guest at the wedding. His mother, Mary, who had
wholehearted confidence in Him, began to instruct the servants to do whatever
Jesus told them to do. The conversation between Jesus and His mother
seems a little harsh, (John 2:4)
"Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?
My hour has not yet come." Jesus
had utmost tenderness and regard for His mother. “My hour has not yet come” refers to the order of protocol in which the
older guests were first. But Mary knew that the wedding was breaking
down, life’s wine was running out. She knew it was time for Jesus, the
guest, to become the Master of the feast.
Jesus then instructed the servants to pour water into six stone jars; and then
it became wine. Not only wine, but good wine – the best! – as
the old ruler of the feast very quickly recognized and appreciated. The
three symbols – water, stone jars, and good wine – give us the
levels of mind action involved in the miraculous transformation. Water
is the natural intellectual level, a level by which most of us live almost
all the time – a level that, by itself, is unstable and inadequate for
the truly full life. The jars of stone represent filling our thoughts
and feelings with literal truth. That is, the intellectual discipline
of a program of study of spiritual Truth and higher knowledge – what
we call being a Truth student.
There were six stone jars – a numerical symbol of the Jewish Rite of
Purification – which can mean prayer and meditation. The number six corresponds
to the first six days of the week of creation in which we work, the seventh
being that segment of the creative process in which the Father does His miracle-producing
work.
THE PRACTICE
A miracle is an experience of Truth or the transformation
that occurs in our nature when Truth comes alive in us. Miracles
do not suspend the laws of the universe, they elevate them. The miracle
of miracles is the new person we can become and the new life we can live
when the Christ Spirit becomes a living part of us and lifts us upward
into our divine potential. A miracle of self-change occurs.
I again would like to mention study, prayer, and meditation
– they are vital avenues for this life-changing process. We usually
associate miracles with instantaneous events, such as Paul’s blinding
encounter with the living Christ on the road to Damascus. But these in
themselves don’t last – they run out. Spiritual transformation
is a growing and cumulative process. It needs constant study, prayer,
and meditative support. So long as Christ is but a guest in our consciousness,
our lives deplete and go flat again. When Christ truly becomes Master,
and when we live in a growing awareness of the radiant presence of the living
Christ in us, then we increasingly experience the results of the growing union
or marriage between the two sides of our nature. That union is the blending
of the human with the divine in the right relationship in which Spirit governs
the human.
The miracles never cease! As we study, pray, and meditate, higher levels
in ourselves progressively open and become active, and new qualities come forth. Strange
and wonderful things keep happening. We receive new inspiration, new
enlightenment, new awareness that bring into our lives new experiences of exciting,
adventurous living.
Good wine is equal to creative living and is superior to anything we have known. It
is always available to everyone but still hidden from most.
Religion has often been grim and gloomy. The imagery of wine tells us that
life is meant to be enjoyed. In this story, the old, harsh John the Baptist
religion of external water cleansing (repent, or else) is replaced by a new
religion of Spirit that says, (John 16:33) “take courage; I have conquered the world!" As Paul said, (Romans 5:2)
“rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God.” Miracles happen! They can happen
in your life! When you open your mind to His spiritual influence, God can display
His divine power, His glory in your life. Again, the great Truth, the
(Colossians 1:27) “mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of
glory.”
FILLMOREISMS
Here is what Charles Fillmore said about the wedding
at Cana, “Spiritually, marriage represents the union of two
dominant states of consciousness. When we open the door of the mind by
consciously affirming the presence and power of the divine I Am in our midst, there is a marriage
or union of the higher forces in being with the lower and we find that
we are quickened in every part; the life of the I Am has been poured out for us.”
Jesus promises in this story that there is no situation in your life that cannot
be transformed by the I Am power of the Christ in you.
And an even better promise is that the best years of your life can be now and
in all the nows to come. Charles Fillmore was 93 years old when he wrote,
“I fairly sizzle with zeal and enthusiasm
as I spring forth to do the things that ought to be done by me.”
Why? How? Because he discovered and began to live out the
Christ in himself by making the study of Truth and prayer, and above all, meditation,
the highest priorities in his life!
Every day he filled his consciousness with Truth. He prayed often. The
most important event of his entire day was the time he spent in the holy of
holies, the secret place
– the silence of his mind.
Do you want a miracle in your life? You can have an
abundance of them if you will follow the instructions Jesus gave for miracles
at the wedding at Cana, and if you will do what Charles Fillmore did by
making the study of Truth, prayer, and meditation the highest priorities
in your life!
THE END
SCRIPTURE: John 2:1-12 -The Wedding at Cana; Philippians 3:14; John 16:33; Romans 5:2; Colossians 1:27
REFERENCE: Great Dramas of the Bible William Earle Cameron
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Last updated June 25, 2006
