What better than a miracle to remove all doubt and get folks believing in the power of God and enthusiastic about embracing God's agent.

That was certainly the case at Cana, in Galilee. It was Jesus’ coming out party. The miracle worker was being confirmed before the people of the region of the Galilee.

It is easy to believe in the unbelievable when you have seen an obvious miracle…it requires a bit more faith to believe when you have not seen anything so obvious.

And, it is exactly the miracles of Jesus that have been the support of so many people’s faith experiences and it has also been the record of those miracles that have been the frustrations of other people’s faith existence.

Miracle is a funny word. I knew a wonderful theological educator and pillar of faith—a  man of such renown that he had a university building named after him, a man who told me that he didn’t believe in miracles. Now, his definition of what constituted a miracle was “anything which clearly altered or circumvented the laws of nature.”

That is how he described a miracle and so he never encountered anything that he felt was outside of the laws of nature and therefore he never encountered a miracle. There are times when I agree with Dr. Frank Peters implicitly.

On the other hand, I have become more than a bit emotional on more than one occasion speaking about parents acting upon their desire to present their children for baptism. People who didn’t necessarily think a lot about the power and the presence of God in their life until they personally encountered the joy of a tiny bundle of life that transformed who they were.

Witnessing their transformation I can understand how the coming of this little miracle of life leads them to the church to celebrate before God and the community the wonder of what this tiny package really embodies for them.

Is it right to refer to a baby, the product of something as natural as human union, as a miracle. Maybe not. Certainly using Dr. Peters’ definition we wouldn’t use the word miracle. But if you have ever looked into the eyes of a parent who has had such a delight dropped into their life, the word “miracle’ certainly doesn’t seem out of place.

You grandparents know that there is something profoundly spiritual about the presence of that child in your arms. Something, that for many folks, drives them to the heart of God to give thanks, praise and to share that publicly with the community within which it is hoped that child will develop.

Last week we looked at Jesus baptism and this week we move on to the record of his first miracle. He seemed a reluctant miracle worker…not wanting to have folks know about his special place in life. But for the sake of his friends and his mother he steps out in faith and takes a chance. And the natural order, according to John’s gospel, was dramatically altered as wonderful wine was created. A miracle by Dr. Peters description, and one shared by the apostle John’s handing down of the story.

It is from this point that the wonder work of Jesus’ public ministry begins.

Today is also the day that we mark the special point in the life of those who gather for reaffirmation, confirmation and adult baptism as they start “this leg” of their spiritual journey.

I say “this leg” of their spiritual journey because while today marks a definite beginning of sorts, it is by no means the start of their spiritual journey…they continue on a journey that has marked the travel of their whole lives. Everything that has happened in the lives of these folks has brought them to this particular moment. Today marks yet another guidepost along that journey.

I am thankful to have been a part of their journey…to get to know what makes these folks tick and to be invited to share their joys and their sorrows, their highs and lows and I have had the freedom to share mine too. It is what community is all about.<

You will be invited to share with these folks in a celebration of cake and gathering after the worship service. I hope you will take time to engage them at this particular point along their journey.  Enjoy some cake, coffee and conversation.

It seems, perhaps a bit odd to read the words “welcome to Westminster” on the cake because some of these folks have been part of the life of Westminster from the 1960’s and even before. That is a wonderful testimony to the nature of a faith journey.

Any journey is marked by the many terrains that one must traverse—the hill-climbs, the descending into the valleys, the wonderful vistas where it’s easy to see where you are headed as you plot your course … and a journey also navigates the congested spaces, the high traffic places, where it's difficult enough just to see what’s right in front of you.

The faith journey mirrors that experience for all of us.

The beauty of being able to share a faith journey within the context of a community is that the gifts that each person brings to the community work, not only to bless the life of the community, but to allow the presence of God to be seen within that community more clearly.

Yes, it is the same spirit given to all, but each unique expression of the spirit living in each person enriches the faith community in such a way that the total life of the community is greater than the sum of its parts.

That’s what Paul was driving at with the folks in Corinth. He was not holding anyone higher than anyone else…he was stating that collectively the life of the spirit is magnified when all work together. When all share together.

The sole purpose of the Christian life is not to make more Christians… the purpose of the Christian life it is to give life to all the people of the world…and when we have given life we find that we have given God, who is the source of life and that God is the God we meet in the fully alive Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus, whose miraculous ability to bless folks, to celebrate life with folks, to offer folks hope and peace and light in what is all to often a hopeless, peaceless and darkened world is his own particular gift for the sharing.

I take it as no coincidence that in the Gospel of John, Jesus began his public ministry with a miracle at a wedding, which – in any generation, in any culture – is a celebration of human life at its most sacred and its most pagan, at its most hopeful and its most earthy, at its most solemn and its most frolicking, at its most daring and its most risky.

A little boy appearing on a variety show was asked by the host, “Do you go to Sunday school?” “Yes,” the boy replied. “And what are you learning in Sunday school?” the host asked. After a short pause the boy replied, “Last Sunday we heard the story about how Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding.” “And what did you learn from that story?” the host asked. After thinking a bit, the boy said, “Well, if you’re going to have a wedding, make sure Jesus is there.”

That’s really the point of our service today…we can journey through life as autonomous beings, bouncing only up against our own greed-based wishes and desires…or we can move through life as part of Jesus’ community of folks who embrace the journey of life and faith seeking to be all we can be and seeking to help others be all they can be…it is what we are gifted with being. If our marriage, our community is one which makes sure Jesus is there, we really can be gift to one another and together be more than the sum of our parts. Amen.