First Sunday in Lent | John 2:1-11
This Sunday, February 22, we begin our Lenten journey as Pastor Julie launches the new series "Tell Me Something Good" with a sermon titled The Good News Catches Us by Surprise, drawing from the story of the Wedding at Cana in John 2:1-11.
Wine. Weddings. Laughter. It's an unusual place to begin Lent.
But John's Gospel doesn't open Jesus' ministry with forty days in the wilderness. It opens with a party—a wedding banquet running dry—and a miracle performed seemingly for no other reason than to keep the joy going. Fine wine, saved for last, poured out in abundance when everyone expected the celebration to wind down.
This is the good news Jesus embodies: better than we bargained for, more generous than we calculated, arriving precisely when we assumed it had run out.
Throughout this Lenten season, we'll discover that the good news is genuinely good—joyful, subversive, and wonderfully unsettling. Like a mustard seed that becomes an unruly, magnificent tree, it refuses to stay small or contained. It has a way of upending our assumptions, expanding our imaginations, and catching us off guard.
So what do you expect from Lent? Somber reflection? Quiet endurance? Perhaps the good news has something more in store. The best wine has been saved for last. God's love is so good it will never run dry.
Additional scripture reading: Genesis 18:1-9.