1/19/25 Sermon
We all have moments when life feels overwhelming — times when fear, doubt, or exhaustion weigh so heavily on us that we wonder how we’ll find the strength to keep going. In those moments, it can be easy to feel like God is distant, like we’re facing it all alone. But the truth of our faith is this: God is not distant. God is present—deeply, personally, and intimately—with us in our struggles and joys alike.
One of the times this truth really hit me in a profound way - maybe the first time I really understood this - didn’t come from my own life. It comes from the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He writes about it in his autobiography. In January of 1956, during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Dr. King found himself at a breaking point.
He writes that the phone rang late at night. And he remembers the voice saying: “Listen, we’ve taken all we want from you; before next week you’ll be sorry you ever came to Montgomery.” Dr. King says, “I hung up, but I couldn’t sleep. It seemed that all of my fears had come down on me at once. I had reached the saturation point.”
He got out of bed and started to pace the floor. He had been threatened like that many times, but for some reason this one had really gotten to him. He made a pot of coffee, poured a cup, and sat at his kitchen table thinking of all that he had to lose. Dr. King writes, “I was ready to give up. With my cup of coffee sitting untouched before me I tried to think of a way to move out of the picture without appearing a coward. I sat there and thought about a beautiful little daughter who had just been born. I started thinking about a dedicated and loyal wife, who was over there asleep. And she could be taken from me, or I could be taken from her. And I got to the point that I couldn’t take it any longer. I was weak.” So he prayed about it. He said he just kind of poured his guts out to God and then sat there quietly.
And then Dr. King says, “I tell you I’ve seen the lightning flash, I’ve heard the thunder roar. I’ve felt sin breakers dashing trying to conquer my soul. But I heard the voice of Jesus saying still to fight on. He promised never to leave me alone. At that moment I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced Him before. Almost at once my fears began to go. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything.”
Three days later his house was bombed.
Dr. King said that night praying at his kitchen table was the first time in his life he believed that God was personal. He said, “True, I have always believed in the personality of God. But in past years the idea of a personal God was little more than a metaphysical category which I found theologically and philosophically satisfying. Now it is a living reality that has been validated in the experiences of everyday life.”
Dr. King’s story offers a profound reminder about faith: God isn’t a distant, abstract idea but an active and personal presence, meeting us in our moments of greatest need. That night in his kitchen, Dr. King didn’t encounter a God who created the universe and walked away. He encountered a God who steps into our lives, offering strength, peace, and purpose precisely when we feel overwhelmed.
In a strange way, this truth is echoed in the story of the wedding at Cana from John’s Gospel. John begins with a majestic, cosmic declaration: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It’s a statement about God’s transcendence, majesty, and creative power. But just a few verses later, the narrative takes an intimate turn. This infinite, all-powerful Word made flesh shows up—not at a grand throne room or temple, but at a wedding. God doesn’t remain a distant observer; God becomes an engaged participant in the ordinary, everyday, roller coaster of life.
Dr. King’s experience and the story of Cana both reveal a God who is personal, showing up in unexpected places and transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary. It's a truth I’ve tried to carry with me, but it’s not always easy. Like Dr. King admitted, it’s tempting to keep God at a philosophical or theological distance—an intellectual exercise rather than a real relationship. I often catch myself reading and studying about God but failing to fully live into the reality of God’s presence in my own life.
To be honest, I’m still not entirely sure what John’s story about the wedding is trying to say. But I think one of its messages is clear: God is personal, and Jesus is personal. Like I said, John begins with this beautifully poetic and cosmic introduction about who Jesus is—this big, infinite part of God, embedded in the essence of the cosmos. And then, just a heartbeat in the story later, he presents us with Jesus at a wedding, living life among ordinary people like you and me.
Imagine that — the Creator of the universe showing up to your wedding. It’s a powerful reminder of who Jesus is: a Savior who doesn’t just exist in the grandeur of creation but also shows up in the mundane and everyday. I even find it comforting that Jesus’s mother tells him what to do at the wedding and, despite his best efforts, he ends up listening to her and doing what she says. I can’t think of a more human moment. It makes this infinite God feel incredibly close and relatable.
This duality of Jesus — majestic and personal — calls us to see God not only in the extraordinary but in the everyday. It’s a reminder to cultivate a real relationship with God, not just an understanding of God, and to remain open to seeing God’s presence in our lives and in the world around us.
Jesus still goes to weddings. He still lives and walks among ordinary people in ordinary life. God still walks with us and moves among us and is personally invested in each of us. And Sometimes we lose sight of that and sometimes we forget about this Big and ultimate God who gets involved with ordinary everyday human beings. Sometimes we spend so much time thinking about God that we forget to spend time with God. I know that sometimes I move God into abstraction and forget that God is here and now, moving and working, living and breathing among us. But then when I remember that and I look around, I can see God moving and acting and living in this world every moment of every day.
The problem is that it’s easy to forget that God is acting and moving in this world or that Jesus is still with us. It’s easy to miss God in this world for some reason. I mean after all, in this story, they don’t really understand what’s happened with this wine. They don’t know that Jesus performed a miracle here. In fact, they never know that. They don’t even know who Jesus really is at this point. But there he is - the human manifestation of this Creator of the Universe, the Word incarnate, and no one recognizes him for who he is, or really knows what he’s doing. I mean, it sounds like the disciples see what’s going on - those who are looking for God see God in him - but the rest of the guests have no idea.
Sometimes it’s just too easy to miss God in our presence. Sometimes like at the wedding, we see these miracles of God happening all around us, but we don’t realize that’s what’s actually going on. Sometimes we’re so busy living our lives and doing what it is that we think we should be doing that we forget to look up and see who’s at this party with us. Sometimes we get so jaded we forget that miracles still happen all around us.
You see, I feel incredibly lucky. My kids—each of them uniquely creative—have taught me to see the world differently. Yes, their creativity can sometimes be frustrating, but when I pause to notice, they remind me of something profound: the value of looking at life with fresh eyes. They show me that not everything is as it seems and that sometimes, what’s needed isn’t overthinking but openness — openness to possibilities, openness to wonder, and openness to God.
When I let go of analyzing and simply take in the moment, I begin to see God’s presence more clearly. It starts with the small things: seeing God in their faces, in their laughter, and in their curiosity. They remind me that life itself is a miracle, and from there, my awareness of the miracles around me grows. What once seemed mundane reveals itself as extraordinary.
Turning water into wine wasn’t a huge miracle compared to things like healing the sick or raising the dead. It was subtle, almost unnoticed — a miracle within the rhythm of everyday life. Most of the wedding guests didn’t even know it happened. They simply enjoyed the wine, unaware that God-made-flesh was right there among them, quietly transforming the ordinary into something extraordinary.
That’s how God still works. Our God is a God of miracles — not just the big, dramatic ones but the small, constant ones that surround us every day. Life is a miracle. Love is a miracle. Relationships, the human body, and all of creation are miracles. The problem is, we often fail to see them. We get caught up in our routines, our worries, and our distractions, and we miss the quiet ways God moves among us.
But when we pause, when we choose to see with fresh eyes, we recognize the miracles all around us. We see that God is not distant but personal, intimately involved in our lives, working in ways both small and profound. We just have to take the time to look.
So, may you have eyes wide open to the miracles around you.
May you see the hand of God in the ordinary moments of your life.
And may you walk in the knowledge that your God is with you—intimately, personally, and lovingly—every step of the way.
Amen.
