VBS 09 Day 2

The first day of Vacation Bible School, Sun 7/19:
Bible Story: God made the universe
Main Idea: God made the world for you and me

The Second day of VBS, Mon 7/20:
Bible Story: Jesus turns water into wine
Main Idea: Jesus transforms you and me

This night used another one of my all time favorite verses:
"If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." 1 Corinthians 5:17

In John 2:1-11, Jesus performs His first miracle, He changes water into wine at the wedding in Canaan. This whole story is one big analogy. Verse 11 calls it a miraculous "sign." Signs point the way to something. They use an picture to represent something in real life.

In ancient Palestine, they didn't have indoor plumbing, paves roads, air conditioning, or water treatment plants. At a big wedding reception, they'd keep these 20-30 gallon jugs so that people could wash their hands and feet before eating.

But it wasn't just washing your hands before you eat. Today we understand about germs and hygene. Back then the water wasn't processed or filtered, or hot. If everybody used the same water to wash, there had to be a lot of gunk in that water. Really, it was just for show. In Mark 7:1-23 , the Pharisees get on Jesus' case because He and His disciples didn't follow all of their rules for ceremonial cleaning all the time-

14"Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a man can make him 'unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him 'unclean.' "

No amount of being good or following ceremonies could ever make us clean from our sin.

In our story in John 2, Jesus has the servants gather six of these 20 gal jars of washing water (in those days most water wasn't safe to drink). Then He had one of the waiters/bar tenders/whatever draw some out and take it to the host (father of the bride? matradee? wedding planner?) this guy was amazed. He congratulated the groom, usually people start with the champagn and open up the cheap junk once everyone's too drunk to notice, but you saved the best for last! (which is where we get that phrase)

The SIGN is, that Jesus will do the same for us- WE are the filthy water that He transforms into the highest quality wine. Only HE can transform us from the inside out. (Mark 7:14)

Once we weren't even good for washing people's hands and feet because we're too full of bacteria (sin), but thanks to Jesus, we are delicious, potent and powerful, full of antioxidents and vitamins and instead of septic (dirty and poisonous) we're antiseptic (clean and germ-killing).

Not just useful, but set aside as special. ("you saved the best for last".)

How wonderful to be transformed by Jesus.