Live Lent – Week 1 – Change

Jesus attends a wedding at Cana at which disaster strikes: the wine runs out! 

Jesus’ mother asks for his help. At Jesus’ instructions water is poured into some large jars – they are filled to the brim. As the water is then drawn out from the jars it is transformed. 

Water has become wine. Not just any wine, but the best.

Read: John 2:1–11

The Gospel of John describes the miracles of Jesus as ‘signs’. These signs help us see and understand the change that Jesus brings to our lives and our communities.

The life and person of Jesus tell us that God is with us in the joys and in the mess of life. They also tell us that God’s presence with us is not passive; it brings transformation. For the first of these signs, Jesus transforms 700 litres of water into the very best wine at a wedding banquet. This week is an opportunity to reflect on God’s glorious transformation and to pray that we might be more open to all that God wants to do in our lives and our situations.

Pause

Are there areas of your life which have ‘run out’ or become weary? Name them, own them and offer them like an empty water jar to God.

Pray

God of water into wine and old lives made new, thank you that there are no lost causes in your Kingdom. 

Breathe on our lives afresh that we may see new possibilities in familiar faces and places.

Give us the courage to break old patterns and to live our new life here and now. Amen.

Challenge

Consciously make space this week for somebody else. Pause long enough to notice when someone is pushed out or pushed away and do something about it.