22/1/12  Epiphany  3

John chapter 2 verses 1-11 

Jesus goes to a wedding

Preparation

You need Some children’s lunch boxes and / or  your own packed lunch and / or  a large copy of the school’s lunch menu for the day.  Include a bottle of water (one litre size would be good – otherwise you will need to know how many of your bottles makes one hundred litres).

Introduction

Are you hungry yet?  I’m starting to think about my lunch.  Let’s see what some of us are going to be eating shall we? (Obviously vary the approach for an afternoon act of worship.)

As appropriate, invite children up with their lunch boxes, or bring out the list or your own lunch.  Talk with the children about the lunches  – which is the bit they like the best, which is the bit they like the least, do they think they are going to eat all of it etc

Now I have a very serious question!  If you could eat your lunch in any order you liked, would you eat the bit you liked best first, or would you eat it last?  Ask for suggestions and reasons.

The Message

I am going to tell you a story about Jesus, and I think you will see at the end why I asked you that last question.

 Check the children have some understanding of the world “miracle”.

This is a story from John’s Gospel about the very first miracle that Jesus did.  It was a very quiet miracle, and only a few people knew it had happened.

Jesus and his disciples were invited to a wedding party.  I expect a lot of you have been to weddings. (You may like to find who has been to a wedding, or there may be some related RE work going on.)  There is usually lots of good food and drink and everyone enjoys themselves.  Well at this wedding there was such a big crowd of people enjoying themselves that they soon began to run out of wine.  How embarrassed the bride and groom and their families would be if the wine ran out!  People would be talking for years about how they were too mean to cater properly for the wedding; it would be a bad joke for the rest of their lives!

Jesus’ mother Mary saw the servants who were pouring out the wine were panicking and she realised what was happening.   She went and told Jesus, knowing that he could help if he wanted to.  Then she told the servants to do exactly what Jesus told them.

How much water do you think my water bottle holds?  Can you imagine a big jar x times this size?  Call up a child about the right height to represent 100 litres of water.   Then call up another five children until you have six jars of water...  There were six jars of water nearby.  Jesus simply told the servants to take some of the water to the man who was in charge of organising the feast. 

When the man in charge of the wedding feast tasted the “water” that the servants brought to him, he found it was the best wine he had ever tasted!  “Wow” he said to the bridegroom “usually people serve the best wine first at parties, and then they serve up any old rubbish.  This wine is great!”

Did you notice how surprised the man in charge was that the water Jesus had changed into wine was so good?  He was used to organising parties where you ate and drank the best things first, and then when everyone was getting a bit drunk and tired you served them with cheap rubbish and hoped they wouldn’t notice!  The wine from the water jars was even better tasting than the most expensive wine which had been served first.  Jesus had made sure it was the best wine ever!

We remember this story because it shows us how powerful Jesus is, but some people like to remember it because it shows us that Jesus was just like us – he liked going to parties!  Maybe there is another message there for us too – always do your best, even when other people don’t bother to do their best.

Prayer

Dear Lord,

We thank you for the story of the wedding at Cana.  It reminds us that if we are going to be like you we should help out other people and always do our best.  Help us to remember this as we work and as we play.

Amen

Traditinally the wedding at Cana is known as Jesus' first miracle - why not look at other famous miracles this week - there's a list at http://www.ely.anglican.org/education/schools/collective_worship/documents/miracleslist.pdf