Welcome to the daily disciple podcast, where we seek daily to be with and to become like Jesus, our teacher. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the daily podcast, where we're chatting in the morning, talking to Jesus, enjoying Jesus, and then continuing to enjoy him throughout the day. The title of the podcast this morning is Rejoice. And as I'm saying that, I'm thinking that I like the title Joy Better, maybe Celebration Better, so don't tie me down to a title this morning.
Joy will work, celebration will work, water into wine will work. As long as we're asking and thinking and processing this incredible and central aspect of what it looks like to be a disciple of Jesus, which is deep gladness. Maybe that's a good title. Maybe we'll go with deep gladness.
But we often think that the more serious we get about Jesus or Christianity, the more stuffy that we get, because we've experienced so-called mature Christians be overly serious and overly stuffy. And we've heard for years, and maybe even we've said for years, or maybe we haven't said, we've just thought, you know, the more serious I get about Jesus, maybe the more stuffy I'll get, so I can't get too serious, or I gotta have some fun first, and then I'll get serious. And that's just a colossal misunderstanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. But honestly, the church has in some ways overplayed serious and underplayed celebration.
But I think John, especially in John chapter 2, wants us to take another run at that and see if we actually have got it right. And so Joy and celebration are central to the life of the follower of Jesus, vulnerability, or giving compliments, accepting people, levity, laughter, all of the stuff that we love, and enjoying, letting loose, dancing at a wedding, right? Shrugging things off, I mean, all of these things that we want to be as friends, and all of these things that we want in our friends, and all of these things that our friends would actually want in us. And again, it's at the heart of the Christian faith.
And so when we get to John chapter 2, there's a wedding in Cana, Jesus is there, his disciples are there, his friends are there, they're drinking, they're partying, they're celebrating, they're enjoying each other, and the wine's gone. And Jesus' mother comes to him and says, son, there's no more wine, and Jesus is like, Mom, why are you bothering me? I'm dancing, I'm not the host, I'm not the servants at this banquet, I'm a guest, I'm doing what guests do with my friends, with my disciples, come on, let's dance. That's kind of the mood that's going on here, and his mom pushes, and it says that nearby stood six stone watering jars, 20 to 30 gallons, and Jesus says to the servants, fill these jars to the brim, and so they did.
And then he says, draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet, and so they did, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. And the master of the banquet says a little bit later, man, usually people bring the best wine out at the beginning, and then after the guests have had too much to drink, the cheaper wine comes out, but you've done it just the opposite of that. I've never seen it done like this, the best has been kept till the end, this incredible wine. Now, wine symbolizes the new covenant.
It symbolizes the forgiveness of sins, it symbolizes that the exile is over, the Old Testament prophesies that the mountains will flow with new wine, the hills will pour out sweet wine, and joy, joy, true joy, lasting joy, deep joy, is anchored in forgiveness. When we know that sin has been defeated, that there's no more guilt, no more shame, and no more condemnation, it unleashes joy, it unleashes celebration. It unleashes being able to enter into the party of the moment, because what God had promised to do, he did, and we get to celebrate that as new covenant people. And then a little bit later in the story, it says the disciples saw this, and they believed in him.
What did they believe that he could do a sensitive, powerful, fun miracle of turning water into wine? No, they believed when they saw what Jesus did, they believed, oh, the time has come. What the Old Testament prophesied is here, the exile is over, sin is really forgiven, celebration is in order, celebration is in order. And so fundamental to being a follower of Jesus, being a disciple of Jesus, is to understand that celebration of deep gladness is in order.
And so the question I've just been kind of wrestling with this morning and I'd love to invite you in is what would it look like for you to take celebration more seriously? I mean, practically, what would it look like for you to take celebration more seriously? And I think another really good question, and I don't want to move off the one I just asked too fast, because that's the heart of that. What would it look like for you to take celebration more serious in your life, levity, enjoyment, laughter, humor, soft place to fall, all of those incredible symptoms of joy and deep gladness?
But then the follow-up question is, what would it look like for you to help others celebrate? Encourage celebration in the lives of your friends, your teammates, your kids, your spouse, your mom, your dad, your extended family, your neighbor, your co-worker. And I'm thinking particularly of kids for some reason. What would it look like to encourage celebration and levity and laughter and fun in the lives of your kids and others that you do life closely with?
What would that look like? And that's a great question. So what I think we should do this morning is just read John chapter 2 a few times, meditate on it, think about it, all the symbolism, all the fun, all the celebration that's going on in the story. Because this story, I truly believe, is central to the understanding of Jesus and the understanding of the new covenant that Jesus brought, which was a covenant of celebration.
Because the exile is over, sins have been forgiven, the victory has been won, God promised it, and He did it, and the time is now. Celebrate. We'll talk soon. Thanks for listening to the daily disciple podcast.
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