Capacity

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23 January, 2022Pastor Mark SchultzZero Gravity

It's used as a measure in every sphere of life. Legally, medically, mentally, individually, organisationally, financially, educationally, and for communities. Capacity: the ability to produce or deliver with the resources that are available. The ability, power or competence to do or understand something. Businesses and churches have lived over the last two years with maximum capacity, reduced capacity, limited capacity. We have heard reports about people suffering from surge capacity - feeling overwhelmed and unable to cope mentally with what has happened, or having a diminished capacity to make decisions, or depleted capacity to contribute. Maybe you have even uttered statements like, "I just can't deal with that right now", or "I'm stretched, I just can't take on/do any more at this time." They are capacity statements. It's an acknowledgment that the energy is low, the resources have run dry, the vessel is empty. 

Today as Jesus begins his public ministry in John's Gospel, he deals with the capacity question we constantly face and reveals the truth that when our capacity runs out, his presence brings forth something new which tastes better than we can ever imagine.

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John 2:1-11

On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

“Woman,  why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.

Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.

Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”

They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside 10 and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

11 What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” John 2:7-8

In Christ, emptiness becomes overflowing capacity.

1.  What do you consider your greatest “incapacity”? Why?

2.   Where is one place in your life you would like Christ to “turn water into wine”

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