God, we thank you that you have given us this rich word from John 2, that you have manifested your glory to us. God, that you did signs to show that you are truly the Son of God, our Savior. God, we just ask your blessing now on this sermon and on the remainder of our service, Lord. We just pray, God, that you would preach directly to our consciences, that your word would penetrate to the heart of hearts of each one sitting and standing here, Lord. We pray that you would allow me to speak only your truth, God, that if I begin to speak something contrary to your word, that you just divert my mind or shut my mouth, Lord. God, we ask your blessing now and draw us to faith in you. In Christ's name. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. In John chapter 1, We focused on Christ as the eternal Word of God, who was with God from before time began, and who was, in fact, God himself. We saw how this Christ is the creator, the light of the world, the life, and the only begotten Son who perfectly reveals his Father in heaven. Before Christ himself was revealed to his people and the world, John the Baptist, we learned, came as a herald. His job was to point people to the coming King. In fact, we learn that Jesus' first disciples were actually disciples of John the Baptist, who left him to follow our Lord. And it was these disciples who proclaimed that Christ was the Son of God, the King of Israel, and the Messiah. However, as we have discussed, though God was opening the eyes of the disciples and revealing heavenly things to them, they did not yet have the full picture. And in our sermon today, we're going to see Christ revealing just a little bit more of who he truly is to his people. Now, before I get to the exposition of our sermon text itself, I'm going to read just a couple of verses from John chapter 1 that I want you to keep in mind as we're going through this study of God's Word today. First, John chapter 1, verse 14. John 1, 14. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. That's the first verse that I want you to keep in mind as we walk through John 2. Specifically that phrase, we have seen his glory. And then secondly, I want you to keep in mind the last few verses of John 1. God's Word tells us this, Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit. Nathanael said to him, How do you know me? Jesus answered him, Before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. Nathanael answered him, Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel. Jesus answered him, because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these. And he said to him, truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. So particularly there, I want us to focus and remember Christ saying that His disciples will see greater things than these. Namely, greater things than Him revealing that He knows more about us than we realize. When the first books of the Bible were first written, the reason I wanted us to just go back into chapter one was to get some themes there that are gonna help us understand chapter two better. And when the Bible was first written, the Bible did not have chapter or verse divisions. Those were added about a thousand years after the New Testament was completed. The modern versification itself is actually less than 500 years old. Now, while I think chapter and verse divisions can be very helpful, for instance, in making it easier for us to reference certain parts of Scripture or to memorize certain parts of Scripture, I think sometimes also these divisions that are not part of the original text cause us to divide up God's Word in our minds in ways that the authors may not have intended. Now, I bring that up to emphasize that even though we are in a new chapter of John's gospel, that does not mean at all that we are leaving all the theological themes from chapter 1 behind. It does not mean we are leaving the flow of narrative from John chapter 1. We are continuing on in the exact same account. We are building upon everything that has come before. So when I say keep in mind some things from chapter one, especially from the last few verses of chapter one, I think this would have been very easy for a first century or even a 10th century Christian to do. The first-century reader or hearer of this gospel account wouldn't have mentally broken up God's Word into all these artificial sections. And as much as we're able, I hope we can take the good aspects of those chapter and verse divisions and then just leave the unhelpful ones behind. So we are not in a new sermon series. We are not in a new book of the Bible. We are just a couple verses down or a couple words and sentences down the line, continuing on in our study of John's wonderful account of Christ and his life, which will culminate in his death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven. So with that kind of brief introduction in mind, let us proceed in looking directly at John chapter 2, verses 1 through 12. And as we begin to unpack this narrative, instead of starting in verse one of our study today, I want us to look briefly at verse 11, right near the end of our passage, and then circle back. So if you're looking in your copy of God's word, look down there at John 2, 11. This is what God's word tells us. This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him. John says that this miracle Jesus performs at the wedding is the first of His signs. Now we have to ask ourselves, what does a sign do? What is the purpose of a sign? Signs, of course, point us to something or alert us to something. Often when we see a sign, it's identifying something for us or letting us know that something is coming up ahead. For instance, when you drive down 421 out here, And you see the sign that says King's Cross in those big letters on that white background. And you see it says in the little letters beneath, Sunday 1030 a.m. Well, that tells you that this building is where King's Cross Church meets. And we worship every Sunday at 1030. Now, the sign itself is not King's Cross. No one would look at that sign and say, oh, look at that church over there, and be referring to the sign itself. That would just be silly. That would be ridiculous. Instead, they would read the sign, and then they'd see the building next to it, and they'd say, well, that must be where a church meets. The sign is pointing to something beyond itself. The sign is pointing to something greater than itself. And that is the case we have here with this first miracle of Jesus. It is an amazing miracle. But Jesus's miracles are not ends unto themselves. They are signs. The purpose of the miracles is to point to a greater and deeper reality. And here John specifically says in verse 11, this the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him. So what we're learning is that the turning of water into wine was a manifestation of Christ's glory, which led his disciples to trust in him as their Lord. It revealed some things about Jesus. John 1.14, one of the verses I told you to keep in mind as we walk through this text, tells us that we have seen His glory. Glories of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. And John 1.50, one of the other verses I mentioned, tells us the disciples will see greater things than what they saw when they first met Jesus. And this first miracle, I think, is one of those greater things. But what it points us to, what this miracle of turning water into wine points us to is far greater than the sign itself, namely the glory of the only begotten Son of God. Now let's unpack the narrative of this sign and talk about how this reveals Christ's glory and what exactly we're learning from this sign. Jumping back to the beginning of this account, we read these words in verse one. On the third day, there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee. Now, it's significant here that John says that this happened on the third day. Not because there's any hidden spiritual meaning here, like a hidden prophecy about Christ rising on the third day. I don't think that's what's happening here. But because John is emphasizing that after Jesus had been baptized and then tempted unsuccessfully by Satan in the wilderness, he began on an action-packed public mission. After John is questioned by the Jews as to who he is in chapter 1, we then read in chapter 1 verse 29, Then, chapter 1, verse 35, immediately after John's proclamation about Christ as the Lamb of God, John writes, The next day again, John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, Behold, the Lamb of God. The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Then verse 43, the next day, this is the next day after calling his first disciples now, the next day, John, Andrew, and Peter, the first disciples, Jesus decided to go to Galilee. And that's where he ends up calling Philip and Nathanael. Then John 2 verse 1, our sermon text today, on the third day, there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. So this third day is significant because it continues John's day-by-day account of Jesus' shotgun start to his ministry. Each day he is doing something wonderful and amazing and publicly manifesting himself. Each day he has left private life behind. He was relatively unknown for 30 years. Then he was baptized. Then he had 40 days commuting with his father in the wilderness. Then he was tempted by Satan. And then from that moment on, he was almost always with the crowds. He sought out the desolate places, yes, but his ministry was very public from this moment on. Jesus was very useful with his time too. He was always about his father's work. He was not hurried in his busyness. He was not rushing around stressed out like we sometimes can be today in the 21st century. He wasn't involved in the rat race of getting his to-do list done. But he also did not waste a single day. He rested on the Sabbath. He was interruptible. He sought time to be alone with his Father in heaven. But along with all that, he was a man on a public mission. That's why we see this daily account of what Jesus did here at the beginning of his ministry. He is on mission and this third day is no different. So what does Jesus do? Well, he's invited to a wedding along with his disciples and his mother is there as well. And it seems like probably either the bride or groom is likely a family member of Jesus's or maybe a close friend of the family. We don't know for certain and it's not terribly important that we know, but John writes as though Mary's presence there is more than one of an ordinary guest. She seems to have some responsibility at this wedding. And we'll see in a moment that when the wine runs out, in fact, she is concerned and feels the need to take action and find a solution and even starts giving orders to the servants. Plus Jesus is invited along with his disciples who he just called to himself a few days ago. So Jesus is not a plus one at the wedding and he's not an extra at the wedding, an extra add on. He is one who is expected to be there with whomever is important to him. So it seems that at least one of the people getting married was probably very close to Christ's family in some way. Look with me now at verse three. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. Now this would have been a serious problem. To run out of wine at a wedding, especially in that culture would have been quite embarrassing. It would have been seen as a failure on the part of the groom whose responsibility it was to provide the wine. So it may have even been viewed as inhospitable. it would have dampened the celebration for sure. And Mary is clearly concerned about this problem. And so she brings it to Jesus, her son, expecting him to resolve this issue. And Jesus said to her, this is verse four now, Jesus said to her, woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. Or as some translations render it, woman, what have I to do with thee? So why are you coming to me with this matter? Why are you bothering me with this problem? We read this and we might be surprised to hear Jesus address his mother in this way. For the children in our congregation, I have a question for you. What do you call your mom? Mommy, mama, that's right. You call her normal, God-honoring, loving, sweet names like that. I hope no one here is calling their mother woman. I hope you're not doing that. Well, Jesus here in our story, He doesn't use any of those sweet tender names that He grew up calling Mary. He doesn't call her mom or mommy or mama. He doesn't say that. He says woman. Just like today, this would not have been the ordinary way to address your mother in ancient times. None of you answered woman when I asked you what you call your mothers at home. And I doubt Jesus called his mom woman often either. I'm sure this was an exception, but it would not have been disrespectful either. We know that for a couple reasons, even though it might sound disrespectful to our ears, we know for a couple reasons why it is not here. One, and this may sound like a cop-out answer or what when I was growing up, we called a Sunday school answer, but we know it's not disrespectful because Jesus would never ever disrespect his parents. He wouldn't. And children, I've got one more question for you. And I've asked many of you this before, but I'm gonna ask it again. Did our Lord Jesus ever sin? No. He absolutely never sinned. And it is a great sin, God's Word tells us, to dishonor your parents. So we know without a doubt that that's not what's going on here. But additionally, this is not the only time that Jesus addresses Mary by calling her woman. Notably, in John 19, as Jesus is being crucified, right before He dies, He calls His mother, Woman, again. I'll read the account to you beginning in John 19, 25. But standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, Woman, behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, behold, your mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own home. So as one of the last things Jesus says or does before he dies, he chose to care tenderly for his mother. He chose to care for his mother even after his death as an obedient son. He is telling her that since he is going to die and since Joseph, her husband, is already dead, that John will now take care of her and assume the role of an obedient grown son. Jesus looks at John and effectively says, You are the man of the house now, John. Take care of my mother as if she were your mother, as if she gave birth to you and nursed you and raised you. Take care of her like I would have taken care of her if I was to remain alive. And as he does this, he calls Mary, his mother, woman. In this loving, devoted act of a dying son, Jesus calls Mary woman. So it is clear, abundantly clear here, even if it's a little confusing in the account of the wedding at Cana, it is abundantly clear here that Jesus is in no way meaning disrespect just by using the term woman. But still we might ask why, why even in this intimate moment, why in both of these instances would Jesus address his mother this way? It is still a little odd to us. I think it still would have been odd in the first century. Well, in both of these instances, at the wedding at Cana and on the cross, Jesus is emphasizing that his earthly relationships, as important as they are, are not of primary importance. What is ultimate and what drives his life and ministry is not who his earthly parents are, though he loves his earthly parents, but who his heavenly Father is. Even on the cross, in an act of a devoted and loving son, he tells Mary that John is her son now. It's not that Jesus ceases to be Mary's son, but his identity as her Lord and Savior is so much greater. And it is coming massively to the forefront now. And while he can no longer serve her in the normal ways that a son would have done, he will continue to serve her as her Lord who is dying for her sins. Jesus at numerous points throughout His ministry goes to sometimes uncomfortable lengths to show that having an earthly relationship with Him does not get you an inside track into heaven. It doesn't even get you an inside track into His ministry or His time. You don't have an automatic in because you're related to Jesus by blood. In Matthew 12, we read this. While Jesus was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, who is my mother and who are my brothers? And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my mother and my sister and my brother. So here in John 2, Jesus is basically saying to Mary, regarding my ministry as the Messiah, the fact that you are my mother doesn't determine what I do, and it doesn't get you any special treatment. My mission is to live and die for sinful men and women, and that is our primary relationship now. You are a woman. You need me as your savior just like any other woman does. And that aspect of our relationship is now in the forefront. While I am your son, Jesus might have said, what is much more important and what is much more relevant to my ministry is that I am the son of God. That, I believe, is what Jesus is communicating here. And that aspect of their relationship, it was always there. Jesus was always, of course, Mary's Lord. Even before He was conceived, Jesus was Mary's Lord. But when he was a little child, the Lord dynamic, you might say, was not in the forefront of their interactions. Even as he was approaching manhood at age 12, when Jesus remained behind at the temple after Passover without letting his parents know, even then the dynamic was different. than here at the wedding. When Mary and Joseph finally discover Jesus in that account, after they had been looking for him, and as far as they know, he had been lost for a few days, Mary says to him, Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress. And he said to them, Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father's house? And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart." You see, even at that point, it was still a little different of a relationship. Jesus does ask, why are you confused? You should have known I would be in my father's house. But he doesn't do any type of rebuke here. He is submissive. to his parents, to his earthly parents. Jesus said, I'm going to do what I'm going to do because of who my heavenly father is. But he still submitted to his earthly parents as well and remained under their authority because that was God's will for him. Here in John 2, you can tell the dynamic though. Now that Jesus is an adult and now that he has been baptized and he is on mission, you can tell the dynamic is a little different. It's not only because he grew up, but it's because he has begun this public ministry in earnest. And because Mary is putting herself into a matter that is outside of her role as Jesus's mother. Mary does not have any authority over Jesus whatsoever as he is the Christ. And he reminds her of that here. Nevertheless, as we're about to see, Jesus still does what Mary wants. He still does it, what Mary wants. So let's look back at our text beginning in verse four of chapter two and see what God's word tells us. And Jesus said to her, woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, do whatever He tells you. Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding 20 or 30 gallons. Jesus said to the servants, fill the jars with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And He said to them, now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast. So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew, the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine, but you have kept the good wine until now. Now we might ask, Jesus, why go through that awkward rigmarole with your mom saying, woman, what does this have to do with me if in the end you do what she wants anyway? Well, it's because Jesus wants to clarify that what he is about to do, this first sign, this first miracle, what he's about to do is not ultimately because it is what Mary asked him to do, but because it is what his heavenly father wants for him to do. And He doesn't want Mary thinking that she can call on Him to just perform miracles whenever she wants. To fill whatever earthly need she has. Because Mary's reason for asking Jesus to step in here was to resolve an earthly problem. They were at a wedding. Mary seems to have some obligation to serve here. And the wine has run out. So Mary sees a problem she knows that Jesus, her son, can solve, and she asks him to do that. But Jesus' reason for performing this sign was not to alleviate embarrassment. It was not to fix an issue with the food supplies for the feast. But it was to manifest his glory as the son, not the son of Mary. not a particularly important relative connected to this wedding party, but to manifest His glory as the Son of God and lead His disciples to faith in Him. That's why Jesus performed this miracle, not simply because His mother asked Him to. Jesus performed this miracle to manifest His glory as the obedient Son of God and lead His disciples to faith in Him. Now let's look at the details of this miracle and see what Christ is doing here. Remember, the sign is not an end unto itself. It points to something greater, namely to Christ's glory. But what was the sign? Well, the wine is run out and Mary asks Jesus to intervene. Verse 6 tells us that there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding 20 or 30 gallons. So first, if Jesus was going to provide the wedding feast with more wine, why in the world would he do it in the jars which were explicitly used for ceremonial purification? I can guarantee you there were better and more suited containers there for wine. I mean, the guests had probably already consumed a large quantity of wine. If there was any event where you wanted to have a lot of wine around, it was a wedding. But I think it was very intentional on the part of Jesus why he used these six stone water jars. He uses the jars appointed specifically for purifying people because he is manifesting to his disciples that he is the ultimate purifier. That's the first thing I think we're seeing here. He is manifesting to his disciples that he is the ultimate purifier. In the new covenant, it is not ceremonial rites involving water that make us pure, but it is the blood of Christ, which the wine represents. And to be clear, the ceremonial rites of the old covenant, they could never cleanse the conscience either. The Bible's crystal clear about that. They were even like this wine, pointing toward the blood of Christ and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. Jesus chose to miraculously transform the water which was used to make people ceremonially pure into the best wine. And in doing so, he was foreshadowing the coming end of the ceremonial system established in the old covenant and the newness and greater glory of the new covenant in his blood. No longer would we have to do any ceremonial cleansing. No longer would we have to use these massive purification jars just communicating the absolute great power and just magnitude of our sins and defilement. Rather, the blood which Jesus would soon shed cleanses us, as the Apostle John reminded us, of all sin. The blood is the final and perfect solution for our uncleanness. Remember in John 1, John tells us that the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Moses turned water into blood, and this was a great curse. Jesus then turns water into wine, and this is a great blessing that he is showing us. Jesus' blood is our only hope and our perfect hope for purification from sin. Additionally to Jesus being the perfect and ultimate purifier through His blood, how else does this miracle reveal Jesus' glory? Not only is He the one who will die for His people, but Jesus is also the ultimate provider and lavish gift giver. The ultimate provider and lavish gift giver. Look at what Jesus provides here. Even if He did not miraculously turn the water in wine, even if he had just provided this wine through totally normal, ordinary human means, that would still be pretty amazing. The magnitude of this gift of this wine for this wedding is huge. John tells us that at Jesus's command, the servants filled six stone water jars holding 20 or 30 gallons of water to the brim. That is about 150 gallons of wine. That is a lot of wine. We don't even measure wine in gallons. And this is 150 of them. To put it into better perspective, think of the size of a regular bottle of wine. This is about 770 of those. 770 bottles of wine. Think about having that much wine for a wedding after the wedding guest had drank a lot of wine. This is unreal. This is just super abundance that Jesus is showing. This is enough wine to make some Christians feel quite uncomfortable, if we're being honest with ourselves. But this is a great blessing. And it wasn't grape juice. This wasn't diluted wine. This was fine wine. This was the best wine. Now, what does this represent? What does this enormous quantity of the best wine represent? I think this large quantity of wine shows us that there's an inexhaustible fountain of grace in the blood of Jesus Christ. The power of his blood will never dry up. It will never run out. He delights to provide for his people forgiveness for sins, both in this life and the next, and Christ never provides in half measures. Surely, I mean, you might go through life and there might be blessings you want that he doesn't give you. That doesn't mean he can't give you everything in the world. He may not bless you materially in all the ways that you want or desire, but that in and of itself is a blessing because God always gives his people the best. He always gives you what is good for you. And as Paul tells us in Ephesians 1, he has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. God is a good father and good fathers delight in providing good and sufficient gifts to their children. Further, Christ's blessings are of the highest quality. After tasting the wine, the master of the feast, he's surprised. He says, everyone, everyone serves the good wine first. And when people have drunk freely, then they give out the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now. In the old covenant, God's people had the wine of God's blessing. They absolutely had the wine of God's blessing. God truly delivered his covenant people from Egypt. He chose them to be his special people, his own possession. He gave them water from the rock. He gave them manna from heaven, which was Christ. Christ was the rock. Christ was the manna. led them, he protected them with his presence, with the cloudy and fiery pillar. He fought battles for them. He destroyed enemies for his old covenant people. He gave them the temple and the prophets and the priests. He disciplined them in love and stretched out his hand all day to this disobedient people. And he even restored them to Jerusalem after exile. These were all wonderful graces of God, like good wine. But God saved the best wine for the end on us, whom the end of the ages has come. The old covenant is now gone away, and the new covenant in Christ's blood has come. And as good and as gracious as the old covenant was, and indeed it was a gracious, loving covenant, as good as it was, the new covenant is nevertheless far better. Finally, I want us to look at one more time at verse 11 of our text. This is the verse we went to first. Verse 11 says this, the first of his signs, Jesus did it Cana in Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him. This is called the first of Jesus's signs. It's sometimes referred to as his first public miracle. But you'll notice when you read this account that it's not really entirely public. It's more like semi-public. Plenty of people drink the wine and enjoy this blessing. Probably the couple that got married enjoyed this wine for many months, if I had to guess. But very few people know where the wine came from. Look with me starting at verse 8. And Jesus said to them, now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast. So the servants took it. When the master of the feast had tasted the water, now become wine and did not know where it came from. Though the servants who had drawn the water knew. So the master of the feast was not made aware that a miracle had even occurred. It might have felt like a miracle in a way that you think you're out of something and then someone shows up with a truckload of exactly what you need. That feels like a miracle, but it's not the same way as turning water into wine. You understand what I mean there? And I doubt, at least right then, that any of the wedding guests had any awareness. Maybe no one ever did, because Jesus said His hour had not yet come. That is, it wasn't time for Him to further reveal indiscriminately to the watching world that He was, in fact, the Messiah. And I also doubt that the wedding guests would ever even have been told about the miracle because to have that information made public would have further embarrassed the bridegroom and completely distracted everyone from the wedding, which clearly was not Jesus' goal. He did not want to distract from the wedding. As far as we can tell, as far as the Word tells us, the only people who knew what really happened here were Jesus, His disciples, His mother, and the servants. That's it. Those are the only people that knew. And the only ones John tells us that then believed in him because of that knowledge, because of this miracle, were the disciples. We don't have any reason to know that Mary had a special progress in her belief or that the servants believed on Christ. We just know that His disciples believed because of this miracle. So yes, this was absolutely a manifestation of Christ's glory as the obedient Son of God, as the ultimate purifier, and as the great and loving provider. But this manifestation was not for everyone to see. Only a small select group of people saw what was truly going on here. And ultimately, this is the case with most of Christ's miracles. Many of His miracles were only performed with a small audience. And even those that were performed publicly, with large groups like the feeding of the 5,000, or the many healings that Christ did, most people who saw the physical miracles, who saw the signs, still did not see His true glory as the only begotten Son of God, and trust Him as their Lord and Savior. Most people were blinded. They did not have the eyes of faith. So also today, many people, and we all know these people in our lives, many people know of Christ. And they know of some of His mighty works. They know that He walked on water. They know that He multiplied the loaves and fishes. They know about Christ. They may have been to church, they may believe in God, but they do not see Jesus as the glorious and only begotten Son of God who lived a perfect life, died a brutal death in their place for their sins, and rose again victorious from the grave. And because of that, because they do not see Christ truly for who He is and trust in Him, those people that know all about Jesus in any other way, nevertheless, will not enjoy the true joy of communion with Him in this life or in the life to come. So as we close our time looking at this passage today, I want all of us to reflect, have we drank freely of the wine of Christ's blood? Have we truly received the wonderful gift of purification from sin that Christ offers to all who would call upon his name? Are we washed in the blood of the lamb who takes away the sin of the world? Let us now go to our Lord in prayer.