Signs
Delivered 1/18/2009 on John 2 by Carter Sanger
In the summer of 1993, Rhonda and I were relishing our last days of living in Wyoming. We were getting ready to move to St. Louis. We had already moved our stuff. Since there is a lot to see in that part of the states and we had not seen it all yet, we decided to detour through South Dakota and see Mount Rushmore and the Badlands. It’s beautiful country up there. We enjoyed our visit immensely. The cost of such seeing the sights, however, was traveling along I-90 through South Dakota. Heading East from Rapid City takes you farther from the hills and more into the plains. There’s not much to look forward to along the drive except for world famous, Wall Drug. You might wonder how we knew about world famous Wall Drug. We learned about it because we saw signs for it nearly every mile between Rapid City and Wall, South Dakota. There are Wall Drug signs for hundreds of miles across South Dakota. That’s enough to get your attention. The signs did there job with us. They invited us to see what Wall Drug was all about. And while we might have been skeptical, we couldn’t resist.
A good sign is like that. It invites you to come and see in such a way that is hard to resist. In the gospel of John, the author wants to make sure you see signs. He uses the word 17 times throughout the book. The signs that you see in John’s gospel invite you to believe in Jesus.
When we responded to the invitation of the signs to visit Wall Drug, we were a bit disappointed. It actually was a sight to see out in the middle of nowhere but the signs lead us to expect more. They didn’t really deliver. We came in as skeptics and left as cynics. When it comes to the claims of Christianity, there are many skeptics and many cynics. Some of you are not quite sure what Christianity is about – you’re skeptical, but you’re here and willing to take a look. Jesus’ signs speak to you. Some of you have believed in Jesus a long time but you’ve felt let down and you’re bordering on cynicism. Jesus’ signs speak to you too.
Signs invite you to believe in Jesus. We’re going to look at these signs to understand exactly what these signs are pointing to and, consequently, what they are inviting us to believe.
