A Wedding in Cana

God’s people would take their
copy of the scriptures and turn to the gospel of John once again. John, and we find ourselves this
morning in chapter two of John’s gospel. It’s an old saying. upon which I’ve tried to not
only model my own life, but conduct my ministry as kind of a secondary standard,
one that seems to encapsulate a lot of different scriptural
principles. It’s woven into our distinctives
document. You’ve heard me say it many times.
Where the Bible speaks, we speak. Where the Bible is silent, we
too are silent. The commitment to preach the
whole counsel of God, to really maintain or cultivate a high
view of scripture is absolutely crucial to the ministry unless
we begin to slip into homespun reasoning and men’s thoughts,
preference issues, And it’s especially important in a verse-by-verse
consideration. It means you’re going to come
across passages that in your flesh you might be inclined to
skip. But in your heart, you know that if you’re going to preach the
whole counsel of God, you know the passage must be preached
if we are to honor God’s word, to indeed let scripture speak. The problem is that in the particular
passage in front of us this morning, much abuse has been done to this
passage, suggesting at the one end, almost an endorsement of
drunkenness itself. And at the opposite end, to take
away from scripture and to downplay what has really taken place so
as to do equal damage to the scriptures. A lot of times we
try to make the scriptures say what we want it to say. Unless
instead of rather opening, submitting ourselves to them and letting
scripture say what it says. One pastor said it quite simply
when he said, the manifestation of the glory of Christ here follows
naturally upon the recognition of his claims. He shows by a
significant sign spontaneously offered in the presence of an
acknowledged need significant only to the disciples in close
connection with their faith. I take you to rather not the
parable, the narrative, the story of Jesus’ first miracle, water
into wine. We pick up in chapter two beginning
in verse one with this account. It is the setting of the first
miracle beginning in verse one. On the
third day, there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee. And both
Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding. When
the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have
no wine. And Jesus said to her, woman,
what does that have to do with us? My hour is not yet come. His mother said to the servants,
whatever he says to you, do it. Now there were six stone water
pots set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing
20 or 30 gallons each. Jesus said to them, fill the
water pots with water. So they filled them up to the
brim. And he said to them, draw some out now and take it to the
head waiter. So they took it to him. When
the head waiter tasted the water, which had become wine, and did
not know where it had come from, but the servants who had drawn
the water knew, the head waiter called the bridegroom and said
to him, every man serves the good wine first. And when the
people have drunk freely, then he serves the poorer wine. But
you have kept the good wine until now. This beginning of his signs,
Jesus did in Cana of Galilee and manifested His glory, and
His disciples believed in Him.” There have been many attempts
to outline this passage. I’ve taken just the most simple,
essentially five vignettes that unfold before us, the first of
which is the setting of this miracle. The setting begins in
verse 1 through verse 2. where it’s mentioned that this
took place on the third day. And I don’t believe that there’s
any significant time stamp or any significance to that statement
other than a simple time stamp. He’s just telling us when this
miracle took place, but many, sadly, wanted to tie or read
into this, rather, some reference to the resurrection as being
an illustration of the third day. I don’t think that there’s
even need to go there. On this third day, there was
a wedding in Cana of Galilee. It was a gathering of friends.
As weddings are, they are major events in the life not only of
the young couple, but families as they come together, extended
families as they rejoice in that precious institution of marriage.
Cana, we know, was roughly nine miles north of Nazareth between
Capernaum. And it’s almost a metaphor here
that in between Jesus’ private life, His family life, and His
public life, there is this transition, this wedding, that is geographically
in between. And there is this wedding feast. These wedding feasts were celebrated
for days on end, often up to seven days, depending on how
far the guests had come. Many were invited. Oftentimes,
you would invite your most extended family and friends. And depending
on your wealth, these would be prolonged events. And often,
because of that, were very expensive. We don’t know a lot about Jewish
weddings. We do know some that historians
have chronicled. One pointed out that marriage
was rather not often, but was preceded by a betrothal period
that was a lot more serious than we take even our own engagements
today. In a sense, they were already
in the pipeline of being married. So solemn, And so binding was
this commitment that to break it, divorce proceedings were
required. At the end of this betrothal
period, then the marriage would take place. The bridegroom would
make his way over to the bride’s house in this really grand procession. They would meet. There were often
speeches and prayers. And then the entire party would
migrate over to the bridegroom’s house where the feast would take
place. And depending on how far the
guests had traveled, these feasts would be prolonged celebrations
lasting, as I said, up to even a week. John the apostle points
out that the mother of Jesus was there We’ll talk more about
her involvement in a moment, but then verse two says, both
Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding. It’s fascinating, not only here,
but throughout John’s gospel. John never mentioned Mary’s name. Probably out of respect for her
station, he doesn’t want to play up that element. He never even
mentions her by name. You’ll note that Joseph isn’t
mentioned and that’s led to the almost universal opinion that
Joseph is dead and gone at this point. But Jesus and his disciples,
it says, were not only invited to this wedding, but they had
accepted the invitation and they were in attendance. That says
so much. It says a lot about where Christ
was willing to go. It says a lot about what Christ
endorsed even in His presence. That He was there in a celebratory
party. He was there for a wedding and
He affirmed all that marriage stood for. After all, marriage
was ordained by God in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. And
here, by Jesus Christ’s presence, His stamp of approval is given
to this institution, ordained by God. And it also notes that Jesus’
disciples were there. It’s very general. There are
times where that word disciples just refers very generally to
the followers of Jesus. It could have been a small crowd
of people at this point. Sometimes it refers to just the
12 apostles. Other times it refers to just
a portion of those 12 apostles. It’s not clear at all how many
would have been with Christ Certainly, John was there because this is
a first-hand account that John provides. We know of Philip that
it’s never said that he departed from Christ. So we think that
at least John and Philip were there. Nathaniel had just been
converted. It’s likely that he heeded that
call to follow Christ. Andrew, John, Philip, Nathaniel,
possibly even Peter, Those were the disciples that were in attendance.
But we come to a crisis. We move from the setting of the
first miracle to immediately into the crisis in verse three.
When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have
no wine. I’ve worked in restaurants for
about 15 years, beginning when I was 14 years of age. And there
was a well-known saying in the restaurant business that it just
is crisis management. It’s one crisis after the other
and you just try to stem the tide and meet the needs and fix
the crisis one at a time. This wine had been provided by
the guests or by the host of the party. The guests had drained
the supplies dry. Some even suggested that it was
merely the arrival of the six or seven additional guests that
caused, there’s nothing at all that suggests that. Jesus and
his disciples were invited and there’s nothing to suggest that
they were unexpected guests and that the failure, the fact that
the host ran out of wine was due to their arrival. But this running out of the basic
supply for a wedding party was not just a disruption, not just
an inconvenience. It was a shame to whoever was
hosting the party. It would have been a byword to
all that so and so ran out of wine for the wedding. In fact,
it even opened up the bridegroom’s family to a lawsuit. if people
had traveled from afar. And so some said that Mary in
coming to Christ, perhaps she was, some suggested that perhaps
she was even suggesting that Jesus and his friends should
leave, which is an utterly ridiculous statement. Some suggested that
Mary’s coming to Christ was some kind of a suggestion on her part
to get Jesus to start a sermon that would distract the guests
to the fact that they were now out of wine. It’s silly. It doesn’t say that. We don’t know whether Mary expected
a miracle but she was appealing to Christ for some kind of a
help. We doubt that she was suggesting
that he run down to the local store and pick up the necessary
supplies, but she was laying before him, at the very minimum,
an opportunity. The very fact that she told Jesus,
instead of going to the host, we don’t know that even a conversation
took place between Mary and the host, or between Mary and the
head waiter. She goes to Jesus, who she has
known about from even before His birth, His greatness, His
standing, that He was going to be great in the eyes of the Lord.
She may not have known yet fully the implications of that, but
she knew that Christ was special. And she came to Him because of
that. One pastor said, the mother of the Lord having heard the
testimony of John the Baptist, seeing the disciples gathered
around her son, the circumstances of whose birth she had treasured
in her heart, must have now looked at length for the manifestation
of his power and thought that an occasion only was lacking. In other words, she saw this
as a perfect opportunity and she brought it to Jesus’ attention. There’s no way around this. I
have to talk about what is this substance. Some people get really troubled.
So troubled by the fact that there’s wine even mentioned here
that they go to great lengths to prove that it wasn’t wine. Some have taken the position
that it was unfermented and that it was mere grape juice. The
problem was that wine in that first century and that entire
era was a very common beverage at meal. The drinking water was
often impure and so a fermented beverage that killed off some
of those impurities was a very common beverage. As one said,
the modern notion that wine in the New Testament means unfermented,
non-intoxicating wine is without foundation. The host served wine, and I mean
wine as we know it. Fermented grape juice that had
become a potentially intoxicating beverage. He goes on, And says,
indeed it was just because Jesus did not condemn the use of wine
that he was reproached as a drunkard by those who wished to disparage
him. You say, when did that ever take
place? Matthew 11, 19 says, the son of man came eating and drinking.
These are Jesus’ words. The son of man came eating and
drinking and they say, behold, he’s a gluttonous man and a drunkard. Now, I’ll let you decide for
yourself whether Jesus there was acknowledging that He would
take a drink of wine, but because of what He did, they claimed
that He was a drunkard. Wine in Scripture means wine,
not grape juice. It’s real wine, not watered-down
purple water. Why would Scripture have to say
even a single word about its abuse if it wasn’t real wine. Paul in Ephesians 5.18, do not
get drunk with wine. That would be hard to do if it
was completely unfermented. Fermentation process is exactly
the process that causes wine skins that Jesus mentioned to
burst. Real wine made Noah drunken.
Nabal, Uriah, real wine caused a huge problem at the Corinthian
love feast. The love feast was similar to
our fellowship meal only at that point in time they served wine
so much so that some in their abuse were drunken. There’s no doubt there are different
kinds of wines Often even drugs were mixed into the wine to make
it even more powerful. Wine in the New Testament is
wine. Let me take you to one passage
real quick. Luke chapter seven. Luke chapter
seven. Keep your finger in the gospel
of John. I wanted to take you to this particular passage Because
as you begin to back up and look at, even if you entertain the
subject of study, Jesus Christ and wine in the New Testament. We know from this passage in
front of us, John chapter two, that Jesus started his public
ministry involved with a miracle involving wine. He was around wine and drinkers
a lot, so much so that he would even be accused from time to
time. He was certainly, even by his
presence, acknowledging that that behavior was common. But
it also ultimately brought him under false reproach of others. Look at verse 31 of chapter 7. where Jesus says, to what then
shall I compare the men of this generation and what are they
like? They are like children who sit in the marketplace and
call to one another and they say, we played the flute for
you and you did not dance, we sang a dirge and you did not
weep. They’re impossible to please, says Jesus. And then he applies
it, for John the Baptist came eating no bread and drinking
no wine and you say he has a demon. The son of man has come eating
and drinking and you say behold a gluttonous man and a drunkard
and a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Yet wisdom is vindicated
by all her children. He says they’re impossible to
please and he had suffered even this worst epithet by being called
a drunkard. Back to John 2, if you would. It was real wine. Wine is wine. And that’s undergirded by the
fact that drunkenness was common in that culture. Common for centuries
and common even in the church. So much so that it had to be
addressed on numerous occasions, not only by Christ, but by Paul,
Romans 13, 1 Corinthians, 1 Peter 4 by Peter. Now, Jesus could have cleared
this whole thing up. Jesus could have slammed the
door on this issue once and for all. had he just joined a little
group called the Essenes. The Essenes. It was a little
Jewish sect and they were absolute, total abstainers from any fermented
beverage. Jesus Christ never associated
with them. He never aligned himself with
them. He never even commended them. Sometimes people have said that
the, as I pointed out, that the wine that Jesus made on this
particular occasion and used, that was in use in other occasions
was not fermented, but this partly was an outgrowth of, an
abuse really of an observation of the Passover meal who said
you had Centuries of authors that would say that real wine
wasn’t used at the Passover meal, and they would tie that to the
unleavened bread. But there’s nothing really in
all of the New Testament to indicate that that was the case. Christ was around wine. Wine
was present. Real, fermented, intoxicating
wine was present. And the near unanimous opinion
of scholars is that wine was wine. In fact, the scriptures often
point to the fact that a moderate enjoyment of wine is permissible. Psalm 104. I’m just reading you
the scriptures. He causes the grass to grow for
the cattle, vegetation for the labor of man, so that he may
bring forth food from the earth and wine, which makes man’s heart
glad. That’s not grape juice. Ecclesiastes
9.7, Go then, eat your bread in happiness and drink your wine
with a cheerful heart, for God has already approved your works.
In fact, Paul engages in similar practice when he writes to Timothy,
deacons must be men of dignity, not double-tongued or addicted
to much wine or fond of sordid gain. And then he goes on to
tell Timothy, no longer drink water exclusively, but use a
little wine for the sake of your stomach. We don’t know what his
ailment was. But before you vote, before you
walk out, hear me out. And this is for the other side
of the equation. Drunkenness is sin. Scripture
absolutely forbids drunkenness. Drunkenness, if you think of
it, is on a par with gluttony. Drunkenness is on a par with
adultery. Drunkenness, heaven forbid, is
on a par with homosexuality. 1 Corinthians 6. It’s typical of fallen nature
to take something morally neutral and to turn it for evil ends
and that is a dire warning about the use of alcohol. There is
a fine line between even moderate temperate use and intoxication
and that takes into account body weight and content and food,
alcohol content One brother, fellow pastor said
this, drunkenness is sin. It is reported that nearly half
of the murders, suicides, accidental deaths in America are related
to alcohol. Persistently drunken people require
church discipline. A person in a position of trust
and authority over other people can’t have a drinking problem.
Elders work with people. If an elder has a drinking problem,
he will lead people astray and bring reproach upon the church. Overindulgence will interfere
with spiritual growth and service. Alex Strauch. Romans 13 says
it this way. Paul is much more to the point. Let us behave properly as in
the day, not carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and
sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. And look at the partnership
there in that verse for drunkenness. Scripture clearly points out
that drunkenness is a sin. So any use, any Whether you use
wine or abstain from wine, that should be guarded and guided
by prudence and sensitivity. One author said, wine might be
abused and drunkenness is always blameworthy, but the idea that
it is wrong to use wine in moderation like any other gift of God would
have been foreign to primitive Christianity or to Judaism. Which
proves my point. All I’m saying here is that the
wine in this passage was wine. We need to guide ourselves. We
can’t just come to this passage and have a rubber stamp placed
on our behavior that any and all drinking is sanctioned by
Christ. Or to go the opposite extreme
to say this can’t possibly be wine, not our Lord. that he might have made grape
juice, but he didn’t make wine. We need to be guided by prudence
and sensitivity. We spent in Romans 14 to 15,
10 weeks on the weaker brother, 10 weeks. With all areas of liberty, we
have to give the highest consideration to the weaker brother. so as
to never cause them to stumble. I love the way Paul rounded out
his argument there in Romans 14. It is good not to eat meat
or to drink wine or to do anything by which your brother stumbles.
The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before
God. Don’t go about trying to get partners in your way of thinking. The faith which you have, have
as your own conviction before God. If you think that it’s okay
to have a glass of wine, don’t create a drinking committee.
And then I love the way he ends it. The faith which you have,
have as your own conviction before God. Happy is he who does not
condemn himself in what he approves. You’re playing with fire. And
it ought to be treated as such. You know that my hero is Isaac
Watts, one of our church mottos. Isaac Watts said this about the
use of alcohol, be vigilant, be temperate in all things, not
only as a soldier of Christ, but as an under leader of his
army, be temperate, abstain sometimes even from lawful delights that
you make the work of self-denial easy, but always be watchful
lest you too entangled with the affairs of this life, that you
may better please Him who has chosen you for an officer of
His battalions, that you may not be easily surprised into
the snares of sin. Guard against a love of pleasure. Guard against a sensual temper. Guard against an indulgence of
appetite. Guard against an excessive relish
of wine or dainties. These carnalize the soul. and
give occasion to the world to reproach us too justly. If it is your conviction that
having a glass of wine is an area of freedom, you should do
so with your brother in mind. You should do so even with your
own soul in mind. From a personal standpoint, I
love the way Spurgeon presented it. My soul might be perpetually
dropping showers of tears. If it might know the doom and
destruction brought on by that one demon, and by that one demon
only, Though I am no total abstainer, I hate drunkenness as much as
any man breathing, and have been the means of bringing many a
poor creature to relinquish this bestial indulgence. We believe
drunkenness to be an awful crime and a horrid sin. We stand prepared
to go to war with it. How many thousands are murdered
every year by that accursed devil of drunkenness? And so we take
both things in view. We take both things in view that
wine is wine in the New Testament. That what Jesus dealt with here,
the substance was wine. Fermented, potentially intoxicating
wine. But this passage presents no
endorsement. It certainly is no endorsement
to drunkenness. When the wine ran out, the mother
of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. Jesus could have said
good. He didn’t. Instead he said, woman,
what does that have to do with us? A lot of ink was spilled here
trying to figure out, you know, did Jesus just scold his mother? Was he just rude to his mother? The word woman isn’t a harsh
term. It doesn’t involve rebuke. In
fact, in a sense, it was a show of kindness and respect. Listen
to the list. The Canaanite woman that came
to Jesus, Matthew 15, pleading on her daughter’s behalf. What
does Jesus say? Oh, woman. Oh, woman, your faith is great.
It shall be done for you as you wish. There’s another woman recorded
in Luke 13. Crippled for 18 years, when Jesus
saw her, he called her over and said to her, woman, you’re freed
from your sickness. The woman at the well, John 4.21,
Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, an hour is coming when neither
this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall you worship the Father,
and he laid out the gospel to her. Mary Magdalene, one of Jesus’
dearest friends, Mary Magdalene sitting outside Jesus’ tomb, said to her, woman, why are you
sleeping? Why are you weeping, rather? To his own mother, to his own
mother from the cross, Jesus looked down, saw his mother and
the disciples whom he loved standing nearby, and he said to his mother,
woman, behold your son. This is not a disparaging term.
It’s not a coarse phrase. But he does begin to mark a line
of distinction. In a sense, he says, you’re no
longer my earthly parent. I’m no longer submitted to your
authority. In that sense, what does this
problem have to do with me? He points to a contrast, the
divine son and the human mother, and says there’s a break here.
There needs to be a break. It’s time. It’s time to cut the
apron strings. There’s a new kind of relationship
as I enter into public ministry. And if woman doesn’t imply rebuke,
certainly the latter part of this comes very close, doesn’t
it? When Jesus says, what does that
have to do with us? He calls attention to this changing
relationship It literally says, what to you and to me? And that’s a very common phrase,
1 Kings, 2 Kings, 2 Samuel, in the New Testament, Matthew 8,
29, what business do we have with one another? Mark 1, 24,
what business do we have with each other? Luke 8, 28, what
business do we have? What is this to me? The kids now say this. They have
this phrase. It goes something like this and
this matters to me why. It’s very similar. And so it’s a gentle rebuke.
It’s it’s gentle as a son would his mother when she’s completely
in the wrong and she was. But he’s just simply says my
hour is not yet come. He’s not talking about his crucifixion.
You know, the end of his ministry is just talking. It’s not time
for my Messiah ship to be manifest. And even the way that he goes
about it is tremendously secretive. He doesn’t want to be known in
his fullness yet. And so his mother, the persistent
Jewish mother that she is simply takes him at his word. and tells
the servants just do what Jesus says. It’s a very delicate and
almost humorous scene. It’s okay to smile. Mary wasn’t taken aback by the
words. She wasn’t surprised that there’s
a difference between God and her not being God. She knows that she’s gotten the
point across. Perhaps Jesus gave her some glimmer either by way
of a smile or a glint in his eye that he knew the problem,
that he would take care of it. He’d take care of it on his own
terms. No words are exchanged. Mary just turns in some kind
of an authority and tells the servants to obey the master. We don’t know whether Mary was
there as a relative, as a helper. We know family, friends, that
everything that we’ve ever done, we know a lady that will be there
and she’ll be calling out the shots in our family. You have
them too, apparently. The setting of the first miracle,
the crisis of the first miracle, we come to the instant of the
first miracle. Look at how fascinating this
is. There were six stone water pots set there for the Jewish
custom of purification containing 20 or 30 gallons each. Jesus said to them, fill the
water pots with water. So they filled them to the brim.
And he said to them, draw some out now and take it to the head
waiter. So they took it to him. Now that’s why I dealt with the
wine early because if you If I dealt with it here, it’s a
little overwhelming. 20 or 30 gallons each, six stone water
pots. That’s up to 150 gallons of wine. That’s why we had to
deal with it early. But as this eyewitness deals
with the scene, he remembers what the pots were made of. They
were stone pots. He remembers exactly how many.
There were six, and he remembers exactly how big they are. Vessels of stone were prescribed
by Jewish tradition for washings before and after the meals, for
washing all the utensils. A lot of water was needed, especially
for a large event. And stone had the capacity of
not being so inclined to cultivate disease and bugs and everything
else. One of the scenes in scripture,
just jot it down if you would, I’m not going to spend a lot
of time there. Mark chapter 7 says that the Pharisees, some of the
scribes gathered around him when they come from Jerusalem and
that they had seen some of his disciples eating their bread
with impure hands. That is unwashed. This is the
scene that they’re talking about. This is the prescription that
the Jews had put on everybody that we had to wash our hands. Now I know what you kids are
saying. You’re going to go home and, but dad, wash your hands. The Pharisees and all the Jews
do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing
the tradition of the elders. And when they come to the marketplace,
they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves. And there are many
other things which they have received in order to observe,
such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots. You’re
going to need a lot of water, a big wedding, all kinds of utensils,
cups, wine glasses, the Pharisees and the scribes said to him,
why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of
the elders, but eat bread with impure hands? They didn’t wash
their hands before lunch. He said to them, rightly did
Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written. This people
honors me with their lips, but with their heart, their heart
is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching
as doctrines the precepts of men. neglecting the commandment
of God you hold to the traditions of men. Now Jesus doesn’t set
aside hand washing and say that hand washing is completely unnecessary. We know that it has a hygienic
element to it. It’s the right and good thing
to do. Lots of times, especially now that the winter has come
and germs are plenty, he’s not telling us not to wash our hands.
You know what he says to the Pharisees essentially? is that
what our modern day health movement says is that the body is more
important than the soul. Jesus said to them, take these
six stone water pots holding 20 to 30 gallons each and fill
the water pots with water. That’s all he says. He doesn’t
give a hocus pocus. He doesn’t wave his hand. He
doesn’t, you know, wink his eye or wiggle his nose. He just says,
fill the water pots with water. And somehow, in an instant, in
an instant, the miracle has worked. And for some, this was baffling.
For some, this was just, this doesn’t fit, doesn’t work. There
was no scene. There was no glitz. This miracle
is a miracle, it had no pop. It’s the same miracle that God
worked in creation. And in fact, in this occasion,
Jesus didn’t even have to say a word. The head waiter is merely said
to go along with this, what one suggested was a ruse. When Jesus
said, fill the water, pots with water, one said that everybody
in the room went along with it and said, oh, this water, wink,
wink, is really good wine. And they said, commentator said
that the head waiter went along with it. And apparently the commentator
missed entirely the fact that the head waiter tasted the water,
which had become wine. They also have to ignore the
fact that it wasn’t sleight of hand or some kind of impudent
trickery because the sign that Jesus worked, a sign, a powerful
miracle, engendered faith. I’ve been a headwaiter. I know
this drill. When something goes wrong, guess
who’s going to hear about it? The very fact that he called
attention to to Jesus to work this miracle and then to call
attention to the head waiter for verification of this miracle. It’s just a mark of God’s genius
here. Christ was the only one to work
the miracle. And yet the servants seem to
be the ones doing all the labor. They fill the water, they got
to drag these stone water pots over to the fountain, fill them
up, drag them back. They’re the ones that are tasked
with taking the sample to the head waiter. Jesus merely spoke the miracle
into existence. Some were, as I’ve already indicated,
almost put out at the quantity of wine that Jesus made on this
occasion, 150 gallons, really? Augustine commenting on that
very fact said, he who made the wine at this wedding does the
same thing every year. The water which the servants
put into the pots turned into wine by the Lord so that the
clouds pour down every year is turned into wine by the same
Lord. It excites no wonder in us because
it occurs year after year after year. Yet on this one occasion,
the fact that it happened suddenly produces for some people a real
distress. It was God’s typical abundance.
It was an over provision for the needs of the guest. It was
just like the feeding of the 5,000 where they gathered up
12 baskets full afterwards. It was just like the feeding
of the Israelites with the manna, an overwhelming amount. The verification of the miracle
is quite simple. In verse nine and 10, the water
had become wine. Through an instantaneous change,
And the head waiter makes this strange comment. He just is really
assessing every party that I’ve ever been to. They serve the
really good stuff first. And then they break out whatever
the $1.99 a gallon stuff. He’s not suggesting that all
the guests there at this party are drunk. But he says that typically,
after people have had their fill, then you bring out the low quality
stuff, not on this occasion. He said, this is just excellent
wine. What else would we expect from
the creator of the universe? And the purpose, the purpose
of this miracle. All right, now we have to stand
back. It’s real wine. Jesus really did it. He didn’t
even have to wave his hand, didn’t even have to say a word. Why
on earth would Jesus work this miracle on this occasion? What’s
the purpose? And this is where it gets really
distressing. The tendency to spiritualize
this. Here’s one. There is a transforming power
associated with Jesus. He changes the water of Judaism
into the wine of Christianity. Except that that’s not the point
of this account at all. Another, the sign points to the
truth that Christ abundantly supplies all the need of his
people and that’s absolutely true. It’s not the point. Jesus
turned, third attempt, Jesus turned the water of legal purification
into the wine of marriage joy. Now don’t tell me you didn’t
think that when you heard about the pots there for purification.
It’s not the point. Some have supposed, another,
Some have supposed that this incident foreshadowed intended
to indicate the replacement of the inferior dispensation of
the law to the superior dispensation of the gospel. Not the point. Some people have
over focused on some of the elements of the narrative, some on the
wine, some on the water pots, some on the water itself. John tells us exactly what the
purpose of the miracle was. Exactly. We don’t have to speculate. We don’t have to wonder. We don’t
have to argue. Verse 11 tells us the purpose
of the miracle. The beginning of His signs, Jesus
did in Cana of Galilee and manifested His glory and His disciples believed
in Him. That’s it. The sign was a miracle, but a
miracle with a purpose. It was meant to point to something.
It was characteristic of those things to point beyond themselves
to something or someone particularly. That’s what a sign did. And in
this particular case, the sign pointed and began to manifest
the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not everybody saw it. It doesn’t
even indicate that Mary saw it, not by name. You might include
her in the list of disciples. It doesn’t say anything about
the head waiter. It doesn’t say anything about the servants.
It doesn’t even mention the bride and the groom. But it says it’s disciples. The
followers of Christ, those who had their eyes on Christ, they
saw. They saw His glory. It wasn’t
about an abundance of wine. It wasn’t about this party that
now the boundaries are set free. We have 150 gallons now to drink. It wasn’t it at all. It was about
the fact that Jesus Christ is absolutely God. He’s all-powerful. They placed their faith in Him,
not for the first time, Their faith was confirmed, it was strengthened. It moved from probably initial
kind of faith, an inclination towards Christ to an absolute
commitment to Him. John says nothing about the rest,
but of the disciples, however many there were, three, five,
fifty, when they saw, when they saw what Christ did, they knew
absolutely that they were dealing with God, the creator of the
universe, just as John, just as John the apostle had presented
him at the outset of his gospel. Don’t abuse this little narrative. Don’t come to this narrative
and use it as a justification for your sin. Don’t abuse this
narrative. Don’t come to this narrative
and say that it couldn’t possibly have been wine, not the fermented
kind. There was a purpose to it. And that was not the purpose.
Let’s humble ourselves before him. Our merciful God, we humble
ourselves in your glorious presence. And Lord, what for us walking
in might have been just a baffling account. Why on earth would Jesus
make wine? Especially in light of all of
our social ills and problems. Lord, we see the purpose. It
was not to condone ever drunkenness. It was not to condone an abuse
of your good creation. It was meant to be assigned to
those who were watching a sign of your clear manifestation of
glory. Father, the sign is there for
us as well. We take this to be. A true miracle
of God. If so, our own faith is stirred
and strengthened. If we take this to be a mere
story, there is no faith to begin with. Lord, we thank you for
your word that it is preserved intact. We pray for the grace
to hold to it for what it is, the very word of God. It’s in
Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. M468, my faith has found a resting
place as we close with stand and sing verses one and two.