Posted on 01/14/2007 1:38:14 PM PST by Charles Henrickson
“The Sign of the Water into Wine at the Wedding” (John 2:1-11)
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. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." 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 twenty or thirty 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." This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him. (John 2:1-11, ESV)
The thing about a sign is that you need to be able to read it, you need to be able to understand what it means. For instance, you’re driving along a road, and you see a sign with a picture of a deer on it. If you don’t understand the meaning of the sign, you might be surprised when a deer jumps out in front of your car--although I’ve always wondered how the deer can read the sign and know that’s where they’re supposed to cross.
It’s important to be able to read the sign and know what it means, what it’s pointing to. That’s true also when it comes to looking at the things Jesus does in the gospels. The miracles he performs are called “signs and wonders.” The thing about a sign is that it points to something beyond itself. When Jesus does a miracle, there’s something more going on than just a power display that makes us go ooh and ahh. It’s not just to show that Jesus is a real powerful guy, even a real powerful guy sent from God--although it does tell us at least that much. The signs tell us even more about who Jesus is, his character and his identity, his nature as the Son of God come in the flesh, his office as messianic King and Lord and Savior. The miracles of Jesus--the signs that he performs, tell us something about the nature of his mission, what he came to do for us men and for our salvation. They tell us about the new age that he inaugurates by his coming. And they tell us about how he is going to do that, how he’s going to bring it about, by his death and resurrection. So the signs of Jesus, his many miracles, are “significant” in the truest sense of the term: They are signs pointing to who Jesus is and what he came to do.
The miracle that we read about today--changing water into wine at the wedding at Cana--that is one of Jesus’ signs. In fact, the apostle and evangelist St. John informs us that this was “the first of his signs.” This was the first miracle that Jesus performed during his public ministry. So let’s find out what this sign is pointing to, what it tells us about who Jesus is and what he came to do and what that means for us. Let’s read the sign.
Most of us are pretty familiar with the basic elements of the story itself. There is a wedding going on at Cana, a town not far from Nazareth, where Jesus grew up. Jesus’ mother is invited, as are Jesus and his disciples. The wedding feast is going on, but a problem arises when they run out of wine. Jesus’ mother intervenes. She asks her son for help. He agrees to, not on the basis of a maternal request, but because what he is about to do will fit in with his purpose of why he, the Son of God from heaven, came to earth to be our Redeemer. This miracle will be a sign pointing to his mission and his particular “hour” that is still to come. So Jesus tells the servants to fill some large jars with water and then to draw some out and take it to the guy in charge of the wedding feast. They do what Jesus says, and, lo and behold, the water has been turned to wine, and not just any old wine but the very best quality wine.
So that’s the story in bare outline. Clear enough. Jesus has the authority and the ability to do some pretty impressive stuff. Powers only God could have, or someone sent from God. It’s like he’s the Lord of creation. Well, he is! This sign does tell us at least that much: That Jesus has authority and power of clearly divine origin. But is there more? Does this sign point to some other things about who Jesus is and what he came to do? I think it does. There’s something in the nature of this miracle itself, the setting and circumstances of how it takes place, that tells us something about Jesus. Let me suggest three things.
First, the miracle takes place at a wedding. That is significant. Weddings back then, as now, can be big and elaborate affairs. People pull out the stops for a wedding feast. No expense is spared. Believe me, I can you that is true, having gone through this for our daughter Mary just this past year! No expense is spared! I think some of the rest of you know what I’m talking about. For a wedding and a wedding feast, you want only the best, top quality. Everything must be just right.
That’s the way it is with Jesus. This sign tells us that. Only the best, that’s what Jesus provides. “You have kept the good wine until now,” that’s what the wine expert testifies. Jesus brings in the best stuff. No cheapo knock-offs. This is the real deal. And it does not come cheap. Oh, it comes free, free for us. But it does not come cheap. The blessings Jesus bestows come at great expense. His own. “He has redeemed me, not with gold or silver, but with his holy precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death.” The cost was precious, that is, full of great price. The unsurpassable price was the blood shed on the cross by the very Son of God. Nothing could be of greater value than that. So the help that Jesus gives, the good wine at the wedding feast, comes absolutely free as a gift to us, because it cost Christ absolutely everything. Jesus himself bore all the great cost. All by grace: “God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.”
The reason people are willing to pull out all the stops for a wedding is because it is an event of such great joy. It is literally, or it’s supposed to be, a truly once-in-a-lifetime event. A wedding is about as joyous an event as we can have in this life. It signals the start of a new life, a new life together for that couple, a new unit in society. It portends new life to come, in the promise of children, a new family. New life, hope, great joy--all of these are basic to the idea of a wedding.
That’s the way it is with Jesus. This sign tells us that too. Unsurpassed joy is what Jesus brings. The highest joy that we can imagine. New life is what he brings. Hope for the future. Eternal life, everlasting life. Even death will not part us. Jesus gives us new life now. He puts us into a new relationship with God, brings us together. And he puts us into a new relationship with one another, when he brings us into the church. A new family is created.
So it is no accident that Jesus performs this sign at a wedding. Because a wedding, a wedding feast, is a very appropriate image to use when talking about the new reality that Jesus brings about. The Bible uses this image of a wedding banquet many, many times, both in the Old Testament and in the New, to describe what God promises to his people and what Jesus then brings about. How many times does Jesus tell stories about a wedding banquet in his parables? Lots of times! “The kingdom of heaven is like a wedding banquet . . .” he says so often. And in the Book of Revelation, heaven is pictured as the marriage supper of the Lamb in his kingdom, which will have no end. You know, Jesus gives us a foretaste of that feast to come here in the blessed Sacrament of the Altar.
So this sign takes place at a wedding, a wedding feast, to be specific. What the sign points to, then, is that Jesus pulls out all the stops, he spares no expense, to bestow his gifts upon us. And it is the occasion for great joy, the highest joy we can imagine, because of the new life and new family he creates. A wedding feast is just about the best experience we know in this life to convey pure unbridled joy--or maybe I should say, bride-and-bridegroomed joy--so Christ chooses just such an occasion to tell us something about what he is doing.
That’s where the wine comes in. Wine is a drink common to all times and cultures, and in all times and cultures it carries an association beyond just something to drink. Wine has the universal meaning of joy. Wine gladdens the heart, the Bible says. Again, that’s the way it is with Jesus. The wine he provides conveys joy to our souls. And this is the very best joy, even as the wine Jesus provides is the very best quality. “You have kept the good wine until now.”
But there’s even more here going on with this sign of the wine. It is a sign that Jesus is fulfilling certain Old Testament prophecies, prophecies about the arrival of the messianic age. Listen to a few of these:
Joel 3:18: “And in that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine. . . .”
Amos 9:13: “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it.”
Isaiah 25:6-8: “On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever.”
You see what the Old Testament prophets Joel and Amos and Isaiah were prophesying? They were saying that days were coming when there would be a great provision of wine for God’s people, the wine of course being understood as meaning a time of great joy. Indeed, there would be an abundance, an overflow, of this wine. It will be all over the place, nothing held back. And when will all this take place? What is being referred to by “in that day” or “the days are coming”? It’s referring to the coming messianic age, the new age that will break in when God’s promised Messiah, the promised Deliverer, finally arrives.
Well, guess what? Here he is! The abundant provision of wine is the sign. Remember, this was at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, his first sign. Jesus signals his arrival as the Messiah, and the arrival of the new age of blessing, by providing this great superabundance of wine. Six big water jars full, filled to the brim. “Each holding twenty or thirty gallons,” it says. Can you visualize that, six stone jars, each with 20-30 gallons? That’s 120-180 gallons! That’s a lot of wine! Really good wine, too, even when the wedding feast must have been mostly over. Do you see what Jesus is signaling? He brings a superabundance of blessing, more than enough! Jesus would later say, “I have come that they may have life, and have it in abundance.”
But now that leads us to one more thing about this sign. We’ve already talked about the fact that it was a wedding, an occasion of great joy, when no expense is spared. We’ve talked about wine, that it too is associated with joy and that this abundance of wine fulfills the Old Testament prophecies about the arrival of the messianic age. But now the third thing, the matter of these six water jars. Six stone water jars used for the Jewish rites of purification. Why does John tells us that detail? He didn’t have to. Why does he?
Well, think about it. It fits with a theme that we see in John’s gospel, a theme of replacement. Jesus replaces and surpasses things from the Old Testament Jewish religion. John 1, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” It literally says that Jesus “tabernacled” among us. What the Old Testament tabernacle was all about--God dwelling in the midst of his people--Jesus replaces and surpasses in an even greater way. Also from John 1, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Jesus replaces and surpasses all the lambs, all the Old Testament sacrificial animals, by making the once-and-for-all sacrifice of his own body on the cross. Then in John 2, right after our text for today, Jesus says, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” Jesus is talking about his own crucified and risen body. He himself replaces and surpasses the Jewish temple, as the place where God provides forgiveness of sins.
So this text likewise, with the six stone jars used for the Jewish rites of purification--this too fits the theme of replacement. Jesus himself replaces and surpasses these means of purification. John would later write in his epistle: “The blood of Jesus, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin.”
How does he do that? Note that Jesus says, “My hour has not yet come.” But it will come, and this sign points to that. Jesus’ hour will come, the hour of his Passion, the hour of his suffering and death. When Jesus dies on the cross, and blood and water flow from his pierced side--there is your purification!
“This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.” Can you read the sign? The sign of turning water into wine at the wedding manifests, shows forth, several things about who Jesus is and what he comes to do. First, it happens at a wedding, an occasion of great joy, when no expense is spared. Second, Jesus provides wine, likewise conveying great joy, signaling that Jesus brings in the messianic age of blessing, and that he does this in abundance, more than enough. Third, Jesus replaces and surpasses the water of Jewish purification with the new wine that he provides, for he himself is our cleansing and purification from all sins.
Oh, and there’s one more thing that this sign says: Simply, “FOR YOU!”
Thought you might be interested.
I also like the part in the Bible where Paul tells Timothy to drink a little wine" for his stomach's sake".......LOL.
Leni
It is not the "sign" that Jesus performed at Cana that has always first and foremost gripped me. I am of the opinion that changing water into wine was as easy to Him as raising Lazarus from the dead or multiplying loaves of bread.
It is the fact that one of his creatures, His Mother, has an almost limitless influence on Him.
I often ask my students to tell what was the first miracle Jesus performed. Naturally, they cite the wine conversion at the Wedding at Cana...and I tell them, no, it was when He created the Heavens and the Earth.
FYI - this was the gospel in the R.C. Church this Sunday as well. Brothers in Christ.
The pastor this morning had a good point when preaching on this verse.
We don't know who was married that day. The focus was on Christ. Which is what it should be for all weddings.
Isaiah 25:6-8: “On this mountain...
It's a rather interesting piece, although not very relevant to the message.
The non-fermented business you refer to is letting a pietistic anti-alcohol agenda override their exegesis. But I am a Lutheran and not adverse to drinking wine (real wine) or other alcoholic beverages.
The article really doesn't seem anti-alcohol in it's tone. It relats historical (mostly non-Biblical) information on the making of wine during that age and how 'new wine' was preferred for its sweetness, therefore likely being non-fermented (the fermentation process removes some of the sugar from the wine making it less sweet). It then alleges a preference for 'new wine' because it could be consumed in far greater quantity than the alcoholic variety. That, coupled with the idea of 'new wine' fitting so well into the story of Jesus bringing renewal, the conclusion was that the wine Jesus provided was of the non-alcoholic type.
This is not to say there aren't those with an agenda. It's just that this write-up didn't come across that way, at least to me. But, I'm with you. I'm a Lutheran and never have been adverse to the consumption of alcohol in moderation. That's the key word: moderation.
Thanks Charles. I didn't see this yesterday. Our pastor had the same topic in our LCMS Church yesterday. Attendance was low, as we were expecting ice on the roads by noon.
It's the same reading our pastor (LCMS) had...the sermon went a little bit differently, though.
Wonderful homily!
Thank you. I was actually in the St. Louis area and wasn't able to go to church Sun. so I have appreciated this.
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