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Psalm 104: 1-2 , 10-28 Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, you are very great. You are clothed with honor and majesty, 2 wrapped in light as with a garment. You stretch out the heavens like a tent,
10 You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills, 11 giving drink to every wild animal; the wild asses quench their thirst. 12 By the streams the birds of the air have their habitation; they sing among the branches. 13 From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work. 14 You cause the grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for people to use, to bring forth food from the earth, 15 and wine to gladden the human heart, oil to make the face shine, and bread to strengthen the human heart. 16 The trees of the LORD are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. 17 In them the birds build their nests; the stork has its home in the fir trees. 18 The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the coneys. 19 You have made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting. 20 You make darkness, and it is night, when all the animals of the forest come creeping out. 21 The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God. 22 When the sun rises, they withdraw and lie down in their dens. 23 People go out to their work and to their labor until the evening. 24 O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. 25 Yonder is the sea, great and wide, creeping things innumerable are there, living things both small and great. 26 There go the ships, and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it. 27 These all look to you to give them their food in due season; 28 when you give to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
John 2:1-11 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6 Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. 9 When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
Water into Wine
I would assume that most of you this morning have heard this passage before but have you ever thought of exactly how much wine Jesus created? Well, I worked out the math and I have some visual aids for you this morning. If we use the low limit John gives of twenty gallons then the six jars would mean 120 gallons of the best wine. That equals 614 bottles of wine. That’s 51 cases of wine and would yield 3,072 glasses of wine. There are about twenty of us here this morning. That would be 153 glasses a piece. No matter how many guests there may have been at that wedding Jesus created an enormous quantity of wine that the steward said was of excellent quality. Ordinary water becomes the choicest of wines through Jesus.
For John, the real bridegroom present at the wedding is Jesus. In both the Old and New Testaments marriage is a symbol of the relationship between God and us. Throughout the Old Testament God makes covenants with humanity, promises to us. There was one with Adam, one with Noah, and one with Abraham. The final Old Testament one is with Moses and this is where all the Old Testament law comes from. Marriage is a covenantal relationship. When a man and woman are married they make promises to each other. In scripture the image of marriage is used to describe our relationship with God. Isaiah. 62:5 says, For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.” In the New Testament, other gospel writers use the imagery of a wedding feast to describe the kingdom of God. It is also used in chapter 19 of Revelation which has a vision of the end of history when the church, the bride of Christ is joined to her bridegroom. “Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.”
Along with marriage we also have the symbol of wine. Wine is mentioned throughout scripture as something good. Psalm 104 has a long list of what God has done for us and it says, You cause the grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for people to use, to bring forth food from the earth, and wine to gladden the human heart.” Wine was considered a blessing from God. When Isaiah described the joy of the final days it included an abundance of wine. Isaiah. 25:6 says, “On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.” Abundant wine is symbolic of God’s presence in the world in the final age (Amos 9:13; Joel 3:18).
The miracle of water turning into wine demonstrates the transforming power of Jesus. The water of life without Christ can be turned into the wine of the richness and fullness of eternal life in Christ. In John’s gospel miracles are called signs. Signs point beyond themselves; they show us God at work. This sign points to the truth that Jesus abundantly supplies all the needs of His people. John. 1:16 says, “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” It was a miracle of both quantity and quality. 120 gallons of the best wine.
The purpose of all the signs in John’s gospel is to reveal the person of Jesus, to teach us about who He truly is; that He is the one sent by the Father to bring salvation to the world. For John, Jesus’ miracles are “signs” that reveal the salvation, abundance, and new life now present in the world through Jesus. They reveal Jesus’ glory as God’s Son through whom salvation enters the world. The final verse tells us this miracle at Cana is the first of Jesus’ “signs.” It “revealed his glory,” and as a result “his disciples believed in him.” Signs, miracles, wonders, whatever they are called their purpose is to cause people to have faith in Jesus.
Mary came to Jesus with a problem. “They have run out of wine.” A bridegroom was about to be embarrassed. In the Jewish culture at the time this would have been a very big deal. He would have been shamed in a way our culture today doesn’t comprehend. It’s more akin to what is called ‘losing face’ in the Japanese culture. The bridegroom could even have been sued for not providing enough wine. And we thought we loved to sue everyone in our time! Jesus turned the water to wine and saved the bridegroom. In the grand scale of things it wasn’t exactly a catastrophe. We don’t know how large the celebration was but I somehow doubt that they needed 120 gallons of wine.
I think we can look at this miracle and see how Jesus cares not just about the crises in our lives but about the little things in our lives too. It’s important to know that we can bring small concerns to Jesus as well as large ones. It reminds me of a boy I had in the first confirmation class I taught. He had not been brought up Christian and some concepts were quite foreign to him. He didn’t want to pray because he was convinced that he only had a certain number of times he could pray so he was waiting for something big to pray about. He didn’t understand that God wants to be involved in our lives. God cares about all that happens to us. As our heavenly Father, He cares about the details.
Our God is a God of abundance. When God does something He doesn’t do it halfway. Look at creation. There are billions of stars in the heavens. Abundance. I don’t think we even know how many kinds of plant life there is on our planet. Abundance. Look at the variety of species on our planet. Abundance. Everywhere we look we see abundance in the created world.
What does all this abundance point to? God’s power and might? Yes, but even more important to us than that is God’s love. God’s abundant, steadfast love. Despite our sin, despite the ways in which we turn from God, the times we don’t trust God, even the times we defy God; God loves us. His love never changes, never runs out. It’s always there for us. Friends may abandon us, family members turn against us, even our own bodies may fail us but God alone will never forsake us. This is what I want us to see from this miracle, this sign this morning. God wants the best for each of us. Even when we face obstacles or tragedies in our lives, God works to use them for good.
We stand each week and say our Prayer of Confession. We admit we are sinners. But, usually, if we are really honest with ourselves, we don’t really think we’re sinners. We’re not that bad. We don’t commit any really big sins, just little ones. We only fool ourselves when we think this. The truth is, we are all sinners. You are a sinner. I am a sinner. And there is something wonderful about that. It’s not the sin that’s wonderful, it’s what God does with our sin. He forgives us. Gone. Forgotten. As far as the east is from the west. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow. God’s forgiveness comes from God’s abundant love. It is God’s abundance that leads to grace. God knows we sin and will continue to sin all our lives and yet He loves us. He loves us with an abundant, steadfast love that never wavers or changes. That’s what’s so great about the water changing to wine. No one was healed, the dead weren’t raised, the blind didn’t see, the deaf didn’t hear. Those miracles happen later. This was a small miracle. It wasn’t really important. And yet it is a sign of God’s nature, God’s generosity. This was a miracle of abundance, a miracle that brought joy to people’s hearts even though most didn’t even know what had happened.
At the beginning of his gospel John tells us, “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” This happened so that heaven and earth, salvation and creation are joined in Jesus Christ, therefore all human experiences from the mundane to the lofty are occasions when His glory may break forth. His showing up at a wedding is Cana is an invitation for the rest of us to join Him at His feast and enter into His joy. Do we want Jesus to turn the water in our lives into wine? To change the ordinary to the extraordinary? Do we want to see His glory revealed in our lives? It can happen. All we need to do is ask.
Let us pray: God of revelation, You made your son known at a wedding, a public celebration of love. Celebrate love with us by revealing Your Son in our midst. Amen.