Elder Kevin Wood preaches on John 2:1-11. Jesus performs his first sign: the turning of water to wine at a wedding in Cana.
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This month we began a new sermon series from the gospel of John. In the first two messages, brought to us by Brian, we saw how Jesus was described and explained first as the Word made flesh, and then as the Lamb of God. Both of these descriptions point to Jesus as the Messiah or Christ, the Son of God. And this was precisely the reason why John wrote his gospel, as he tells us near the end of it, in chapter 20, verses 30-31: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
As you may have noticed from our bulletin covers these past three weeks, we have taken our sermon series title from that purpose statement: “Jesus is the Christ: the Son of God revealed through word and deed”.
John indicates that he included in his gospel certain signs done by Jesus as evidence of his deity. You may have noticed in the reading of today’s text that the account ended with the statement: “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee…”. If you continue reading through John’s entire gospel, you will find a total of seven signs or miracles described in some detail. In chapter 4, for example, Jesus heals a royal official’s son even though the son was not present, and John concludes that account by saying: “This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee” (v. 54).
The other five signs are the healing of a paralyzed man at the pool of Bethesda in chapter 5; the feeding of the 5,000 and walking on water in chapter 6; the healing of a man born blind in chapter 9; and the raising of Lazarus from the dead in chapter 11. Note, however, that John does not continue numbering these as the third sign, fourth sign, etc. In fact, with the exception of the feeding of the 5,000, he doesn’t even specifically refer to them as signs. Nevertheless, Bible scholars have fairly consistently noted the fact that there are seven signs or miracles described in some detail in John’s gospel.
Does this mean that Jesus only performed seven miracles? Of course not! The other three gospels describe various other miracles which Jesus did. And even John notes that Jesus did other signs which he did not describe in any detail. A little later in chapter 2 (v. 23), John says that “… when [Jesus] was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing”. And in chapter 3, John records that a Jewish religious leader named Nicodemus said to Jesus (v. 2): “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him”. Both of these took place before John describes what he calls Jesus’ second sign in chapter 4. Likewise, in chapter 6, John notes that (v. 2): “… a large crowd was following [Jesus], because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick”.
Why then have Bible scholars made such a big deal about John describing these seven signs or miracles? Much of it no doubt has to do with the number seven, a number which does have significance in some biblical writings, suggesting perfection or completion. The fact that John also includes seven statements by Jesus of the formula “I am …” – “I am the bread of life”, “I am the light of the world”, etc. – only adds to the perceived significance, although once again John doesn’t make anything of, or even mention, having included seven of these statements. And the fact that John did write another book much later in which the number seven does have great significance – the Book of Revelation with its seven churches, seven lampstands, seven seals, seven plagues and so on – has probably led some to believe that he must also have intentionally chosen seven signs for his gospel.
Some scholars and theologians go so far as to use the seven signs as evidence of what they call a new creation theology in John’s gospel. Just as Genesis begins with “In the beginning…” and an account of creation, so John’s gospel begins with “In the beginning…” and an account, though much briefer, of creation. They thus extrapolate that the seven signs correspond to the week of creation, and then the resurrection of Jesus is an eighth sign signifying a new week and therefore a new creation. Whatever we might think of certain parts of this theory, it is true that Jesus referred to his future resurrection as a sign. We find this in John’s gospel later in this same chapter two, when Jesus cleanses the temple of the money-changers and those selling animals and birds for sacrifices. This prompts the Jews to demand of him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?”, to which Jesus answers, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”, referring to his future death and resurrection (2:18-19).
In any event, John must have chosen the seven signs rather deliberately as ones which he felt would lead the readers of his gospel to – as he said in his own words – “believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God”.
But John includes in his gospel much more than just the miraculous signs done by Jesus. He also includes some interesting conversations which Jesus had with all sorts of people, such as with the aforementioned Nicodemus, and with a Samaritan woman with a colorful history, and with another woman caught in the very act of adultery. These encounters, just like the encounters involving miracles, also reveal much about Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, and the purpose of his ministry on earth. Therefore, we will also consider these as part of our sermon series.
Permit me to make one final note on the context before we consider this, the first of Jesus’ signs. The text begins with the words “on the third day”. On the third day of what? The third day of the week? The third day of the month? No, the obvious meaning in the context is “on the third day” after what came immediately before, which if we turn back to chapter 1 we will see was the calling of Philip and Nathanael as disciples, which in turn took place just one day after the calling of Simon Peter and Andrew. In other words, Jesus has just called together his band of followers, and they no doubt still have a lot of questions about who he is. They are intrigued by this strange teacher who could tell Nathanael that he knew where he was – under the fig tree – when he couldn’t physically see him. But Jesus has already warned them that “You will see greater things than these”.
What they are about to witness is, in fact, a “greater thing” which is going to have a profound impact on them and on how they view Jesus.
Let’s begin by reading the first five verses of John chapter 2:
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.”
A wedding is a happy time; it is a celebration. It is an event which in our own days is usually painstakingly planned so that all goes well. Nobody wants surprises, or mistakes, at their wedding.
I don’t suppose that it was all that different two thousand years ago in Galilee. And yet in this case, something goes awry, terribly awry.
The wedding described here was a celebration gone wrong. It was a celebration gone wrong.
It wasn’t because the groom got cold feet and didn’t show up, or because the bride fainted, or because someone in the audience stood to speak when the minister said, “if anyone can show just cause why this couple cannot lawfully be joined together in matrimony…”.
No, it was because they ran out of wine. Now in the United States of America in the year 2020, I don’t suppose anyone would get too bent out of shape about the wine running out at a wedding. We might make a little joke about it, or say something reassuring like, “Now that doesn’t matter one little bit; they’re still man and wife, after all”.
But in first-century Jewish Palestine, running out of wine at a wedding was a huge faux pas, an incredible blunder, a disaster really. In that culture and that day, a wedding feast was an incredibly important event in the life of a person, his or her entire family, and even his or her entire village. It was a public event which signified not only the joining of husband and wife, but of two families. And it was the family of the groom which was primarily responsible, hosting the celebration in their own home and providing food and drink for all of the guests over several days.
To run out of wine at a wedding feast would have been humiliating to the groom’s family, indicating an inability or an unwillingness to follow social etiquette and fulfill an expected societal responsibility. Remember, this was a culture which valued hospitality above nearly everything else. Running out of wine at such an important celebration would have been a social catastrophe that would have severely damaged the family’s reputation for years to come.
The celebration has gone wrong; the wine has run out. This really was none of Jesus’ business, nor Mary’s, but she decides that they ought to do something about it. And so what we have next is a mother’s request. A mother’s request.
Verse 3 tells us quite simply: “When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine’.”
Now why would Mary say this to Jesus? Remember that at this point, Jesus has apparently not done any miracles. Yet it is clear from Mary’s subsequent instruction to the servants to “Do whatever he tells you” that she is expecting him to do something, and that something is clearly not making a run to the nearest Binny’s.
Why do you suppose that Mary seemed to have such confidence in Jesus taking care of the problem? Maybe once when he was a boy, she gave him some water to drink, and he turned it into Kool-Aid?
There are actually several apocryphal stories of the boy Jesus doing miraculous signs. There is one about him as a five-year-old, forming 12 sparrows out of clay – on the Sabbath, no less – and when confronted by Joseph about it, he claps his hands together and tells the sparrows to fly away, which they do. Likewise, there is another from when he was seven and he and some other boys were forming various kinds of animals and birds out of clay, and Jesus makes the animals to walk and the birds to fly and gives them food and drink which they consume; in that case, the other boys’ fathers subsequently prohibited their sons from playing any more with Jesus. There is another story of him making clay birds and breathing life into them which even made it into the Quran (5:110). Not surprisingly, many of these stories foreshadow his later miracles as an adult, such as healing a sick child or restoring a man’s foot which had been accidentally cut off or producing an entire feast out of a single grain. The main difference is that the boy Jesus in these accounts can at times be a bit mischievous or even malevolent, such as when he strikes people dead.
Note that even the earliest of these fanciful stories is dated many years after the writings in our New Testament, and there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that there is any truth to them. Therefore, Mary’s reason for having confidence in Jesus’ ability to do something miraculous in response to the wine running out at the wedding must have come from something else.
Mary may not yet have witnessed Jesus do any miracles, but she did have very personal knowledge of who he was. She knew firsthand of his miraculous conception, and had the revelation given to her by the angel Gabriel, and had heard the prophecies made by Simeon and Anna, and had pondered twelve-year-old Jesus’ staying behind at the Temple in Jerusalem, which he called his “Father’s house”. More recently, she no doubt had heard about what John the Baptist had said of her firstborn son, calling him the Lamb of God and the Son of God, and also of the testimony from heaven itself in the form of a dove and a voice which said, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased”.
Mary had treasured up all these things and probably many more over the past thirty years. More than any other human being on earth, she knew in her heart that Jesus was God’s own son. He may not yet have performed a miracle, but she surely knew that he could and that he would, when the time was right. And I would submit that although the text does not tell us, that it was the Holy Spirit himself who prompted Mary at this moment to make her request, not in the form of a demand or petition, but a simple statement: “They have no wine”.
Jesus’ response to Mary’s request likely strikes us as unusual if not jarring. Verse 4 tells us: “And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.’”
This sounds very much like a rebuke. And in at least one sense, that’s what it was: a rebuke. A son’s rebuke.
By calling his mother “Woman”, it also sounds disrespectful. But was it?
The term translated “Woman” here is the same form of address Jesus used later with the woman at the well (John 4:21), with the woman caught in adultery (John 8:10), and with Mary Magdalene at the tomb (John 20:15). We therefore should not view it as harsh in any way. In fact, Jesus used the same term when from the cross he addressed Mary and John with these words: “Woman, behold, your son!” and “Behold, your mother!” (John 19:26-27)
Still, while it was in no way a disrespectful way to speak to a woman, it was a strange way to address one’s own mother. Perhaps this was Jesus’ way to indicate that when it came to his ministry and his mission, she was just like all other women, indeed all other human beings. That is, she was just a sinful human person in need of repentance and salvation just like all others. It was a bit like the time later when Mary and Jesus’ brothers tried to come to see him, and Jesus said, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it” (Luke 8:19-21).
The Roman Catholic Church, by the way, interprets these verses in John in a very different way which leads to the opposite conclusion: rather than Mary being just a normal person like the rest of us, she is special, exalted. Using the new creation theology I noted before, they make the argument that John’s gospel must be interpreted against the backdrop of the creation story. When Jesus called his mother “Woman”, he was comparing her to the “woman” of the creation story. That is, Mary is the new Eve, and when we read the prophecy told about the serpent and Eve in Genesis 3:15 – “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” – we should identify Mary as the woman through whom the prophecy is fulfilled.
We might go along with this view up to this point, but the Catholic interpretation goes on to say that just as Mary was the first to notice the problem of the wine at the wedding and bring it to Jesus’ attention, she is the mediator who notes our needs and intercedes for us. Pope John Paul II, in his Redemptoris Mater published in 1987, wrote that the account of the wedding scene at Cana exemplifies “Mary’s solicitude for human beings, her coming to them in the wide variety of their wants and needs … it has a symbolic value: this coming to the aid of human needs means, at the same time, bringing those needs within the radius of Christ’s messianic mission and salvific power … Mary places herself between her Son and mankind in the reality of their wants, needs and sufferings … she acts as a mediatrix not as an outsider, but in her position as mother .. [h]er mediation is … in the nature of intercession …”. We would, of course, entirely reject the notion that this account by John points to any kind of mediatory role of Mary in our relationship to God. In the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 2:5: “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”.
But let’s go back to the question of the rebuke, or supposed rebuke. Note that Mary does not appear to take it as a rejection; instead, she tells the servants, “Do whatever he tells you”. In addition, as we will now see, Jesus will do just as Mary has requested, and will in fact go above and beyond what even she must have imagined.
The scene is set. Mary is convinced that Jesus will do something to fix the problem. And Jesus doesn’t disappoint. We pick up in verse 6:
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.”
If you read different commentaries about this account you will find a wide variety of opinions about why John included it. Some surmise that it is to show us that Jesus is concerned even about the everyday things or seemingly unimportant things of life. Others say that it is to demonstrate that God can take something ordinary and make it into something powerful, such as he will later do by taking ordinary people – the disciples and his other followers, both male and female – and making them into great witnesses of the Lord. Still others say that by turning water into wine, and the best wine at that, Jesus was showing how if we turn to God he will turn our dull, boring life into one which is exciting and dynamic, the best it could possibly be. And then there are those who say that the fact that it took place at a wedding was to point to Jesus’ role in drawing people unto God for the ultimate wedding celebration, that of Christ and his bride, the Church.
I don’t think that John’s purpose, or at least primary purpose, was any of these. I think that his purpose was much more straightforward. But to explain, we need to take a quick detour. We need to take a trip back to our high school days.
[show (and describe) H2O molecule] Does anyone know what this is?
Yes, that’s right, this is a model of a water molecule – one oxygen atom bound to two hydrogen atoms – H2O. Without this, there would not be life on earth. Some of you look lost already, but try to stay with me.
To appreciate what Jesus did, we need a lesson in chemistry. We need a lesson in chemistry.
[show glass of water] If I were to give this glass of water to you and ask you to turn it into ice, could you do that?
Yes, of course, you could. It would be especially easy on a day like today; you could just set it outside for a while and it would turn to ice.
Do you know what a molecule of ice looks like?
Looks familiar, doesn’t it? It’s exactly the same as a water molecule. Changing water into ice doesn’t change its nature, only its form.
Likewise, if I were to ask you to turn this glass of water into steam, could you do that?
Yes, of course; you could go over there to the kitchen and dump it into a pot and set it to boil on the stove.
Do you know what a molecule of steam looks like?
That’s right, it’s no different than the molecules of water and ice. Changing water into steam doesn’t change its nature, only its form.
But if I were to ask you to turn this glass of water into wine, could you do that?
A typical wine might contain about 86% water; that part you could do. But what about the other 14%?
Take a look at this one. It looks a little bit like a cross between a dachshund and a giraffe. Other than water, this is the most prevalent substance in wine and in most alcoholic drinks. It is ethyl alcohol, or ethanol. It’s what gives you that ‘buzz’ if you drink too much alcohol.
Now, do you see any problems in trying to turn this [H20 molecule] into this [ethanol molecule]?
You’d have a lot of problems, because ethanol contains carbon – these two black spheres in the model – and more specifically, hydrocarbons, or carbon bonded to hydrogen. That’s what makes this an organic compound, as opposed to an inorganic compound like water.
Do you think that you’d have much luck making wine out of a rock? Or beer out of sand? No, you need to begin with something organic, something living, like grapes or barley. That is, you or I would need to begin with something living; Jesus, however, doesn’t. He doesn’t need grapes on a vine in order to make wine. Maybe this gives some additional meaning to one his later “I am” statements in John’s gospel: “I am the vine; you are the branches” (John 15:5).
And, of course, wine is more than just water and ethanol. There are from 800 to 1,000 different compounds in wine, nearly all of them organic and most of them much more complicated in their molecular structure than ethanol. In fact, they are so complicated that I couldn’t make them with Emily’s molecular model set because there aren’t enough pieces. If you can’t make ethanol out of water, you’re not going to be able to make any of them, either.
We use words like create and creative rather loosely. A mother gives her child some play-dough, the child shapes it into a dog or cat or house, and the mother exclaims “how creative you are!” She might even post a picture on social media and brag “look what my little Johnny created!” But when Jesus turned water into wine, he was performing a creative act in its fullest, most literal, sense. He was performing a creative act.
John began his gospel with these words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” In other words, John began his gospel by attributing the power of creation to Jesus, God incarnate. Therefore, when it comes time for John to select which miracles or signs to include in his gospel, it makes perfect sense for him to choose as the first one a miracle which demonstrates Jesus’ creative power.
Water to ice? That’s nice. But water to wine? That’s divine!
You can’t turn this [H20 molecule] into this [ethanol molecule]. I can’t turn this [H20 molecule] into this [ethanol molecule]. But Jesus can turn this [H20 molecule] into this [ethanol molecule]. That is why what took place at that otherwise obscure wedding in Cana of Galilee two thousand years ago was significant. It demonstrated in a very real and powerful way the divine nature of Jesus.
Let us conclude by considering the results of Jesus’miracle, and especially the response of the people who witnessed it. Verses 9-11 read as follows:
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.
Other than Mary and Jesus’ disciples, the only ones who knew what had happened were the servants. We can only imagine their astonishment and wonder. They are astonished observers. The servants, and no doubt the disciples, too, are astonished observers.
The servants knew that they had filled the six jars with water, most likely transporting the water from a well and pouring it into the jars. Each jar held from 20 to 30 gallons, making 120 to 180 gallons in all. How had all that water turned into wine? When had it turned into wine?
It must have been sometime between the point when they poured it into the jars and when it was tasted by the master of the feast. But nothing had happened during that time which could have turned it into wine. The only thing which could explain it, somehow, was the presence of this mysterious teacher named Jesus and his ragtag group of disciples.
The master of the feast was astonished, too. This, by the way, was a position of honor. Think of it as a cross between a wedding planner and a master of ceremonies. He presided over everything, including controlling the level of dilution of the wine in order to keep the guests from getting drunk.
The master of the feast is astonished not only because last he knew they had run out of wine – a huge problem for him – and now they had wine, but also because of the quality of the wine. He is so astonished that he calls over the bridegroom and says 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.”
John doesn’t provide us with the response of the bridegroom. But we can surmise that in addition to being astonished, he must have been extremely relieved. Jesus has just saved his skin, so to speak.
The disciples were among the astonished observers. But their response went beyond astonishment. John tells us very simply: “And his disciples believed in him”. They are astonished observers, but they are more than that, they are believing disciples. They are believing disciples.
Wait, you say, didn’t they already believe in him? At some level, yes, they must have believed in him enough to respond to his invitation to follow him. But remember, for some or perhaps all of them, that invitation had come just a few days before. And Jesus apparently hadn’t done any miracles yet.
But as we noted before, he had warned them. “You will see greater things than these”, he had told them. And now having witnessed a “greater thing”, their level of belief in him increased significantly. For John, it was enough to say that it was at this moment that they believed in him.
By the way, let’s not forget who John was. He was not only one of the twelve apostles, he was the one who was closest to Jesus on a personal level. If the apostles had gotten tattoos, John’s probably would have said: “John and Jesus, BFF” … best friends forever.
Because John writes about himself in the third person throughout his gospel, we sometimes forget that he witnessed and experienced the events described. When he wrote “And his disciples believed in him”, remember that he was one of those disciples. Likewise, when at the end of his gospel he wrote “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples”, remember that he was one of those disciples who witnessed those many other signs. When he wrote that these signs “are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God”, we could just as well read that these signs “were performed so that he, John, might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God”. And when he says “and that by believing you may have life in his name”, we can surmise that this was first true of John himself: “by believing he had life in Jesus’ name”.
As John’s fellow apostle Peter would write, referring especially to their being on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus: “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1:16).
John included this account of Jesus turning water into wine in his gospel because he wanted those who would later read it – and that includes us – to believe in Jesus, to believe that he is the Christ, the Son of God, and furthermore, that by believing we might have life in his name.
You probably don’t need Jesus to turn water into wine for you. If you think that you do, you may have other issues that we need to talk about.
But perhaps you do need Jesus to take the messed-up parts of your life and make them right again. Or to take that deep-seated feeling of loneliness, or inadequacy, or hopelessness, or anxiety, or fear, or shame, and to turn it into something else.
Mary, although not our mediator, does show us exactly how to go about it. After she made the need for wine known to Jesus, did she set about supervising him on how to do it? Did she say, “Now, Jesus, why don’t you have them fill those pots there with water, and then you can wave your hands over them or say some bit of hocus-pocus or stick your pinkie finger in them, and, voila, the water will turn into wine?”
No, Mary made the need known to Jesus and then stepped aside to let Jesus work.
When faced with a problem or a need beyond our capability to handle, how do we respond? Do we despair? Do we still try to deal with it ourselves? Or do we follow Mary’s example and make the need known to Jesus and then step aside to let him work?
May we let Jesus work in our lives. May we believe the signs which Jesus did in the presence of the disciples. May we believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And by believing, may we have life in his name.
