Sermons by Dr. W. Marshall Davis
Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Rochester, PA

 

The Wedding Miracle

John 2:1-11

 

July 19, 2009

 

 

I have weddings on my mind. Today I will be giving my daughter away in marriage and also performing the ceremony. How many fathers of the bride get to do that? If that were not enough, next month I will be officiating at the wedding ceremony for my son and his wife in NH. They eloped last year but are having a religious ceremony and celebration with family and friends in August. So I have weddings on my mind. Therefore I decided that I would preach on a wedding today. A wedding that Jesus attended, and during which he made quite an impression on the wedding guests – so much so that here we are still talking about that wedding 2000 years later. I am going to explore this passage in John 2:1-11 under six headings.

 

1. First, the Wedding setting. Verses 1-2 “1 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding.” There has been a lot of fanciful speculation about this wedding, especially about who is getting married. Dan Brown, author of The DaVinci Code says that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were married and had a daughter. He got this idea from a book entitled The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln. That book says that this wedding in Cana of Galilee was actually Jesus and Mary Magdalene’s wedding. This is clearly not the case, which even a casual reading of the text shows. The bridegroom is one of the characters in the story in verses 9-10 and he is clearly not Jesus.

 

Whose wedding was this? The truth is we do not know because it doesn’t tell us. There are some hints. Jesus and his disciples (at this point only the five disciples called in chapter 1) are invited. Jesus’ mother Mary was there also, and she appears to have some say about the dinner arrangements. It is she who comes to Jesus and tells him they ran out of wine. Therefore many biblical scholars suggest that it was probably a relative or perhaps a close friend of Jesus’ family who was being married. We don’t know anything more than that. Jesus’ disciple Nathaniel, whom he just called to be a disciple the day before as recorded in the previous verses, is also from this town of Cana. Perhaps there is some kind of connection. Maybe it was one of Nathaniel’s family members getting married, and Nathaniel invites Jesus and his family and the other disciples. But we really don’t know, and it really doesn’t matter who was getting married or the gospel-writer John would have told us.

 

What is important is the symbolism of the setting. Jesus told lots of parables about weddings. He likened the Kingdom of God to a wedding, and that being invited to the Kingdom of heaven was like being invited to a wedding. This same gospel-writer John also wrote Revelation where he talks about the Wedding Supper of the Lamb, the union of Christ and his church at the second coming of Christ. He says in Revelation 19:9 “Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!’” So this wedding is more than just a wedding. It has overtones of the Messianic wedding banquet of the Kingdom of God. Therefore we need to pay attention to this aspect as we study this text.

 

2. Second is the Need of the family. Actually it is a crisis. Verse 3 “And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.” When you read this, please hear the urgency in Mary’s voice. It was a terrible thing to run out of wine at a wedding. They could not run down to the Wine and Spirits Shoppe to get some more bottles Merlot or Chablis. This was a family crisis that it is not easy for us in our society to comprehend. It would have been a disgrace for the groom’s family, who was responsible for the wedding feast. It would have cast a pall over the wedding festivities, which lasted not just for hours but for days. It would have strained family relations for years to come, beginning right here at the beginning of their marriage. It would have ruined the whole wedding.

 

We also have the symbolic nature of wine we have to keep in mind. Jesus would later talk about the message of the Kingdom as being new wine that could not be put into old wineskins. At the Last Supper he described wine as being the new covenant in his blood, which itself hearkened back to the wine of the Old Covenant of the Passover Meal and the blood of the Passover Lamb. This story of the wedding in Cana is about more than running out of something to drink.

3. This leads up to the Response of Jesus, which is the third point. Listen to how Jesus responds to Mary’s statement that they had run out of wine. Verse 4 “Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.” It almost sounds rude, doesn’t it? First we have to see that the address “Woman” is not really as callous as it appears. It is the same word Jesus uses to address his mother from the cross. It was not a term of disrespect like the sounds in English. It is more like calling her “ma’am.” It clearly is a more formal term than mother but not a disrespectful term. But what he says after that still sounds abrupt. “Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me?” It is like he is saying, “This is not my problem. It has nothing to do with me. It is none of my business.”

 

Then Jesus adds something that changes the whole story. It is the hinge and turning point of the story. Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.” Remember this is chapter 2, very early in Jesus’ ministry. He has not even called all twelve disciples yet. But here he is talking about “his hour.” What he means by this phrase is crystal clear by his later use of the term.” “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified.” (John 12:27) In Gethsemane he says “Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.” (John 12:27) At the Last Supper it says, “Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” At this wedding in Cana at the very beginning of his ministry Jesus was already thinking about the end of his earthly ministry. He knew that when he took the action (which he would do) of turning water to wine that it would change everything. It would set him apart and draw attention to him. It would be his first step toward the cross. I see echoes of Gethsemane here. I see the same type of struggle in Jesus heart as in the Garden when he pondered whether he should drink of the cup of his death. It is no accident that in both cases it is about drinking wine. Jesus has to make a decision now that is going to change his life.

 

Weddings change lives. They change the lives of the couple getting married. They change the lives of the families of the couple getting married in ways no one can conceive of at the time. The wedding usually means children will be forthcoming. Their children’s lives affect everyone. Weddings change lives. What Jesus does at this wedding will change lives.

 

4. Somehow Mary senses this. She hears what he says, looks into her son’s eyes, and says to the servants in verse 5 “Whatever He says to you, do it.” This is the fourth point - the Faith of Mary. Mary has no idea what Jesus has in mind, but she knows he will address the problem. Mary is an example for us. When we have a need, a crisis, a problem in our lives, our family, our church, all we have to do is lay the problem before Jesus, and he will take care of it. We do not have to tell him how to solve the problem. Too many of our prayers assume we know the answer to our problems and we want God to fix our lives the way we tell him to. That is not praying to God as Lord; that is treating God as our servant. God, our go-fer “go fer this, Lord, Go-fer that. Do this, do that.” Then we get upset if he does not do what we tell him to do in the way we tell him when we tell him. Mary trusts her son completely, and tells the servants to just trust and obey. “His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.”

 

5. Now we come to the Miracle of God, (the fifth point). Verses 6-10 “6 Now there were set there six waterpots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing twenty or thirty gallons apiece. 7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the waterpots with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 And He said to them, “Draw some out now, and take it to the master of the feast.” And they took it. 9 When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom. 10 And he said to him, “Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!”

 

I call the turning of the water into wine a miracle but the gospel calls it a sign. Verse 11 “This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee.” It is a significant difference in wording. When you call something a miracle you are focusing on the supernatural nature of the event. This is something that just doesn’t happen, but it did. But if we focus on the supernatural aspect we may miss the theological aspect. This is a sign. A sign is something that points to something else. In front of this building there is a sign that reads “First Baptist Church.” The sign is not the church; it points to the church. And I am not just talking about the building, which is commonly called a church, but also the community of believers in Christ that meets here. The sign itself is not important. It is what it points to that is important. We could spend time talking about turning the miracle of turning water into wine, but that is not what’s most important. It is what it points to that is important. The sign points to the person of Jesus Christ.

 

That is why we are not told whose wedding it is. The names of the bride or groom are not important. The name of Jesus is important. If we think this story is about a miracle we will miss its meaning. It is not about turning water into wine, it is about God turning people hearts to Jesus. It is about the transformation of people, not water. It is about how Jesus provides for our needs over and above what we can imagine. He filled six waterpots, each holding twenty or thirty gallons, with wine. This story is reminiscent of the feeding of the five thousand where Jesus fed crowds with only five loaves and two fish and they still had twelve baskets of food left over.  They had more wine at the end of the wedding than they had at the beginning. And it was the best wine. The master of the feast proclaims to the groom “Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!”

 

This story is all about Jesus. Cana is not his wedding, but it looks forward to that wedding of the Lamb in Revelation. The water that was wine at this wedding supper in Cana looks ahead to the wine that was his blood at the Last Supper. This family wedding banquet in Cana looks ahead to that messianic banquet when “many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” It may or may not have been a family member getting married in Cana, but the story is about the family of God. It is about those who when united with Christ in faith become members of Christ’s family. A union was taking place that day in Cana between a man and a woman, but it foreshadows a union between God and man accomplished by the atoning death of Christ.

 

Most of all, this miracle is about the love of Christ. Why did Jesus perform this miracle? If I were going to pick a miracle to start off Jesus’ messianic ministry it would be something big – not changing the chemical composition of some liquid. If I were his manager I would have opted for something spectacular to impress the judges on Israel’s Got Talent. Something like a big healing miracle or raising the dead or at least walking on water. But Jesus began his ministry almost clandestinely, with hardly anyone noticing what he did except the servants. Without hardly speaking a word, he turns water to wine. Why? Love. Jesus did this out of love. This was Jesus wedding gift to this couple. He did this so that this young couple would not look back on their wedding day as a disaster - the shameful day when they could not provide their guests basic refreshment. Instead it is remembered as the day Jesus “manifested his glory” with his first miracle. Think of the billions of weddings that have very been performed. This is the one we are still talking about 2000 years later. Jesus did this out of love for the couple and families involved. In doing this miracle Jesus revealed who he was as the Messiah and the Son of God.  This was the first step on the road that was going to lead to him being executed for claiming to be the Son of God. Jesus gave himself in love here and foreshadowed that great giving of himself in love on the cross.

 

6. The final point of this passage is the Result of the Miracle. Verse 11 “This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him.” The result of this miracle was that his disciples believed in him.  The result was faith. That is the point of all the signs in the Gospel of John and all the miracles of his ministry – that the divine glory that was his before the foundation of the world might be manifested so that people would come to place their faith in him as Lord and Savior. By faith in Christ comes salvation. Salvation is by the grace of God through placing our faith in Jesus Christ as the Messiah, the Son of God and our Savior. It is about transformed lives not transformed water. Salvation – the turning of lost into saved and sinners into saints - is the real wedding miracle.