Jesus Changes Water Into Wine | John 2:1-12

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Welcome Morning friends. Morning welcome. My name's Alex. If you're visiting, I'm one of the pastors here. I'd love to meet you afterwards, so just take some mo moment. Come say hi. No pressure, but I'll be floating around. Would love just to connect with you really briefly to those of you watching online.

Hello. We are in a series on the Gospel of John, one of the biographies. Of Jesus' life. It's just this rich book with so many stories that just don't appear anywhere else. And so we've been tracking through chapter one. Now we're about to dip into chapter two. Last week, Angela shared the word with us.

She did an amazing job. It was a delight. Have her up there, although. I did spot one floor, and sadly as a lead pastor, sometimes you just have to correct people that have shared the teaching of the weeks. And so I notice this quote in the midst of a sermon. Those Brits do tend to have creative.

Spelling and so just felt that one as I sat there listening and just thought I just, that, that's fortunately really easy to clear up. So I just made a little shift to it and then we'll be good and we can move on with today's sermon. So those Brits do tend to have. Correct spelling. And there we go.

We just, we deal with it easily. And then we get back into the text. Just that simple. We we read at the start of this passage, Carolyn shared with us just beautifully and beautiful to have a on stage reading and third day a wedding took place. The passage today begins with the wedding.

Which is actually a beautiful gift to you and I in the 21st century because it takes two cultures that really couldn't be further apart and gives us a connection point. Suddenly we're talking about something in common. Our weddings may not look like their weddings, but they were similar in this.

They were normal and yet special parts of life. They were every day. They happened all the time, just as they do now, but there were moments in them that were distinct to the people taking part and the people gathering to watch. We have that in common. Our passage begins with a wedding. I think weddings are distinctly moments to remember.

You notice this when you talk to a whole group of people. You talk to them, and everyone, for the most part, remembers a wedding. Perhaps you remember your own wedding. Perhaps you remember a wedding of a child, a wedding of a grandchild, wedding of an aunt or uncle, wedding of a sister or brother.

But you have some memory. As soon as I start to begin weddings and talk about them being memorable, something. Begins to connect in synapses. Perhaps you have a picture that comes to mind. My own wedding to Laura was 16 years ago now. There we go. Look at that. Still got it. 16 years ago. It was on a cloudy Michigan day, one of those days that almost certainly leads to rain.

We were getting married in the park that we first sat and read Pride and Prejudice. Together we are that sickening, really romantic. I think it was my English, Mr. Darcy that sold it. That was the moment that I think she knew. As we're driving towards the wedding, there's drops of rain starting to fall on the car, and I remember getting out of the car with just a deep piece that this outdoor wedding was going to be okay.

As I stood waiting for Laura to arrive, I watched as half the sky was. Dark gray and the other half of the sky was bright blue and I watched as the wind moved, the gray acro across and I remember the moment she stepped out the car and there was just bright sunshine on this cloudy Michigan day all those years ago.

We, because weddings are so special, go to extraordinary length. To make sure that they happen and make sure that they are what they wanted, that we wanted them to be. The average wedding today in America, the average costs $36,000. We get spectacular venues so we can remember this wonderful moment. We spend inordinate amounts of money on food and photographers to make sure that the day goes off without a hitch, and notice that there is no charge there for a minister who kinda makes the wedding happen, but everything else is gonna work fine.

We do this because we want that picture perfect moment. And yet here is also the tension with weddings. Weddings can be. Moments to forget. They can be moments to forget. Everybody is a little bit on edge in case something goes wrong. I've spoken to hairstylists, to people that do photographs, and they'll tell me about the incredible emotional toll of doing someone's special day.

What if they run out of batteries? What if the camera stops working at that perfect moment? What if they lose? The photos, all of those different things. I have done many weddings and I have no idea why I do this, but I always take two suits. I don't know what I expect to happen to the first suit. It's never happened, whatever that thing might be.

But just in case I want to be prepared. 'cause I'm always just worried that something might happen. Something perhaps like this. Will you have Keith

to be your wedding? To live together in the covenant of marriage, but you love him, comfort him, honor, and keep him in sickness and in and for all others. Be faithful to him as long as you both shall live.

The rings please.

So I left it at this moment of tension as bride and minister, and I know you're all thinking about the bride. None of you're thinking about the poor past. That's about to fall into the water as well. At least if he's like me, brought a change of clothes, he's gonna be fine. But this speaks to that tension, right?

Fortunately, for those of you that are concerned that we're showing this person's poor, this suffering moment, this is not a real video. It's a movie that was filmed and claimed to be a real moment where a best man ruins the wedding. But it's these kind of moments, these moments that might happen in a wedding that will be remembered forever.

For all the wrong reasons, I think this passage begins. In this same way, our passage begins with a wedding, and immediately we're given clues that this is more than just a wedding. There's something to this thing that John wants us to capture. He begins by using this language on the third. Day Now, if you read a bunch of commentaries on John as I did for this sermon there's probably two main ideas that come along with that phrase, this on the third day.

There's actually a third one, which is some people think he just wrote it because it was the day after the day that they got to the town the wedding was in. But others see some kind of language that points either backwards. Or forwards, the wedding takes place on the third day, and John has just done a moment in chapter one where he pushes Jesus in his story all the way back to the beginning of the Bible, to the beginning of scripture.

He wants us to know that Jesus was there in the beginning. And so for some scholars, some writers, there's a curiosity. Is John still talking about Genesis? Is he still doing recreation narrative? What? What happened on the third day in the creation story? Then? God said, let the land produce vegetation, seed bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it according to their various kinds.

Is he showing that Jesus, just like he did in this first creation that John talks about, still has power over things like seed bearing plants, grape vines, all kinds of manner of things like that. O Others think John is pointing forwards to something that will come in Corinthians, Paul records Jesus' death and resurrection this way.

He was brought back to life on the third day as scriptures. Predictive. It's just a clue to us right now to watch out as we go. To know that the story may have more to it than what it seems on the surface. This is the challenge that will come to over and over again with John. When we talked about anger just a few weeks ago, we had a moment where Jesus talks about murder and then anger connected together.

And when he talks about anger, he lets us know, do not be angry. It's called an imperative that commands something to do, something to obey. And John has less of that. So as we read passages like this one, we'll ask questions like, God, what do you want us to take from this? What does it all mean? It can be harder work to get under the surface of these brilliant stories that John shares with us.

John shares on the third day, there was a wedding and it took place in Cana in Galilee. Almost everyone agrees in the scholarly world that, that Cana is probably Quebec kaa up just about eight miles north of the town of Nazareth is his modern day, Israel and Jordan, and so you can see it there.

The Blue Lake is the Lake of Galilee, and so Jesus is just a few miles from his hometown. And that makes sense because we read that not only is Jesus there, but his mother is there. In fact, she seems to be one of the people involved in making the wedding happen. Later we'll see her direct, some of the servants to make some of the things happen that need to happen.

But Jesus is invited and curiously to us in the 21st century, his di disciples had been invited to the wedding too. We can imagine how awkward that might be. If this was just a situation like today where someone is invited and just says, I brought 12 of my closest friends as well. Do you have space for them?

I remember attending a wedding some years ago where just one person turned up who wasn't actually invited, and the awkwardness of finding a seat for one person who wasn't supposed to be there. I think they put him on the children's table in the end, awkwardly seated on one small chair. But this is a situation where everyone would expect a rabbi as Jesus has become, to bring his disciples as well.

And so all of them end up in a wedding in Cana. It's interesting because we've seen Jesus start off in Jerusalem. You can imagine as he gathers his disciples that are excited about doing ministry with a rabbi who's at the heart of the spiritual world of the day, and then Jesus leaves and heads to Galilee.

A kind of back water area, a place no one really wanted to be for that kind of thing. And then more unusually, he goes even further out into the, into the country, into the wilderness, into the kinda out back water towns to begin his ministry. A wedding was like today centered around joy. It was a moment.

It was a moment to experience friends and family together. A wedding would often last seven days in this culture. People would stop work for seven days to join family and friends in celebrating and central to that as hard as it is to believe for the Baptists in the room. Was wine. There were all sorts of places that people would go in that Jewish world to just talk about how wine was central to that kind of thing.

This is Psalm 104. He makes, God makes the grass grow for the livestock and provides crops for man to cultivate, bringing forth food from the earth Wine. That gladdens the heart of man oil that makes his face to shine and bread that sustains his heart. Now the attitude to wine was good, but that comes with some definite caveats.

That doesn't mean the culture was like modern day America, or even more so modern day Britain that values, if it's honest. Drunkenness. In actual fact, there is a passage from the Talmud, a commentary written on the Jewish scriptures that says this drunkenness is a disgrace, but without wine, there is no joy.

The ceremony would be seven days of drinking wine watered down with water. That wasn't particularly strong, but they saw as being central. To a joyful experience at a wedding. So this speaks a little bit to some of our tensions. As followers of Jesus around wine, depending on the denomination background.

You came in, I was Pentecostal, where wine was definitely a no. All alcohol was a no-no. As a arrogant 19-year-old, I sat at my cousin's wedding and when they brought champagne, I asked if someone could bring me orange juice and made sure everybody saw me do it so no one would have any questions that I might be drinking anything.

Whereas if you are in a softball league, the Lutherans are known because that's where the beer is. You see a bullpen. Full of beer or something, at least to drink. We all have different attitudes towards this, but back in this day there was this suspicion, at least that wine was central to Joy. Some years ago, the brilliant photographer Marcus Al Bertie took a series of photos 'cause you wanted to capture some of this idea.

And at least the beauty of a cautious approach to wine from his perspective. So he asked his friends to come and take photos right after work. So they came and grabbed a photo, and then he gave them a glass of wine. And this was what it looked like.

This, I think as a picture form speaks to some of what the Jewish culture was around wine as certainly part of food and part of a celebration. It was an essential, and if it disappeared in the middle of a party like this, there were serious questions. So when we read in verse three when the wine was gone, we know that John wants us to know that something is up.

This ceremony, this wedding was around joy and wine was a part of that. And then without wine, there is no joy. There is shame. Running out of wine brought shame. This is a country environment, so this is exaggerated, in this time, less so today. There was nothing really to keep you busy.

These kind of stories lasted forever. They passed on from generation to generation. Now our culture is towards busyness. There is always something to do, even in rural places. We have things like the internet, we have YouTube, we have things to occupy ourself. But in this period of time. It was really like nothing to do.

We only have to go back about a hundred years to see a culture, something like this. One of my favorite writers is a guy called PG Woodhouse. He writes comedy, he writes fast. One of his heroes is a gentleman called Bertie Wor a rich socialite in about 1930s in London and New York, and occasionally he finds himself with friends staying in a country house, and they'll get into all sorts of situations that his butler GEs always gets him.

Out of. And so in one of these stories, his friend TPI English name, just go with it has got involved in a rugby match in a rural part of the country. All of the guys look like they're bl the blacksmith's older brother. And so Birdie records this as he is trying to get tapi out of this jam. You know how it is in these ro these remote rural districts?

Life tends to get a bit slow. There's nothing much to do in the long winter evenings, but listen to the radio and brood and what a tick your neighbor is. Things get remembered in these kind of societies and this. He's one of those. This moment where the wine ran out will be remembered forever. Every time another wedding happens in town, it will be remembered and they will talk about how one couple was unfortunate enough to go through this situation.

John presents this as a problem. A day of joy for this couple could turn in to a life of shame. This is the problem of the passage if you are like the tension of the passage. So verse three continues and Jesus' mother said to Himthey, have. No more wine. One of the questions you can ask whenever you look at a passage like this is you can begin by asking what does Jesus do?

That usually nudges us in the direction of where the action will be. What? What does Jesus do in this moment? How does he react to the situation? John loves difficult situations, and Jesus's actions are always like the focal point for us. Jesus is asked to prevent a social embarrassment. He is asked to prevent this couple experiencing, oh, enter their wedding.

That is shameful in their society of the day. Or you could phrase it this way, I guess Jesus is asked to restore joy. He's asked to bring joy back to the wedding, and at least to begin with, his answer doesn't look particularly positive. He addresses Mary, his mother as woman. How many of you here have young, have sons that have grown up that if they called you, woman would have serious views on that?

But in this culture the term isn't particularly insulting. It's like in today's language, calling someone Ma'am or my dear lady, or something like that. Something of that nature. Some scholars have said this, that in this moment Jesus is moving Mary from a mother son relationship into a discipleship relationship.

He's inviting him her into his discipleship community, but then he asks her a question, why do you involve me? Why do you involve me? This is an idiom that looks something like this. Why are you troubling me with that? What is that to us? Is this really a problem for us to get involved in and then throws another kind of conundrum?

My hour has not yet come. Jesus has been waiting to do something. So far. He's gathered disciples, but he hasn't taught anything. He hasn't acted at all. And we sit on the cusp of this ministry that will change the world and nothing has yet happened. And so when Mary prompts him to act. He says, it's not time.

I'm not ready for this yet, and I feel like between verse four and verse five, there's 30 years of unspoken relationship. In between the two, there's this moment where she asks and she says, nothing else. But she has 30 years of relationship with her son, so I suggest she must know something about him and something about his ability to deal with this problem in general.

And so the next verse seems to move quickly into action. His mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you. Hasn't promised to do anything as far as we're aware in the text he doesn't have the ability to do anything, but Mary seems to know something. About his ability to act in this situation. As far as we can tell from the text, Jesus acts on the request of Mary for no other reason in particular other than she asked him to act.

It's interesting because of the relationship between the Catholic church and the Protestant church, there's been a definite goal for the Protestant church to downplay Mary to nothing, and yet here. She definitely fills this role of this exemplary mediator, this one that will ask for something to be done in, in, in the place of someone who is in need.

In this passage, in need becomes an ask. An ask becomes an action. An action becomes a miracle, and it all starts with her being willing to ask. At the very least, this passage encourages me as someone who would pray for someone who would ask for an extraordinary thing who lives in a world as we all do.

That suggests that thing is impossible, that it can't be done. And yet what? What we read here is that in the moment of asking, when you are asking the God of the universe, the impossible is certainly. Possible. We read what happens after this ask, and it is just a simple ask and nothing more, no repetitiveness to it, just simply an ask for Jesus to do something.

And in verse six, we read nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by Jews for ceremonial washing. Just log that away in your data bank will come back to that at the end, each holding 20 to 30 gallons. That's a lot of water and will become as we'll read a lot of wine. And Jesus said to the servants, fill the jars with water.

So he filled them to the brim and I love this next part of it. 'cause he just simply says, without doing anything, nothing in the text that says he prays over it. Nothing that says, he pauses for a moment. Nothing that says he waves his hands over it, but just simply he says to them, fill it. And then he says, go and take it to the master of ceremonies.

Can you imagine being in the place of those servants? You've just put wine into these containers and now you're asked to take it posing as you've just put water in it and you're now asked to take it posing as wine. It's a faith statement for them too, and one that takes I think a lot of courage and then we come to the moment of the miracle in the text.

They did so in the master of the banquet, tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who would draw the water knew. It's an interesting miracle 'cause almost nobody knows that it's happened as far as we know. The couple don't know they're on the receiving end of it.

The guests don't know the master of ceremonies. No, just Jesus disciples, his mother and a couple of servants in on the beginning of Jesus ministry. It's a quiet, strange start to everything that Jesus will do in his lifetime. Then he calls the bridegroom aside and said, everyone brings out the choice wine first and the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink.

That's an interesting phrase because it suggests that this wedding has actually got a little over the top for a Jewish culture, but you have saved the best to last. You have saved the best to last. This is the story that we're presented with, and it all begins with Mary's ask. She is to follow like a proverbial saying, like the falling of small stones that starts at avalanche in the mountains, the timing of Jesus' ministry.

It has changed simply on the fact that she asked him to do something. The commentator, Francis Martin says this, what? What does Jesus ultimately do even more than his mother's request? Later, we are told she only does the Father. He only does the father's will. This suggests that the father was responsive to the needs of the situation, possibly adapting the course of the son's ministry.

When you listen to this story. I start to wonder whether God actually cares about some things that I assume he doesn't really care about. When I find myself in a particularly awkward, difficult situation, I actually feel that what I'm supposed to do is pretend that it's not that big a deal. I'm supposed to grow up.

It's the kind of thing that I tell my kids, just get over it. Don't worry what people will think. Don't worry what the stories will be, what people will say afterwards. And yet in this situation, it seems like we might be prompted to wonder about the fact that God does care when we're tempted or want to pray about things that seem like they don't particularly matter on the grand scheme of things.

It seems from this first story that might be just the sort of thing that God cares about. It seems like we can bring all sorts of things to God and he might act on that need, but. I think there's a warning here too, somewhere in this story. What do the couple get? They get a miracle. They get this significant moment where something happens.

They're provided with something rich and beautiful, and yet they never really acknowledge Jesus in the story at all. There sits the Messiah, the one they have been waiting for at the table with them, and nobody acknowledges. Jesus. They miss him all together. They miss the Messiah in the miracle he's there with them now.

Now that to me is fascinating because as much as they have this idea that wine would bring joy and Jesus creates a lot of wine, enough to last a significant period of time, eventually it will run out. But all of the stories of this people said, remember, there is a joy that will last forever. When we start to ask what does it all mean?

We have to press deeper into the story than just assume it's just about a wedding receiving wine. It's richer than that. It's deeper than that. Psalm 16 says this, you make known to me the path of life. You will fill me with joy in your presence with eternal pleasures at your right hand to Jesus. It seems joy isn't just about having.

Enough wine. It's about something else in this passage. So just a little bit further, let's push into it just a little bit longer. What Jesus did here in Cana we're told, this is John verse 11 was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory and his disciples believed in him. It's the fulfillment of what Angela talked about last week when the disciples start to follow Jesus.

Nathaniel specifically is told, you'll see glorious things. You'll see me in my moments of glory and this is it beginning to happen. It's the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory and his disciples believed in him. So what we're supposed to get from this, I think is more just that Jesus will do beautiful things like creating wine out of water, but he's trying to show us something about who he is and what he's doing.

We're supposed to catch something about his ministry from what's happening here. So a couple of things that stand out to me in that direction, and Jesus acts in this beautiful generosity. I, it's a rich offering. The wine there is lots of it and it's also the best wine. This is a kinda con conundrum.

You shouldn't have both together. This is a picture of the most expensive wine in the world. This wine here, the six bottles range from about $300,000 per bottle to about 550,000. Dollars per bottle. Why is it so expensive? Because it's high quality, but because it's rare as well. Jesus does something unusual.

He creates the best wine and then he makes so much of it. There is more than enough to go around. The amount of wine produced is enough for about 800 bottles of wine. Way more than a small country wedding would need. We just get a picture of God's extraordinary generosity. The God, as we might expect, produces more than enough free of charge on the house.

Just as grace comes in, the Jesus story as a whole, his generosity is seen in the quality and the quantity. Of the wine. But more than that, the wine is made from water that's kept in those ceremonial pots, something that was part of the old Jewish system. It was a rule, something that you had to do before you got married.

Something that you had to do before you had to, you eat, ate you. You had to wash yourself to keep yourself clean. And Jesus takes a symbol of the old way of doing things and says, you don't do things that way anymore. I'm creating a new world where those things aren't necessary and it's going to be created through something like turning water into wine.

John DHA says this. There is an implicit contrast between water used for Jewish purification rights and the wine given by Jesus. The former is characteristic of the old order. The latter is the new. There's a new story happening here, and this is the flow of it. In the end, it begins with an ask a need. It becomes an ask.

An ask becomes an action. An action becomes a miracle, and a miracle becomes a sign pointing us in the direction of Jesus, a request for help from Mary. It becomes a sign of Jesus glory. Somewhere in this, we're supposed to see what he's doing in new ways. That's what John ends with. His disciples believed in him because of this science.

This is what Tim Mackey has to say about this. John will make a claim that this fully human Jesus from Nazareth is the Messianic king and the teacher of Israel, and that he's the son of God who will die. For the sins of the world in just one chapter. And John has called Jesus a son of God. He's called him the Messiah.

He's called in the King of Israel. He's called him the Lamb of God. All sorts of things are statements about who John is now. That's a big claim to make through about someone, but John will support it through the stories of chapter two to 12. They will all follow the same basic pattern. Jesus performs a sign or makes a claim about his divine nature resulting in a misunderstanding or controversy, and in the end, people are forced to make a choice about who they think Jesus is.

This story looks like it's about the couple. It looks like it's about the need, and it is to a point. Those kind of things matter to God. And if you are in the midst of praying about something that's deep in your heart and you begin to wonder if God is listening, begin to wonder if there's an answer. Or maybe you are in the situation that the couple finds themselves that you have a deep need, that you are the one that is longing for others to pray for you.

There's a moment in your life. It seems like it's not supposed to be that way. Loved one who's sick, and you've gone past the point where everybody notices that they're sick. You've gone past the point where it feels like it's a big deal, but it's still a big deal to you, and you wonder whether God is interested in that kind of thing anymore.

This passage nudges us in the direction that nobody still is interested in those things, but the beauty of the passage is not. That the water is turned into wine. The beauty of the passage is that Jesus is present. 'cause this couple get a miracle. What about the couple that don't? The beautiful reminder to us is this, that God is present with you in the midst of that and that your church family is present with you in it too.

This is a reminder that those kind of things matter, but it also is on a broader level. This nudge to look towards Jesus. Jesus turns water into wine and says, this is about my kingdom. This new story and wine won't be mentioned again in John until chapter 19, and this is what it will say a later, knowing that everything had now been finished and so that the scripture would be fulfilled.

Jesus said, I am thirsty. A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of, put the sponge on a stalk of a hisa plant, and lifted it to Jesus lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said it is finished. And with that he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Somewhere in this story about wine is a point towards the savior. Whose blood represented through wine will be the thing that begins this whole new thing. Don, when looking for a miracle, miss the Messiah in the miracle, this is what this passage is about. The old has gone, the new has come, and everyone is invited.

There is more than enough to go around. And we get to come to this table and remind ourselves in all sorts of circumstances of God's goodness to us in this story and in Jesus' death and resurrection. Every time we do this, they get the privilege of looking from this direction and watching people come to this table and knowing those stories and knowing that some of you get to wander here easily leaping.

Full of joy and you get to come to this table and take the bread and the wine. Others of you come limping. You come with so much in your story right now that we might miss, come with the weight of life not looking like you feel like it should look. You come instead of with joy, with shame. And this table is for both people.

God's presence is here at it. But here's my suspicion in it. It's here for everyone, but very particularly for those of us who find ourselves at the lowest point, we come and we may experience a miracle here, but we will certainly experience Jesus here, the Messiah who turned water into wine. And said, this is about my kingdom.

The old is gone. The new has come, and the night that he was betrayed, Jesus gathered with his disciples and taken the bread. He handed it to each of them, said, this is my body broken for you. He also took the wine, said This is my blood shed for the sins of the well. As long as you gather together, do this in remembrance of me.

So Aaron is gonna sing this beautiful song. Worthy Is The Lamb. Take a moment before you come. It's just to acknowledge who Jesus is. Maybe you've never done that before and you get to ask, answer the question. Tim Mackey said, who is Jesus to you? And when you're ready, come to the table. Be thankful for the body and blood.

Of our savior. Jesus, we look to you in a moment as we pause. Thank you for all that you did. It's a simple act for you to turn water into wine, but when we think of what that wine represents, we think of the cost. It's greater than we can possibly imagine. Thank you for the cross. Thank you for the price you paid.

Thank you for the bearing of our shin and sin and shame. Thank you for the grace that comes to us. Free of charge on the house, no strings attached. Amen.