Something to Celebrate - John 2:1-12

Jesus turned water into wine, which unequivocally proves that it’s permissible for Christians to consume the occasional alcoholic beverage. Should I just close up the Bible and say ‘amen’ so we can all leave now?

Obviously, I’m kidding, but isn’t that typically why this portion of Scripture comes up in conversation? Maybe it’s just my conversations. Nevertheless, in my mind at least, the wedding at Cana is so frequently used as a proof text in the Christian alcohol debate we don’t even know the real point of this passage anymore. Why exactly did Jesus turn water into wine?

I recently had a conversation with someone who was trying to tell me that the miracles of Jesus were primarily for physical healing… who’s getting healed here? One of Christ’s more unusual miracles, and his first public one at that, is turning water into wine.

I guess Christ really wanted to shut down the tee-totalers once and for all, huh?

It really goes without saying that’s really not what’s in view here. The wine is anecdotal. It’s just there. The point of the passage has little to nothing to do with alcoholic consumption. That discussion is at a minimum secondary. So what is happening here? And what is here for us?

The Lord Jesus will restore all things, even the small things.

In order to see God work we must first take everything to him, second, we must submit to his will, and lastly, we will see his glory.

He turned water into wine to save a wedding celebration. Would it have been the greatest disaster in the history of the world if this wedding would have run out of wine? No! I’ll even go out on a limb and say a wedding somewhere has probably run out of wine.

Take everything to Christ (vv. 1-5).

Before we dive too deep into the text it’s important to simply appreciate the setting. Jesus is attending a marriage between a man and a woman and he’s there simply to rejoice and celebrate. He’s not really seeking the spotlight. Rather, he’s expressing approval for two people joining their lives together in marriage. I think it’s important that we all make this connection: Jesus’ presence at the wedding is approval of the marriage. This is God’s design! It’s glorious! It’s wonderful and deserves to be celebrated!

Chapter 2 begins with some timeline and geographical details. His ministry really begins in a more obscure part of the country: Galilee. He’s sort of revealing himself to more and more people. First, individuals, and now a wedding party.

But it doesn’t take long for John to inform us that Mary, the mother of Jesus, is at the wedding and involved to some degree or another. Because she’s the one that tells Jesus they’ve run out of wine. She actually says, “They have no wine.” This is DEFCON 1 for a party or celebration.

We all say that weddings are supposed to be all about the couple getting married, but we all know deep down it’s a reflection of the families as well. One of the greatest wedding stressors is making sure everyone there is having a good time.

This would explain Mary’s concern. Because many scholars think that Mary, and by default Jesus, was related to either the bride, groom, or maybe both. That would obviously shed light and explain Mary’s involvement and concern.

But in the grand scheme of things… How big of a deal is it to run out of wine? Some of you might be thinking, if they ran out it sounds like they didn’t need anymore. What’s the worst case scenario? People might have a slightly worse time because they had a little less wine?

Does this rise to the level of running breathlessly to Jesus? Yes it does.

I don’t know about you, but at least to me there seems to be an unspoken prayer hierarchy. There are certain things that rise to the level of prayer worthy - while other things aren’t. The loss of a job, a death in the family, depression, these are the sorts of things that are prayer worthy.

Impatience when your car refuses to start in the morning, or days when your kids misbehave - we just have to cope with stuff like this, because they’re not prayer worthy. These things are too small to pray for.

Sometimes when you're praying with a group of people you feel pressure to make sure your prayer request is sufficient.

And to be fair, there’s a time issue in play when we pray in groups, but we do this even in our private prayer lives. We believe there are some things that are too small to take to the Lord.

Running out of wine… is that really something worthy of taking to the Lord? It’s small. It’s insignificant. It really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

But when there’s something weighing on our hearts and minds and we refuse to take it to the Lord, we’re assuming either God won’t help us or He doesn’t care. Why do we assume that?

It’s not walking in the Spirit and living by faith to determine for God what He will deem as worthy. We’re answering questions on God’s behalf.

Have you ever had a conversation, where you ask someone a question and a spouse or relative answers for him or her? And it just comes across very inconsiderate and rude. What makes it rude is assuming that you know what someone else thinks.

That’s exactly what we’re doing when we’re burdened with something that we’ve determined is minor and therefore refuse to take it to the Lord in prayer.

Sometimes it really seems that Christian prayerlessness isn’t the result of thoughtlessness, but instead because we’re playing God. We think we know what he will do.

But the truth is we don’t know how God will respond to our prayers. Therefore, we should take everything great and small to our Lord.

This is precisely what Mary does, she goes to Jesus because the wine is running out!

And it’s here we see the graciousness of our Lord. When Mary tells Jesus about the wine crisis he doesn’t dismiss her.

Look at how he responds to her in verse 4. “Woman, what does this have to do with me?” His words might sound rough to our modern ears. But the term “woman” wasn’t Jesus treating his mother disrespectfully. In fact, most scholars believe that“ woman” was one of endearment.

Regardless, he says, “What does this have to do with me?” The fact that the wine has run out has no bearing on Jesus. It has absolutely nothing to do with him. She clearly wants him to intervene in some way because she knew only Jesus could fix it!

But she has no influence over how he conducts his ministry. If Jesus is going to do something it’s going to be according to God’s plan.

He says this. He tells her that “[his] hour has not yet come.” When Jesus refers to “my hour” it’s often a reference to the crucifixion. But it’s also a reference to the manner and timing of all the events that must take place and be fulfilled leading up to the cross of Calvary. So, the hour that Jesus was referring to was the exact moment where he would turn the water into wine. The exact moment. The moment when everyone knew the wine was completely out, that was when he would do something.

Jesus was going to act, he was going to do something miraculous, but not at the particular moment that Mary wanted him to.

How relatable is this? For the Christian, sometimes we have to wait on God. His timing isn’t always the timing we’d like.

We live in a world defined by instant gratification which makes waiting on God, spending days, weeks, months and years in prayer over the same things so difficult. But it’s through those seasons of prayer that our faith is strengthened. Because where else will you turn?

The Bible commentator Matthew Henry makes a great point in reference to this: “The delays of mercy are not to be construed [as] the denials of prayer.”

Just because the Lord’s “hour” isn’t on your timetable, doesn’t mean that God has rejected your prayers.

We must be willing to trust that the Lord is at work even if we don’t see anything happening. Especially if things aren’t happening on my timeline. We must be willing to submit to Christ and his timeline.

The more time you spend in prayer, the more you look for the hand of God in your life, the more you will see Him at work.

Submit to His Will (vv. 6-10).

And you see, the more time you spend in prayer, the more you look for the hand of God, the more you’ll be willing to submit to his will.

We really see this from Mary don’t we? Mary accepts what Jesus says. She doesn’t challenge him. She doesn’t say, “no, you’re wrong, I need your ‘hour’ to be right now.”

Instead, she graciously accepts his word, and puts the servants at the wedding on notice. She says, y’all need to watch and listen too.

And it’s at this point John records some interesting details about the water turning into wine. He records, “six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.”

These huge water jars were used for the Jewish rites of purification. These jars were used to ritually wash oneself prior to eating.

It’s not in the same way that we do it.

We wash our hands for sanitation purposes prior to eating. At least, you should wash your hands prior to eating.

But these washings were for religious purposes. There really wasn’t anything sanitary about what they were doing, because everyone was dipping their hands in the same jars.

The jars were there to ritualistically cleanse oneself. For the Jews, these jars were reminders that you’re unclean. You’re dirty in the sight of God. It really goes without saying that these jars would have had a negative connotation. You certainly wouldn’t be feeling good about yourself if every time you washed your hands you were reminded that you were spiritually unclean. You were reminded of your sinfulness every time you ate.

But Jesus changes all of that. He reverses the meaning associated with the jars. He turns the dirty water used for washing – the reminder of everyone’s sinfulness – into something that is associated with joy, happiness, pleasure. He turns a negative religious ritual into something associated with a celebration.

He’s saying, by the power and authority of God Almighty, your sins are forgiven. Amen!

Consider how he doesn’t allow the wedding festivities to continue as normal. It wasn’t just that Jesus replenished the wine so business could continue as usual. He elevates the celebration.

It’s not the same wine, it’s better wine. And the servants give it to the master of the feast, the sommelier if you will, and the quality of the wine blows him away.

Then he calls over the bridegroom and says, “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.”

The master of the feast thinks there was a mistake. Because they were supposed to serve the good wine first, and the poor wine last. But he assumes they had served the best wine last.

This is Jesus’s great opportunity to step in and say, “You’re welcome, I saved the wedding!” But he never does that. In fact, only a handful of people seem to know: Mary, the servants, and the disciples.

Isn’t this just broadly true for the Christian? Christ elevates life itself. Because a life in Christ and in submission to him is always better than a life apart from him.

No matter what you're going through or how bad it is, - union with Christ is always better. Life in submission to Christ is always worth it!

And you will see His glory (vv. 11-12).

And when you’re taking everything to the Lord, and in submission to his will, that’s where you’ll see his glory.

That’s what John records for us in verse 11. “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory.”

This was the first of his signs to ‘manifest his glory.’ In other words it was to make evident or obvious his glory.

Jesus didn’t perform miracles so that we’d be impressed with his compassion, kindness, and gentleness. Rather, he performed miracles in order to demonstrate that he was indeed the Son of God. That he had authority over all things.

His miracles displayed his deity. His divine nature. That he is in fact the Son of God and each one of us should put our faith and hope in him.

This sign, turning water into wine, was small in comparison to his other miracles, but it served his purpose - to manifest or display his glory. But everything was done in sequence leading to the cross. He had to fulfill all the laws demands. He had to live a perfect life.

That’s why Jesus could reveal himself fully at the very beginning of his ministry. Everything he did in his life was leading to the climatic moment on the cross. But he had to go to the cross at the appointed time.

When you look at this passage as a whole, you realize that it takes place at the very beginning of his ministry. In many ways, this was Jesus’ announcement. This was his coming on to the scene.

It was a transitional moment in redemptive history. This miracle symbolizes the transition from the old order associated with Moses (symbolized by the jars of water) to a new order, a New Covenant, a New Testament (symbolized by wine).

The coming of Jesus is something that is worthy of celebration. Because Jesus is going to make all things new. He’s going to restore all things. Isn’t that what we all long for? We all saw that terrible tragedy in Uvalde. Where’s the justice? Where is the peace? Christ is going to fix this world when he returns again. Restore perfect love. Restore perfect justice. Restore perfect peace. Isn’t that what we all long for?

For all of you that trust in Christ for your salvation, this is something to celebrate! He’s going to redeem this broken world.

One of Jesus' primary forms of argument that we’ll see throughout the gospel of John is an argument from the lesser to the greater. If he can do this small thing, he can do a big thing.

We see this point being made in our passage. If Jesus Christ can restore a wedding by turning water into wine, something seemingly small, he can certainly restore order to all things. He can certainly restore a fallen world into something beautiful. Come quickly Lord Jesus. Amen.