Best for Last :: John 2:1-11
This was the first of his signs ... and his disciples believed in him.
The world loves signs. We are constantly looking for signs. When we see them we strain and crane to read them. We want to know what they mean. We want to believe what they have to say. Some are easy to read; some are hard. Some are ordinary; some extraordinary. Some need just one or two words to get their point across.
The Internet is filled with information about signs ... I didn’t know this, but did you know there are “scientifically proven” signs that you are in love? There are also pages upon pages providing us with signs of menopause and memory loss ... stroke and stress overload ... cancer and cardiovascular disease ... Alzheimer’s and anxiety.
We want to know the signs. We need to see the signs.
We want to know everything will be alright.
Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist knew this when he wrote his book of signs, which we call the Gospel According to John. He writes: These things are written in order that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the God, and that believing you will have life in his name.
This verse from chapter 20 is the golden thread of the Gospel according to John. Jesus did so many signs that I suppose even the whole world wouldn’t have room for the books that would be written about them.
In other words, we have all the signs you need right here, John says. The first of his signs that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, that his kingdom is come, that his will is always being done, giving us our daily bread in abundance, is right here in our reading today from John chapter 2.
Here ...
GOD TURNS SOMETHING ORDINARY INTO THE EXTRAORDINARY TO GIVE US A TRUE SIGN OF HIS WORK IN OUR LIVES
Just days after our Lord gave us an extraordinary display of the Trinity in Unity and the Unity in Trinity, our Lord walks out of the waters of baptism and enters a wedding feast. Jesus shows us again that we no longer need to purify ourselves, to set ourselves apart. He’s giving us our daily bread in abundance.
No longer do we have to rely on ourselves to make ourselves right with God; he’s begun his work among us ... purifying us ... bringing us back to repentance ... turning our water into wine ... and providing a feast of Biblical proportions that never ends.
John writes: A wedding took place in Cana of Galilee. Jesus, along with his mother and disciples, had been called to a wedding.
1. This account of an ordinary wedding becomes an extraordinary celebration.
Weddings were a big deal in Israel back then. Much bigger than we can imagine. And that is saying a lot given that the cost of an average wedding in America is now $34,000 ... just five grand less than the average annual salary here in St. Clair County.
However, even our best weddings pale in comparison to what Jesus is witnessing.
For starters, the parties in Jesus’ day lasted a week, and pretty much everyone was invited to join in the festivities! It’s not like the couple sent out handwritten invitations to only the chosen ones. They called everyone.
And so the feasting began and the wine began to flow.
Wine is more than just a festive beverage at weddings. It may seem ordinary in our time, but in the Old Testament, wine is an extraordinary sign of God’s grace ... It’s an extraordinary sign of joy and abundance, of blessings, and hope for the future. Wine is a sign of our future life together.
It takes a lot of time, loving care, and patience to prepare it. It’s something to enjoy to the fullest later in life. It’s a key element of the sumptuous feasts throughout scripture. Maybe you noticed that it was overflowing into our other readings. As Amos told us, the mountains will drip with sweet wine, and all the hills will flow with it.
Oh, how we long for that day.
But in our reading, something extraordinary has happened.
The wedding party ran out of wine. When it was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, they are out of wine! How embarrassing! You don't see this everyday! I wonder if she said it with shock ... whispering to Jesus, eyes wide. And Jesus said to her, Woman, what’s that to me and you? My hour has not yet come.
That might sound like a put off to you and me ... but it’s really just an extraordinary testament that Jesus knew he couldn’t and wouldn’t put off the time of his hour. His words are in fact a sign of the time for which he’d come into the world. He will turn something ordinary into the extraordinary.
We know that Mary knew that too. So she told the servants, do whatever he says.
Now there were six stone water jars according to the purification of the Jews, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.
And Jesus said, fill them. So they did.
Then Jesus said, Now draw some and give it to the master of the feast. And they did.
Then the master of the feast tasted the water that had become wine ... and he called to the groom and marveled he’d save the extraordinary for last ... everyone sets the good wine first, and when they have become drunken, they give ’em the lesser. But you have kept the good wine until now!
2. Do you hear how extraordinary this miracle is? Only a few saw it coming.
Studying this gospel, it’s clear that the Holy Spirit often inspired Saint John to use symbols as signs of deeper meanings. Those six stone jars seem to be such a symbol. Calling these jars is kind of an understatement. They’re more like barrels. The people used this water to purify themselves as part of the old covenant between God and his people Israel.
But now they stand empty, perhaps declaring just how empty the old covenant would be without a Messiah! What was once used for ritual washing is now giving way to the new wine of the Kingdom of God. What was once a sign of the old faith is now coming to an end and the new faith being birthed ... all in Jesus!
Jesus, in all his loving compassion, doesn’t skimp. He turns the ordinary into the extraordinary: He saves the best for last. At his word, he provides an extraordinary abundance of the best things of heaven, an extraordinary sign of the things to come. He turns water into wine. He reveals for us a transition from baptism to the Lord’s Supper. He shows us that old life is being replaced with new life in Christ.
3. It is quite an extraordinary sign through which a seemingly ordinary man manifests himself as the extraordinary Christ
Recall how Jesus first answered his mother (v 4). My hour has not yet come.
Jesus knew the cross loomed ahead of him ... that that would be his hour, his time when he would redeem the whole world from sin.
In his finest hour ... the hour of his ultimate epiphany ... our Lord will do something extraordinary ... living an otherwise ordinary life in extraordinary holiness ... carrying all of our ordinary burdens and sins, all of our pain and debt ... to his hour of passion, where he will silently ... without complaint ... be crucified while bearing the full wrath of God for all our failings.
How extraordinary is that? You have been forgiven and freed on account of Jesus!
While the world looks for the ordinary teachings from this man Jesus, God does the extraordinary ... bearing our sins to be our savior, and then overcoming sin and death by rising from the grave, and finally ascending into heaven where he has prepared an extraordinary place for you. More than that he makes you an heir of heaven in the process.
4. All of these promises are realized in ordinary means that provide extraordinary grace.
Jesus has chosen to reveal Himself in the signs of the proclaimed word ... the word combined with water in Holy Baptism, and the word combined with bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper. He has given these signs that look so ordinary to us as extraordinary gifts. Receive them as often as you can.
In Baptism, Jesus makes us his own. That’s extraordinary: You are heirs of heaven.
While the world treats baptism as something we do ordinarily for God, dedicating ourselves to God ... Jesus transforms it into something he does extraordinarily for us. By His promise and command, Jesus delivers the forgiveness of sins from the cross to you through baptism. You have been united with him in his death and resurrection (Rom 6:5). And this Baptism ... now saves you (1 Pet 3:21).
He then makes it a washing of regeneration (Titus 3:5). Before baptism, we were dead in sin, but through it, he re-creates us in the newness of life in Christ Jesus.
What an extraordinary sacrament it is.
In the same manner, the Lord’s Supper appears to be such an ordinary meal, simple bread and wine. But it is truly an extraordinary sign of our redemption in Jesus Christ. The miracle of Jesus’ true body and true blood under the elements of bread and wine reveals the mystery of our salvation in a blessed and holy sacramental union with Jesus. In a word, Jesus delivers to you His body and His blood into our mouths for the express purpose of delivering to you the forgiveness of sins (Matt 26:28).
The ordinary becomes extraordinary.
Through his first miracle ... indeed, through all his miracles ... Jesus manifested his glory and revealed to us a foretaste of what was to come: the restoration of our life in our God as it is meant to be. And now these extraordinary signs remind us that he is always with us ... at Cana, at Calvary, at the empty tomb, in the font, and on the altar. Jesus reveals that his life and death are ours ... that his body was given for us and his blood was shed for us for the forgiveness of our sins.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us now celebrate the extraordinary truth of all that is happening today. Jesus has given all these signs to us so that we may believe that He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God and that we might have life ... that we might be united with him, in him, into the ages.
To his glory and our good ... in his extraordinary name.