The Gospel of John: The Wedding at Cana 2:1 – 12

Here  we watch Jesus perform his first miracle, changing the water into wine at a wedding in Cana.

 This story is like a diamond, whereever you look there is something beautiful.

 There is a domestic disaster, a wedding without wine.

There is poignancy, when Jesus says to his mother, ‘My hour has not yet come’

There is a rebuke to a failed religious system

There is irony - the one who should know doesn’t know, but his servants do know.

There is a declaration about the abundance of this best wine

And it all rests on the glory of Jesus.

 Human drama

 At one level this is a story of a domestic drama and Jesus’ graciousness. Wine in a Jewish wedding must not run out. For those of you who are married, imagine the embarrassment if the wine or food had run out at your wedding. For the rest of your lives you would meet guests and as soon as you said ‘Good-bye’ they would say, ‘Do you remember – the wine ran out at their wedding’.

 That was the situation in Cana. Jesus is there. He and his disciples are guests. Jesus has no responsibility. But his mother comes up and asks him to do something. Jesus is her first-born son. That’s what mothers do with first born sons. They ask them to do things, and they expect something to happen.

 But now we have more drama, because Jesus seems a bit rude to his mother when he says, ‘What’s this got to do with me’, and behind that he is saying, ‘Woman, you don’t have any claim over me.’ Jesus will not take orders from his mother, only his father.

 There is a crisis. Someone thinks there is an answer to that crisis. Now it seems that’s not going to work out. But the mother doesn’t give up. Somehow she has understood that Jesus will do something for this poor couple’s wedding, so she talks to the servants.

 Let’s go to the kitchen. Here there is panic. The wine is finishing. Jesus comes in and tells the staff pouring water into these huge stone jars and they take it out to the master of the feast. The water has become wine. All is well.

 This is pure grace from Jesus. He didn’t mess up, the hosts did, they should have made sure there was enough wine. But even when we mess up and find ourselves in an impossible situation, Jesus is ready to act decisively. And. We are told that together there would have been over 200 litres. But that is who He is.

 But there is much more to this story than just Jesus helping out a wedding party.

 Poignancy

 We suspect that the story should be read at another level from v. 1 when the writer says, ‘On the third day, a wedding took place…’ The third day for any Christian reader did not just mean a day in the week, that meant the resurrection. Followed by a wedding. That takes us to heaven, the marriage of the Lamb and his bride, the church.

 We know for certain there is another level to this story when we come to Jesus’ reply to his mother in v. 4. She says, ‘The have no wine’, that means, Jesus do something to help. Jesus’s reply is enigmatic: ‘Oh woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come’.

 The writer is here telling us: reader, see more.

 The key word is ‘hour’. In this Gospel this word ‘hour’ comes seven times. Here, then in chapters 7 and 8 when the authorities can’t arrest Jesus, because ‘his hour had not yet come’. Then in Chapter 12 when Philip and Andrew bring the Greeks to Jesus. When Jesus sees the Greeks he says, ‘the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified’. Then in v.27 Jesus says he is upset about this hour. In chapters 13 and then 17 we are told that Jesus’ hour had come. It is clear what this hour is. It is Jesus’ suffering.

 So this is not a story about ordinary wine. This is a story about the wine that will flow from Jesus’ body. The wine is the blood of Christ. Every Christian knows this because of Holy Communion.

 This is poignant. It is emotional. Here we are at a wedding, there is excitement, dancing, joy – and there will be a wonderful wedding, on the third day, after the resurrection. But a great price has been paid for this celebration. The suffering of Jesus.

 There is more.

 The rebuke to the failed religious system

 ‘The wine has run out’. And sitting in the kitchen of the wedding hall are six water jars which were used for ceremonial washing. But they are useless, six is an incomplete number in the Bible. The wine has run out that is the reality for many people’s lives; and another reality is that religion has not helped. The Jewish people in Jesus’ day had no wine, and the Judaism of the Pharisees with all its ceremonial washing could not help. Here is the rebuke to outward ‘ceremonial washing’ answers to our spiritual poverty. It can’t help. And many of us – whether we come from a Christian background, Muslim background, or Hindu background – can testify to this. Religious rituals and ceremonies cannot supply the wine.

 So, the story is saying, move on from those religious rituals that have not helped you, invite Jesus into the story. After this story we have the temple, then Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, and the women at the well. Each story carries the same lesson. When Jesus comes, everything changes. New wine, new temple, new birth, new water…

 Irony

 When the water has become wine, the writer wants us to take note of something in v.9.  The man who should know where the wine has come from, the master of the banquet, does not know where it has come from; but the servants, who have no responsibility for knowing where the wine comes from, they do know. That is irony. Something that is the opposite of what you would expect.

 Why do the servants know? Because they obey. We are back to John the Baptist obeying and so receiving revelation; back to ‘Come and see’. See the emphasis on obedience. Mary says, ‘Do whatever he tells you’. That means obey, don’t ask questions. Jesus says, fill the jars to the brim – ‘so they filled them to the brim’.

Jesus says, ‘Take some to the master of the feast’, ‘They did so.’ Jesus says, they obey, to the utmost. As seen, when they filled the jars, they filled them to the brim. They obeyed as much as they could. That’s the sort of obedience that counts.

 Wisdom, insight, true knowledge, revelation is all about obedience in John’s Gospel, indeed in all the Bible. It is obedience which will bring about the unexpected.

 Human drama, poignancy, rebuke to religion, irony – what’s next in our diamond?

 An abundance of the best wine

 The story ends with the master of the feast having a private word with the groom, because it was the groom’s family that had financial responsibility for the wedding. ‘What you have done here is odd. Usually the hosts serve the good wine first, and then when everyone is a little merry, they serve the cheaper wine – because they won’t really care. But you have saved the best wine till now, after the good wine has been served.’

 And it’s a lot, in total just under 200 litres of wine. That speaks of abundance, it also speaks of Messianic times, for in the Old Testament we have prophecies in Amos, Joel and Isaiah of a time when mountains will drip with wine.

 There was good wine in the Old Testament, but it is not the best. There is only one place where the best wine can be found: at the cross of Jesus. Here the writer saw the blood and the water come out of the body of Christ (19:34). This is the best wine. The blood of Jesus shed for the sins of the whole world. Later this writer, the elder John, would write in his letter – ‘the blood of Jesus cleanses, purifies, us from all sin’. (1 John 1:7). Isn’t that the best wine? So, there is no longer any need to taste other wine, however good. For that wine will run out. The blood of Jesus, will never run out.

 The glory of Jesus

 In v.11 the writer then says that this was the first of his signs’. All miracles in John’s Gospel are called signs, emphasizing that the importance is not just the miracle – water into wine, the blind seeing, the dead raised – but what the sign points to. This sign clearly points to Jesus’ blood which will be shed when his hour comes.

 So we have the suffering. And then there is the connection to glory. It was through this sign that points to the suffering of Jesus that He showed his glory. And it is by taking in the significance of what happened on that cross, on seeing what the blood really is, it is this that engenders faith – so we have, ‘and his disciples put their faith in him.’ It is not enough just to see the sign, we have to follow the sign, and put our faith in Christ.

 After Jesus’ conversation with the master of the feast the dancing and singing would have continued. I am sure Jesus would have danced for at the end of the Christian story there is always joy. With some stories there is only tears and heart-break. We have that in the Christian story. We have good Friday. We have that wine. But that is not the end. The end is Sunday, ‘the third day’, the end is joy in the presence of God, the end is when Jesus drinks with us the wine in his kingdom. And there, as the bridegroom, he has responsibility for providing all the wine that is needed for joyful living.

 We will never forget Christ’s suffering, it is the foundation for our wedding feast, but it is with the wedding feast we will live, not the suffering. That is very different from a lot of other religions.

 I don’t know which of part of this diamond story speaks to you most, but I am sure one part of it does.

 Perhaps it is the fact that Jesus is gracious. He helps us when we don’t deserve his help.

 Perhaps it is the reality that religion by itself cannot help us

 Perhaps it is his willingness to face that hour of suffering for us

 Perhaps it is the irony that it is the servants who know

 Perhaps it is the certain fact that the blood of Jesus is the very best wine

 Or perhaps it is that glory that rests over Jesus’s suffering that means we will have eternal joy in heaven, drinking another wine.

After the wedding, Jesus starts a riot in the temple. Click here - 

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