Sermon Tone Analysis

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; and both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding.

When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.”

And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does that have to do with us?

My hour has not yet come.”

His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.”

Now there were six stone waterpots set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing twenty or thirty gallons each.

Jesus said to them, “Fill the waterpots with water.”

So they filled them up to the brim.

And He said to them, “Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.”

So they took it to him.

When the headwaiter tasted the water which had become wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the headwaiter called the bridegroom, and said to him, “Every man serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk freely, then he serves the poorer wine; but you have kept the good wine until now.”

This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.

Context

We are going to be in John chapter 2 today.

As you are turning there I’m going to set up the context of this section.

John was the last gospel written and it was written John the son of Zebedee and he refers to himself as the disciple that Jesus loved.

John starts off Jesus ministry with a wedding.

Theologically this is symbolizing the new covenant and how the church is the bride of Christ.

We could spend hours just looking at the symbolization of the wine and blood of Christ and the wedding and the church.

I will touch a little on the symbolization but I’m going to concentrate on the text and what is happening here.

In chapter 1 of John we learn that Jesus has been baptized and John the Baptist has prophesied that Jesus is the Messiah and will take away the sins of the world.

Jesus has started gathering his disciples and according to John at the time of this wedding, he has John, Andrew, Peter, Phillip, and Nathanael.

Chapter 1 ends with Jesus in Bethsaida on the banks of the Jordan river and he is heading to Galilee and specifically Cana which is about 22 miles away.

So let us now go to John 2

3rd Day

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, Looking at verse 1 we see that it was the third day.

That would be the third day since Nathanael was introduced to Jesus (John 1:45).

Relationship

I think it’s important that we notice the wording here in verse 1 & 2 so we can establish the relationship Jesus has to the bride and groom.

Verses 1 & 2. And the mother of Jesus was there.

And both Jesus and His disciples were invited.

I believe that from this reading we can safely gather that Mary was close to these people, which will become even more obvious in a minute, but Jesus and His disciples were invited as a side note.

Kind of like saying “Yeah Mary your son and His friends can also come.”

Wedding Ceremony

Before we go any farther we need to make sure we understand what a wedding ceremony looked like.

Today if a man and woman get married there will be a wedding ceremony and then a reception.

Then the couple goes off on their honeymoon and all we had to invest in their marriage was a few hours of our time.

It wasn’t this way then.

In Genesis 29 we read of Jacob marrying Leah and discovering that it was not Rachel as he thought.

Let’s look at Genesis 29:21-22

Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife, for my time is completed, that I may go in to her.” Laban gathered all the men of the place and made a feast.

So we see that there was a large ceremony going on and in the next few verses we find out that the next morning Jacob realizes he married the wrong daughter.

He goes to Laban asking what have you done.

After the excuses are out of the way they strike up a deal and now let’s look at verse 27 Complete the week of this one and we will give you the other also.

The wedding was to last a week.

In the time of Jesus this was still the tradition a wedding would go anywhere from three days to a couple of weeks.

People would quit work and stay at the wedding the whole time.

Now the host was responsible for feeding and carrying for his guest.

To fail at this would bring a lifetime of shame to the family.

So now back in John 2:3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.”

Mary is concerned about the couple running out of wine.

This is what I was saying about her probably being close to the couple.

She is concerned about the family being shamed.

So she goes to her son Jesus and tells Him.

Deity

Jesus responds, “Woman, what does that have to do with us?

My hour has not yet come.”

The first thing that jumps at us is that Jesus calls Mary Woman.

That sounds harsh coming from the Son of God.

The same God that said honor your father and mother[1].

To understand why Jesus answered this way there are a few things we need to look at.

First what does,”My hour has not yet come” mean.

What Mary is asking for is a miracle.

A miracle can only be done by God or someone God has sent.

Let’s look at Exodus 7:8-11

8Now the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, 9“When Pharaoh speaks to you, saying, ‘Work a miracle,’ then you shall say to Aaron, ‘ Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent.’”

10So Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh, and thus they did just as the LORD had commanded; and Aaron threw his staff down before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent.

11Then Pharaoh also called for the wise men and the sorcerers, and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did the same with their secret arts.

Notice the magicians did not perform a miracle they used secret arts.

They used illusions and trickery.

There are a couple of shows on today with young magicians.

David Blaine and Criss Angel are two you may have heard of.

They do magic tricks that seem impossible.

Yet if you go online you can often find out exactly how they did it.

My daughter came home from school one day and she was so proud she learned a magic trick.

She had her mom pull a card out of the deck of cards, look at it, and she told her to put it back.

My daughter then went through the cards and handed my wife the card she had picked.

She turned to me and told me to pick one.

As I put the card back in the deck I rotated it, because she had rotated the deck so mine would be in upside down.All of this while distracting her so she wouldn’t see that I knew what she was doing.

She went through the deck trying to find the card because while she was trying to trick me by rotating the deck so the card would be turned the other way I tricked her by turning my card.

Magic is tricks and illusions but miracles are from God.

Even when Peter healed the cripple in Acts 3[2] He did it in the name of Jesus.

The same with Paul in Acts 16[3].

Miracles signify deity and Jesus hour to reveal to the world that He was sent by God had not yet come.

Separation

Now let’s look at why he called Mary woman.

We see Jesus say Woman and we think wow that’s kind of rude.

If I walked up to one of these pews and said, Woman, move over.”

She is going to think what a jerk, because we are used to hearing something more along the lines of, “excuse me ma’am, may I sit here.”

Let’s quickly look at other places Jesus uses the word woman.

In Matthew 15 a Canaanite woman came up to Jesus asking Jesus to remove a demon from her daughter.

In verse 28 Jesus says in praise of the woman’s faith “O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish.”

Or Luke 13:12 “Woman, you are freed from your sickness.”

The woman in caught in adultery “Woman, where are they?

Did no one condemn you?”[4]

All of these are spoken in compassion.

The last one I want to look at is as Jesus is on the cross he looks down and when Jesus then saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, “ Woman, behold, your son!”[5]

Woman is a title of respect like us Tennessee southerners would use ma’am.

Okay woman is a respectful title, but why is Jesus using it instead of mother.

Back to John 2 verse 4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does that have to do with us?