Water into Wine - the Acts of Jesus

Introduction

In today’s passage, we see this great story of Jesus turning water into wine, and if you’ve been going to church long enough I’m sure you know this story quite well. There is a wedding, there is no wine, and Jesus does this great miracle of turning the water into wine.

But this story is more than just an amazing miracle. What’s unique about John’s gospel is that John doesn’t call Jesus’ miracles as miracles; he calls them signs. And the reason for that is because John wants to tell us that the miracles of Jesus function as a sign of something else - they point to a greater reality. The ultimate purpose of this miracle of Jesus, is not to show Jesus as someone who is powerful and supernatural, but to point to the greater reality of who Jesus is and the works He does. And importantly, if we look at John 2:11, we see John specifically points out that this is Jesus’ first sign.

So what does this miracle tells us about Jesus and what He is doing? To put it simply, it shows us that:

Jesus acts in His own time

Jesus acts in His own way

Jesus acts in a new way

Jesus acts in His own time

So firstly, Jesus acts in His own time. To know what that means, I think it’s helpful to explore the relationship Jesus had with his mother. What is the interaction that is happening between them in this chapter?

Read John 2:1–3 “On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.””

Jesus, his family, and his disciples have clearly been invited to a wedding. Weddings are a big deal today, but it was an even bigger deal 2000 years ago because weddings could last up to 1 week! And the bridegroom was expected to provide a feast and wine for the wedding, and it was expected to really impress the guests. It was so important that there be adequate supplies during the wedding that if the husband’s side did not provide the feast and wine for the wedding adequately, it brought a lot of shame on the families. There was a huge shame culture during that time, so to bring shame to one’s family’s name was something you want to avoid at all costs. And not only that, the husband’s family were actually liable to be sued by the wife’s family! So this situation of wine running out in this wedding was a complete disaster!

And Mary notices this lack of wine in the wedding and she says to Jesus ‘they have no wine.’ When Mary tells Jesus about the lack of wine in the wedding, it reflects a certain dependence on Jesus, and also a certain trust she had in her Son. She knew that Jesus could provide a solution so she presents this problem to Him. You could say she had confidence in Him, she had faith in Him.

But how does Jesus respond? Read John 2:4 “And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”” In John’s gospel, Jesus’ mother is never called by her name, Mary. In this wedding scene, Mary is described as ‘the mother of Jesus’ and Jesus addresses her as ‘Woman.’ John intentionally creates this distance and separation between Jesus and Mary. And this separation is even further emphasised when Jesus says to his own mother ‘Woman, what does this have to do with me?’ If you read the original Greek, it’s even more dramatic, because it literally reads ‘What is to me and to you?’, which is a Jewish idiom meaning ‘do we have anything in common at all?’. It is abrupt, and in essence Jesus is rebuking his own mother. I think if many of us talked back to our Korean parents like that when we were kids, we probably would have received a good smack.

But why is Jesus creating this separation? Because this is Jesus declaring that He is going to act in His own time and in His own way:

By creating this distance and separation between Himself and His mother, Jesus is demonstrating his identity is first and foremost, the Messiah, the Son of God, before he is Mary’s Son. His identity as the Messiah and his divine mission, takes priority over his earthly connections, even his family ties. And because of this, Jesus is not going to be manipulated by any human influence, or agenda, or advice. And because He is not going to be manipulated by any human influence, Jesus will act when He wills, not when anyone else wants it. He says in the second part of verse 4, ‘My hour has not yet come.’ Jesus will act according to God’s timetable, not the timetable of mankind.

Often in our own lives we pray for things and we desire things, but it seems as though God is not acting. But God is not idle, and it’s not that He is not listening to you. He is listening to you, and he deeply desires to help you. But He is acting in His own time. He is not someone who needs to listen to our advice; God knows what’s best for our lives and He knows when it’s best to give it to us. God acts sovereignly, in His own time, not according to our demands. We can’t manipulate God; God in His perfect wisdom and love, acts when He wants to, how He wants to, even though it may not make sense to us.

And Mary understood this. She comes to Jesus and she says ‘They have no wine’. She doesn’t come and say ‘They have no wine so do something about it’ demanding a solution. She comes and presents the problem, and then trusts and leaves it up to Jesus. She trusts in his ability, his timing, and how he will respond. Earlier we said that Mary had faith in Jesus, and this is ultimately demonstrated in her quick willingness to obey, as she says to the servants in John 2:5 “Do whatever he tells you.” She has faith in Jesus so much that she says to the servants ‘whatever he tells you to do, just do it.’ Her faith is coupled with obedience. So Mary shows us a helpful model of prayer: you come before God presenting your need, not demanding a specific solution with a specific agenda, trusting in Him in whatever the response and whenever it may be, and the willingness to obey.

When Mary approached Jesus as his mother and she was rebuked; but despite that, despite her not understanding exactly who Jesus was, despite her not understanding why Jesus rebuked her, she still had this persevering faith. She had a deep trust in Him, despite actions and circumstances she didn’t understand. And while she was rebuked when she came to Jesus as his mother, when she responded as a believer, her faith was honoured and rewarded, and Jesus performed a great miracle of turning water into wine, perfectly fulfilling her request.

Jesus acts in His own way

So Jesus acts in His own time in our lives, so when we pray we should trust in Him and in His timing. But Jesus doesn’t only act in His own time, but He also acts in His own way. What do I mean by that?

Frequently in John’s gospel, we see people interacting with Jesus making a request of Him, and they interact with Him on a purely human level. But every time, Jesus completely transcends and exceeds their request and expectation. Mary just wanted Jesus to provide more wine so that the bridegroom wouldn’t have to suffer the extreme shame the lack of wine would bring to him and his family and the possible threat to his marriage. But Jesus’s response and actions cannot be contained and limited by human requests and expectations. He acts completely in his own way. In this passage, He doesn’t just provide enough provide enough wine for the wedding, but he provides it abundantly. In John 2:6–7 “Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim.” The huge stone water jars were filled up to the brim. This was the equivalent of around 750L of wine, almost 1000 bottles by today’s standards!

But it’s not just the sheer quantity of the wine, but it’s also what Jesus is symbolically saying through this miracle. Wine in the OT is symbolic for a great banquet, a time of great celebration. It’s symbolic of the end-time when the final Kingdom of God will arrive, and all the promises of God to Israel will be fulfilled, and it is a time of abundant blessing. For example, in Amos 9:13–15 ““Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them,” says the Lord your God.”

Look how hopeful, how joyous, how happy this scene is shown in Amos! The freely flowing wine from the mountains represents the heavenly realities of God abundantly blessing his people at the end of time. It’s a beautiful promise God made to the Israelites, something that will happen at the end of human history. But what does it say in John 2:10 together “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 says to the the bridegroom, ‘why have you kept this amazing and good wine until now?’ But who is it that really provided the wine? Jesus! He turned the water into wine, and just as the master of the feast says in this verse, that good wine was saved up for a future time until now. The good wine is now truly here, in the present. What was just a promise in the Old Testament, Jesus has now fulfilled and given it to us now. In Jesus, all the promises and wonders and joys and blessings of the end-time Kingdom of God, the things God promised when he wraps up human history, has invaded into the present.

But in another sense, this prophecy from passages like Amos doesn’t seem like it’s really here right now. When we look at our own lives and the world around us today, we see something quite different to the utopian picture given in passages like Amos. We still see suffering, sadness, evil. We still have family problems, relationship breakdowns, financial problems, health problems, and even death in our lives. What we see and experience in our lives appears to be far different from the idyllic conditions described in Amos, what Jesus proclaims is already here. But what Jesus is showing us in this miracle, is that this new wine is just a taster of what is to come. Yes, God’s joyous end times did arrive in Jesus 2000 years ago, but it is still awaiting its final completion; there is still yet a true final day to come. It doesn’t come in one big bang, but it comes like a mustard seed that starts small, but gradually grows over time to become the biggest tree of all. So that helps us to make sense of the suffering and difficulties in our lives: yes, God began his amazing work of saving and redeeming and renewing all creation 2000 years ago, but the final renewal of this world is still awaiting its final completion. So while it means that until then, there is still suffering and difficulty, it also means God’s final ultimate blessings are accessible to us in the present. We have a final hope at the end of time, but just as Jesus gives us a taster of the final wine, we can already begin enjoying the end-time blessings today.

Jesus acts in a new way

And what is the main blessing of the end-times that Jesus communicates through this miracle? He is replacing the old with the new. I’ll explain what I mean.

In John 2:6, we see John describing 6 stone water jars that were used for purification. It the OT, there were a lot of laws concerning rituals and sacrifices, outward acts and ceremonial requirements that were needed to obtain forgiveness of sin but also ritual cleanness. They were needed so that the Israelites may be acceptable before God, and be part of God’s covenant community. It differentiated the Israelites from their surrounding nations as God’s chosen people. The Pharisees in Jesus’ day added even more rules and regulations to the existing laws of the OT, such as washing your hands in a specific way before eating a meal. The stone water jars here are symbolic of this entire system.

But how does John portray this entire system of rituals, sacrifices, and ceremonies? When Mary says ‘there is no wine’ about the wedding, what Jesus hears and sees is something more: there is no wine in Israel. There is no joy, there is no celebration, there is no life. All there was was an unquenched spiritual thirst and barrenness. These rituals and laws only provided outward cleansing rather than true inward cleansing. It only provided a temporary solution to sin, and these rituals had to be repeated over and over again because people continue to sin. And it did not provide true inward transformation that changes our desires to leave our sinful desires behind and love God and His commandments. The problem was, Judaism was ultimately a Christless religion. It was desperately pointing forward to something new, it was panting and thirsty for what Christ would bring.

When Christ changed the water into wine, He changed the water of Judaism into the new wine of Christianity. What Christ brought in was a permanent and perfect solution to our problem of sin and uncleanness. We no longer need repeated rituals and ceremonies, because these only leads to repeated sinning and legalism. Jesus brought in the new, where our sins are forgiven once and for all, we are permanently clean and part of God’s community, and Christ transforms our inner hearts so that our desires change, we leave sin behind, and we genuinely love God and what He commands of us.

This is what God had in mind for the end times - a time of great abundant overflowing joy and celebration symbolised by the wine in the OT, because through what Christ provides, we can be in the presence of God, love Him and praise Him, and God dwells in us and among us as His church, loves us and blesses us, so that we can finally fulfill what God intended for His creation back when He created Adam and Eve in the garden. And what was meant to be for the end of human history, Christ changed the water into wine in the middle of human history so that this great blessing, joy, celebration has now invaded into the present.

And how did he do this? He did this through the cross. When Jesus says ‘My hour has not yet come’, ‘the hour’ in John’s gospel refers to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. To provide a permanent solution to our plight of sin, change our hearts, and bring us true joy and happiness, Christ had to endure unimaginable suffering, humilation, and death. It is through the cross that Jesus gave us the wine of cel5ebration and forgiveness and true transformation. It is through the cross that we now live in this time where we can drink from the riches and depths of the wine of Christianity.

Conclusion

But we are surrounded by suffering and sorrow, and yet John tells us the time of celebration and joy is here now. How do we make sense of that? Timothy Keller puts it like this: while Jesus was at the wedding feast and was surrounded by joy, He was sitting there thinking about his death. Jesus sat in the midst of joy sipping on the cup of sorrow, because he knew he would die on the cross for us. And all this was so that we could sit in the midst of incredible sorrow and sip on the coming joy, in the present. That means theres always hope. Jesus acts in his own time, He acts in his own way, an abundant and unexpected way, and He acts in a new way through the cross that secures our future. We are no longer enslaved to sin and the law, but we are freed by grace as Christ drags in the new, the blessings and wonders of the end into the present, implants in us transforming faith, giving us true life.