Miracles: Water to Wine
Miracles • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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We are going to look at the miracles of Jesus
There are a lot of them
In Fact John writes in his Gospel John 21:25 “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”
So every miracle that is recorded in the Gospels has a purpose for being there..
THere are reasons why Jesus’s mircales appear when they do, or alongside certain stories, or why certain miracles are described as happening together
Sometimes it was because they did happen together
Sometimes it was because the Authors of the Gospels were trying to make a point about Jesus.
Sometimes it was jesus trying to make a point about himself.
So over the next several weeks i want to look at the miracles of Jesus.
and what better place to start than the first of Jesus’s Miracles.
Water to Wine
What can we learn about Jesus from this first miracle?
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.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
It happens in Cana - a few miles from jesus’s hometown, so he likely knew the families.
He is already doing ministry, as his disciples are with him.
They are running out of wine.
This is BAD
weddings celebrations used to last about a week, since sometimes people had to travel from far away to get there, and then stay several days
the wine was supposed to last for the entire celebration.
If the wine runs out, it is shameful,
The Family didn’t prepare enough, or didn’t send someone to get more when the stock was running low.
In an Honor/Shame society this would be devastating.
So Mary tells Jesus to do something about it
Which means she knows he can
But he says to his mother My time has not yet come.
But somehow his mother convinces him
John 2:6–8 (ESV)
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. And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it.
THese stone jars were designed for people to be able to wash and become ritually pure
Normally these jars would be filled with running water (living water) and then because they were stone it was though no impurities could come into them.
clay jars would carry impurities, which meant they wouldn’t work for ritual purification.
So Jesus takes something that already has a purpose, and uses that purpose for his own means
when they fill up the jars they are collecting “pure living water”
Jesus takes that water and makes wine
150 gallons of it
enough to last for a few more days.
probably alcoholic.
And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “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.” This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.
It is not until the servants take the water, in faith to the Master of the Feast
the master of the Feast is a hired MC for the night, like a wedding DJ.
the Master of the Feast drinks it, stops the celebrations to note that the bridegroom is now serving the best wine last,
this was not common, as the master of the feast explains.
usual convention has the best wine served first, an then the cheap stuff once everybody has already had a bit to drink.
that convention helped people save money.
By breaking convention and now serving the best wine last it reflects on the family as an honorable gesture, an unexpected kindness
This family went from potential disaster,
the people who couldn’t afford enough wine for a wedding
to the gratuitous hosts, those who saved the best wine for last, honoring their guests.
So Jesus when you come to meet him he doesn’t just remove your sin and shame,
He provides extra honor and righteousness. more than enough, more than you would need.
Now this miracle isn;t really public, the only people who know a miracle has happened are Jesus, the Servants His mother, and His disciples.
It only appears in one of the four gospels.
and it says that this is when the disciples really started believing in Jesus.
This miracle told the disciples what to expect from jesus
and it’s telling in the book of John is to show us what to expect from his ministry
Did jesus only do this miracle to save some friends from shame?
No
This is at the beginning of Jesus’s Ministry
and he will use aspects of this miracle to describe his ministry.
The Wedding:
Perhaps most cleary in the Bible Jesus describes his relationship to the church as a Bride and Bride groom.
He tells parables about it, like the virgins who are waiting for the bridegroom to arrive so they can start the wedding celebration
THose that are ready join the party,
those that are not miss out
or the father throwing a wedding party for his son
Only for the original guests to say they were to busy
So he finds new guests to fill the house.
Then Paul writes about the Church being the Bride of Christ in Ephesians
and in Revelation the Church arrives in heaven to celebrate the wedding to Jesus, the Lamb of God
And Jesus uses wine often throughout his ministry.
it becomes a major symbol of communion, the last supper, and he says that the wine represents the new covenant in my blood.
But Jesus also plainly makes this comparison when questioned about why he does, or doesn’t do certain things.
Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.”
Jesus is presented with a question about why his disciples are doing things differently than everyone else.
and he says they are the guests of the Bridegroom
His ministry on earth was a time of celebration, not fasting.
But to explain why his way is different he describes it as something new,
and new patch on an old garment,
or new wine in old wineskins
His way does not work with all the rules and regulations of the Old Covenant.
It doesn’t fit the old way of thinking
Just as he used the purification jars, not for their old use, but for a new one.
this first miracle sets up what we are to expect from Jesus’s ministry:
His grace is more than enough, taking away shame and guilt and bestowing honor and righteousness.
He does this with the theif on the Cross
And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
The thief in faith goes from being a thief rightfully condemned to death to being with Jesus in heaven, not just forgiven but honored.
He has brought a time of Celebration, as the bridgroom, and the church is his bride.
how many times is the church described as the Bride of Christ?
Currently he is away, preparing a place for us.
Something a bridegroom would do,
the bridegroom could not bring his bride home and marry her until the place he was preparing for her was complete.
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
We are waiting for the true celebration to arrive
He is doing something new, something that does not fit with the old way of doing things.
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Jesus’s miracle of turning the water to wine helped show how he was ushering in the New Covenant.
He broke the patterns of the old Covenant,
taking jars meant for personal ritual cleansing
and using them for communal celebration
showing that rules and traditions had their place, but to truly worship God means to spend time with God, and to know God, intimately.
Writing the words of his law on our hearts rather than on tablets of stone
Changing our hearts to follow him, not regulating our lives through rules.
Giving us abounding grace where the law would have previously condemned us.
So Church if we want to follow and live like Jesus we should take a few key things from this Miracle.
Jesus want to know us deeply an intimately
and knowing him should be a celebration, not a chore.
How can we mourn while he is with us?
We should be very generous in our love for others.
Go above and beyond, give your very best.
Like the very best wine.
We should never get too caught up in our guilt and shame, and how good we are at doing the “right” things
Following Jesus doesn’t fit that framework,
his grace is more than enough to take away your sins, your failures, your shame, your disappointments.
In Christ, God doesn’t even remember your sins.
