John 2:1-11 - A Wedding to Remember

Pray

Intro

Turn with me to the beginning of John chapter 2 where Jesus proves the truth that he is the Christ by revealing his glory at a wedding to remember.

He reveals his glory in a very humble way and through the actions of others.

But he still shows his power over creation which produces faith in his disciples and faith in those of us who are reading this account so many years later.

Now, this is a rather short story.

It’s all one scene, so after we read it, we’re going to zoom in and look at it frame by frame.

We’re going to see Jesus’ humility as the Providential Problem unfolds.

Then we’re going to see Jesus using others to perform this miracle in his Strange Solution to the problem.

Then we’re going to see a miracle happen as Jesus provides a Glorious Gift to the bridegroom.

And we’re going to see John’s description of the Manifested Majesty of Jesus to his disciples.

And all of this will show how Jesus proves he is the Christ to his disciples and to us.

John 2:1–11 ESV

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.” 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. 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.

So, the opening frame here depicts…

Jesus’ Providential Problem (1-5)

Here, we see how Jesus proves he is the Christ by revealing his glory in a humble way.

Jesus and his disciples go to Cana of Galilee.

We might expect the first miracle of the Christ to be performed in some grandiose way…

to be seen by the most amount of people…

That way Jesus’ ministry would start off with a surge of followers.

But that’s not what happened.

We might expect Jesus to pick a more prominent place to perform his first miracle…

a place like Jerusalem.

But that’s thinking like Nathanael was thinking in the previous passage.

Remember, he said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

Because he expected the Messiah to come from a prominent place like Jerusalem.

But three days after Nathanael decided to follow Jesus, they all went to Cana of Galilee to attend a wedding.

Cana was a little backwater town near Nazareth and not too far from the Jordan River…

This was a very humble place to perform his first miracle.

Then a providential problem arose.

Jesus’ mother is helping out with the wedding feast, when she discovers a problem…

they ran out of wine.

If the bridegroom failed to adequately provide for the feast…

then the bride’s family could actually take them to court for failing to hold up their side of the marriage contract.

This was a huge problem, a breach of contract with severe legal consequences.

How could this problem be fixed?

Jesus’ mom could tell the master of the feast about the problem, and he could send someone with money to buy more wine…

But that would take way too much time…

And it would take the master of the feast away from entertaining the guests and the families.

No… she had to find another solution…

But of course! Her son, Jesus is here…

he can fix this problem because he’s the Son of God, the creator of everything.

Surely, he can just snap his fingers or something and everything will work out.

So, she approaches her son and simply tells him the problem, “They have no wine.”

This is like my daughter coming up to me and saying, “I’m bored!” or, “I’m hungry!”

It assumes understanding of the problem and willingness to fix it.

Jesus’ mother assumes his understanding of this problem and his willingness to fix it.

But his answer shows a reluctance to fix this problem.

He says, “Woman, what does this have to do with you and me?”

This is a Greek idiom that effectively distanced Jesus both from his mother and from the situation.

This is kind of like Jesus saying, “You can’t force me to reveal my glory just because you’re my mother… you can’t play the ‘Mom Card’ here.”

He also shows the reason for his reluctance to help when he says right after this, “My hour has not yet come.”

Jesus was still concealing his true identity as the Christ.

He didn’t want everyone to know that yet because it would hinder him from his mission.

His mission was not to come in his full glory to rule and reign over the earth… yet.

His mission at this time was to live a perfect life and suffer and die for sinners on the cross and then rise again to conquer sin and death.

For this mission he had to sort of hide his glory until the right time.

He had to remain anonymous by ministering in humble circumstances and only subtly revealing his glory.

Well, I imagine his mother sort of cocked one eyebrow and pursed her lips.

She thought this was a problem that still ought to be addressed by her son.

She knows Jesus… she has known him for over 30 years… she knows he’s going to help.

So, she turns to the servants and instructs them to do whatever he tells them to do.

And what he would tell them to do would sound very strange.

And he decided to help despite his initial reluctance because his Father had orchestrated this providential problem for a reason.

So that he could prove his identity as the Christ to his disciples.

We just saw the humble circumstances in which Jesus revealed his glory as the Providential Problem unfolded,

now let’s look at …

Jesus’ Strange Solution (6-8)

Here, we see how Jesus proves he is the Christ by revealing his glory through others.

So, there are these six water jars used for the purification rights.

The Jewish culture was really big on cleanliness, especially before eating and before important ceremonies… like a wedding.

And each of these six water jars could hold 20 or 30 gallons…

That’s 120-180 gallons total, for those who don’t want to do the math.

And Jesus tells the servants to fill all of these jars with water… all the way to the top.

That’s a lot of water.

Jesus… are you sure about this?

I mean… we need wine, not water…

And we need it for drinking, not washing!

This solution must have sounded very strange to these servants.

But they did what he told them to do anyway.

And these jars needed to be completely full of water to prove that this wasn’t just an illusion or sleight of hand.

Jesus could have found some really concentrated wine and added it to the jars to make it look like he did a miracle.

But he makes sure to eliminate that false claim even before it can be thought.

Then Jesus tells the servants to take some of this water to the master of the feast, the guy in charge.

Now these servants are sure that this Jesus guy has lost it.

Jesus… it’s still just water…

You want us to take this wash water and give it to the boss like it’s wine?

This sounds more like a practical joke than a real solution to this problem.

But the servants obey regardless of how strange this solution was because Jesus’ mother had told them to…

And if this didn’t work, they could just blame Jesus or his mom…

I mean, they were just following orders.

But Jesus did provide a real solution to this problem, and he did it through these servants.

Notice that Jesus never personally interacts with the jars or the water, at least not physically.

He tells the servants what to do, and the miracle is performed through these servants.

Just like Jesus included others when he performed this miracle, he also uses others to perform the miracle of salvation in the hearts of believers.

These servants got to participate in this miracle being done through their obedience.

And when we obediently preach the gospel to the world, we get to participate in the miracle of salvation when people believe in Jesus to be saved from sin and death.

These servants got to witness, firsthand, Jesus’ power over creation.

And we get to witness, firsthand, Jesus’ power over sin and death.

These servants did not have any power to change the water to wine, but they were obedient anyway and experienced Jesus’ power.

And we do not have any power to bring people from spiritual death to life, but when we obediently preach the gospel, we get to experience Jesus’ power as well.

It might sound like a strange solution, to just tell people a simple message that Jesus died for their sins and rose on the third day according to the Scriptures.

But this strange solution has real power because God is the one who is doing the miracle, not you, and not even the message itself.

We just saw how Jesus humbly used others to reveal his glory, now let’s look at the result of this Strange Solution in…

Jesus’ Glorious Gift (9-10)

Here, we see how Jesus proves he is the Christ by revealing his glory in his power over creation.

The master of the feast is given the cup full of wash water that the servants drew from the jars, but it’s not wash water any more…

it’s been turned into amazing wine.

Some time between the drawing of the water and the cup touching the lips of the master of the feast, Jesus transformed it into a glorious gift…

the very thing that was needed to fix this providential problem.

I’m sure this was just a run-of-the-mill occurrence, right?

This kind of thing happens every day…

NO… THIS IS HUGE!!!!

Nothing like this had ever happened before… at least not in this generation.

Something similar had happened in Israel’s past.

When God was freeing them from Egyptian slavery, one of the judgments was turning all the water in Egypt into blood in Exodus chapter 7.

And after God had rescued them from the Egyptian army passing them through the Red Sea on dry land, the people were thirsty, but the only water around was bitter, unfit for drinking.

Exodus 15:24–25 “And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. There the Lord made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them,”

To a Jewish audience, or those familiar with the story of the Exodus, this miracle Jesus just did would have confirmed that he is God because God had shown his power this way before.

He’s the creator of everything, and Jesus used his creative power to prove that he’s God, to prove that he’s the Christ.

When the master of the feast tastes this wine, he makes a point of commenting on its high quality to the bridegroom.

He says that usually the good wine is served at the beginning of the feast, then the cheap stuff is served after everyone is drunk when they don’t care about quality anymore.

Vintage wine at the beginning, boxed wine at the end.

It’s a very frugal way to throw a party.

Then he says, “but you have kept the good wine until now.”

This wine that Jesus has created from wash water is better quality than the “good stuff” that was served at the beginning of the feast.

When Jesus fixes a problem, he does it to perfection.

A poor product would undermine his glory.

The glory he was manifesting to his disciples to prove he is the Christ.

And Jesus loves people, so it would have been completely out of character to fix this problem with a shoddy provision.

In fact, I would bet that this glorious gift is better than any wine that has ever been produced in history.

Because this wine hasn’t gone through the normal fermentation process,

and, more importantly, it hasn’t been subject to the curse of futility.

Back in Genesis 3, when God dealt the consequences for Adam’s sin, he cursed the ground and its produce.

But this wine came directly from God, not from the cursed ground.

And it’s the same wondrous wine that we will enjoy one day at the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Jesus humbly answered this Providential Problem by using others in a Strange Solution to miraculously provide a Glorious Gift in a display of his power over creation.

Now, at the end of this scene John gives us a summary of the effect this miracle had on the disciples as they experienced…

Jesus’ Manifested Majesty (11)

Here we see how Jesus proves he is the Christ by revealing his glory to produce faith.

This miracle happened at Cana of Galilee.

John had already told us this at the beginning of this scene, but he repeats this information because it’s important.

It’s important to remember that this first miracle was performed in a humble way, so that Jesus’ glory would be revealed only to a select few instead of the whole world.

And this miracle truly manifested Jesus’ glory.

It may not have displayed it very broadly, but it displayed the true depth of Jesus’ glory as the Christ, the Son of God.

It displayed his power over creation that had only ever been seen before in the power of God both in judgment and in mercy.

God’s judgment to Egypt turning all the water to blood, so they couldn’t drink it.

And God’s mercy to Israel turning the bitter water sweet, so they could drink it.

This miracle also manifested Jesus’ glory because it showed his compassion for people.

He had such compassion for these people that he fixed their problem in a way that brought them a whole lot of happiness.

180 gallons of happiness!

Perfect wine uncorrupted by the curse of the fall.

But this humble miracle that truly manifested the glory of Christ had a purpose, a goal.

That goal was to produce faith in the hearts of Jesus’ disciples, and ultimately to produce faith in the hearts of those who read this gospel account.

The disciples had heard the testimony of John the Baptist and the other disciples that Jesus is the Christ.

We read about that back in chapter 1.

But the servants that got to experience Jesus’ miracle firsthand…

The ones Jesus performed this miracle through…

they didn’t get to hear that testimony, so there’s nothing about any of them believing in Jesus.

Faith is produced by the combination of truth and proof.

Salvation by repentant faith only comes when the truth of the gospel is combined with the Holy Spirit proving that truth to the heart.

Truth alone doesn’t penetrate the heart.

And miraculous proof alone doesn’t penetrate the heart either.

The miraculous proof that I’m talking about here is not some physical sign, though that is what happened with the disciples here.

I’m talking about the miracle of regeneration.

The miracle that we were once spiritually blind, but now we can see.

The miracle that we were once spiritually dead, but now we are alive.

This whole account showed how Jesus manifested his glory to his disciples to produce faith because we all need proof to believe the truth that Jesus is the Christ.

Conclusion

Jesus may have had a humble beginning to his ministry.

But seeing the truth of his glory proved like this…

We ought to be compelled to worship and glorify him for his compassion, goodness, power, sovereignty, providence, and humble example.

And when we realize that it took the miraculous proof of the Holy Spirit in our hearts to believe the truth of the gospel…

It should take any thought of our own wise choice of following Jesus and chuck it out the window.

God gets all the glory for his miracle of salvation.

For those of you who may not yet believe… You’ve heard the truth…

Jesus is the Christ who came to die in your place and rise again to save you from sin and death, and now you’ve got to believe it and confess it.

If you believe the truth of the gospel and submit to Jesus as your Lord and savior, then the Holy Spirit has already performed a miracle and proven the truth of this good news to your heart.

You have supernatural proof.

The Bible says in Romans 10:9 that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

So, if you believe in your heart the truth of what I’ve just been talking about, then confess it.

Tell God that you believe that Jesus died for you, and he was raised to save you from sin and death.

Tell us that you believe…

Tell the world that you believe…

Because this truth that you believe by the Spirit’s proof is life-giving and world-changing.

Pray