The First Sign

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However, we did get a lot of food donated by very helpful and kind folks in the States.

One thing that these very helpful and kind people donated a lot of was liver.

Now my folks claim to like anything and everything that can be billed as “healthy food”. Liver appears to be in that category, although I have my serious doubts that this is a food that should be eaten.

There was a lot of liver donated, and all the sane people, which included everybody except the Hertzler family, wouldn’t eat it. Which meant that the Hertzlers had all the liver they wanted (or, in the case of 60% of the family, didn’t want). But as kids, we were outvoted and liver would appear on the menu at least once a week, and on a bad week (or good, depending on your point of view), twice a week.

Well, in the Hertzler house it was the Law that you had to take everything that had been prepared. And it didn’t go over well, if you took just a little microscopic amount; you had to take a healthy amount, whatever that was. And on top of that, you were not allowed to say one word of complaint about the food. If you didn’t have anything good to say, you didn’t say anything at all!

But as much as I hated liver, there as usually something else on the table that I really liked, or at least that I could tolerate. And I learned very quickly as a kid to use that item that I liked as an incentive to choke down the liver as quickly as possible so that I could eat the potato or whatever it was!

I had to get through the bad to get to the good!

Isn’t that so like it is in life sometimes. We call it the light at the end of the tunnel

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This story of Jesus at the wedding in Cana is one of the unique features about the Gospel of John. The story only appears in this book.

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For me, it has been kind of a confusing little story. I haven’t really understood why it is included in John’s Gospel.

But I would like to make some observations about this story. First and foremost,

This story is about Jesus

Such topics are interesting in a factual sort of way, but they miss the point about this story.

You are probably thinking, well, of course it is!

But I have heard this story discussed in a lot of ways

trying to figure out marriage customs of the day

did they really drink alcoholic wine, or was this grape juice?

These things are ok to talk about but that’s not the main point of the story

The main point is JESUS!

In case you doubt that, have a look at the way that John winds up the story. “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory.

Continues the theme of chapter 1 and of the whole book: The glory of Christ

We are going to talk about how He manifested His glory

And what is the result of Jesus manifesting His glory? And his disciples believe in Him.”

And this is the reason that John wrote this book: So that you might believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that through believing, you might have life!

So what does Jesus show us about Himself in this story?

Jesus Demonstrates His Lordship

The wedding celebration is in full swing. These celebrations could last for up to a week and everyone has been eating and drinking as much as they can hold:

And the unthinkable happens: the wine runs out. How embarrassing!

The mother of Jesus comes to him and says “They have no more wine”

Jesus has not started his public ministry

He is single, probably has been living mostly at home

It’s generally believed that Joseph, Mary’s husband, is dead. Jesus and his mother probably have a pretty close relationship

Mary remembers well the prophecies about Him and the events surrounding His birth

She knows Him better than anyone does and knows that He is a man of character and a leader. Even though He has not performed any miracles up to this point, she probably thinks, “if anyone can do something about this situation, He can”

But in His answer, Jesus signifies that a change has taken place between Him and His mother

“Woman, what does this have to do with me?”

Who would talk to their mothers like that? Was Jesus being rude? Was He trying to put her in her place? Not at all!

However, by saying “Woman” instead of “mother” or even “Mary”, Jesus is putting a distance between himself and his mother. He is saying that a change has occurred in their relationship

No longer is He her son, but He is her Lord who will not be ordered about and expected to jump in order to rescue us out of every little difficulty

“What does this have to do with me?” Why are you trying to involve me in this? Is this really my problem?

Jesus doesn’t say no and he doesn’t say yes. He simply reminds His mother that He is not her little boy any more

“It is not my time to reveal who I am”

When you are at the dinner table and your kids are goofing off and one of them spills his/her water and then looks at you to do something about it. You look back at them and say, “why are you trying to involve me in your situation?”

The response of Mary is quite revealing. Jesus’ answer reminded her of what she already knew: That Jesus was the Messiah and that one day a sword would pierce her soul.

She simply tells the servants “Do whatever he tells you”, not knowing if He would, in fact, do anything at all!

Jesus Demonstrates His Sufficiency

Nevertheless, Jesus does take action. Not on His mother’s terms, but on His own terms and in His own way

Six stone jars. Each holding 20-30 gallons. For a total of 120-180 gallons! That’s a lot of water, and a lot of wine!

And notice, this is not drinking water. Rather, it is water for rites of purification: Washing!

In Mozambique, we would not dare drink the water that we used for washing!

Can you imagine what the servants are thinking as all of this is taking place?

We must be crazy! What if the master of the feast asks us where this water came from? What are we going to tell him? Oh, it’s the water for washing. It’ll be fine.

Can you imagine them holding their breaths and wincing as the master of the feast raises the cup to his lips? What’s he going to say or do? Is he going to spew it out of his mouth?

Instead a huge smile breaks across his face and he calls out to the bridegroom and congratulates him on the excellent quality of the wine

Usually, people serve the best first, but you have saved the best until last!

Jesus demonstrates his sufficiency in two ways.

He made more than enough!

Normally a person needs about half a gallon of water a day. If you drink as much wine as you would water, it would take 1 person about 6 months to get through this much wine!

If there were 100 people at this wedding, there was enough there for 2-3 solid days of drinking!

When Jesus gives us something, it is more than we need! It is an abundance! This echoes His words later on when He said, “I have come that they might have life and have it to the full” Abundance!

He makes the best out of the worst

With Jesus, there is no middle ground. He demonstrated his sufficiency by taking what was perceived as being bad and making it the best.

I don’t like egg plant very much. I think it’s bitter and just not fit to eat. But one time Heidi bought some in Mozambique and got some pointers from a friend. If you slice it, soak it in salt water for a while, rinse it off, then fry it, you have a totally different taste! And it was good!

This is the upsidedown Kingdom of Jesus. He is not worried about what He has to work with or who he has to work with

He’s got us! He can take you and me as we are willing and making something tremendous come through us.

But not to our benefit; rather, to the benefit of others. Remember, this wine was not only for Jesus, it was for the benefit of all those in attendance!

Jesus Demonstrates His glory

The demonstration of His lordship and His sufficiency were all part of His demonstration of His glory

This is one of those statements that used to confuse me a little bit. How did Jesus demonstrate His glory?

John says in chapter 1 that “we have seen His glory”.

I immediately think of the Mount of Transfiguration where they saw Jesus transformed from His likeness as one of us into His dazzling heavenly glory

On that occasion, the disciples who were there certainly saw the visible glory of Jesus

But that didn’t happen here. So what does it mean that Jesus demonstrated His glory?

To answer that, I think it would be helpful to take a quick look at . Remember there that Paul is reminding the beleivers to be like Christ who humbled himself, put aside His rights and became obedient.

And because of that, God has exalted Him and glorified Him.

In this story, Jesus had every “right” or opportunity to make sure the whole group knew without a shadow of a doubt that He was God. He could have done something very public, something which would have made everyone fall on their faces and worship him

But He didn’t. In fact, the only people who seemed to follow the whole chain of events from the beginning to the end, were the disciples. And it says that because of what happened, “his disciples believed in Him”.

Jesus displayed His glory by His humility and obedience to God the Father. Sort of a counterintuitive way of looking at it.

Again, this helped to establish the kind of ministry and type of Kingdom that Jesus would have

in fact, Jesus often seemed to be more reluctant to perform miracles than others were that He should perform them

He knew that miracles in and of themselves have limitations in bringing people into the Kingdom.

Example, the parable of the rich man and Lazerus. Send someone back from the dead to tell my brothers to repent. They have the Law and the prophets. If they don’t believe them, they won’t believe if someone comes back from the dead.

Jesus: “only a perverse generation asks for signs”

it comes from a heart that is unwilling to believe

The Glory of Christ came more from His willing obedience to the Father than from His performing miracles.

And because of this one sign (a sign that He was who He said He was), his disciples believed in Him! This is key!

Jesus’ aim in performing this miracle was to establish very early who He was to His disciples who would be His students for the next 3 years. And later world changing Apostles and evangelists.

When you see Jesus doing miracles in your life (I hope you see that), what is your response?

Thanks for bailing me out again Jesus!

Jesus, you are LORD! I believe! Is His glory elevated just a little bit more in your life?

John concludes his story saying that

This was on the third day: most commentators think it was the third day after arriving in the region of Galilee.

Jesus and His disciples are invited to a wedding in the town of Cana, the home town of Nathaniel. We don’t know exactly how many disciples Jesus had by this time. Was his roster of 12 filled out by this time? We don’t know. But I imagine that he just had the disciples that we have already talked about.

Jesus’ mother, Mary is there and she seems to either be a guest of honor or have some role in the wedding because she is the one that tells him that they have run out of wine. But we will get to that in a bit.