Sermon Tone Analysis

Water to Wine

Tonight we are going to continue in our study of John.

So far we have covered several important topics in the book of John.

The word became flesh—Jesus was and is the word (v1-5)

All things were made by Him

He is the life and the light of men

Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us (v.6-18)

John the Baptist was sent to tell of Christ (v.19-34)

He was not Christ, he was not a prophet

He declares Jesus to be the Lamb of God

Jesus calls his disciples (v.35-51)

This includes Peter, Andrew, Philip & Nathaniel

All of them declare Jesus as Rabbi (teacher) and as the Son of God

They declare him as Messiah, the long awaited one

Carl, Jason & Mike all covered this so hopefully you remember: what is the purpose of the book of John?

John uses the term “believe” over 100 times in this book, he is calling people to Christ so that they may have life.

We continue as we open up chapter 2 and we see the beginning of Jesus ministry.

Turn with me to John chapter 2

The story opens up on the third day, three days have past.

Three days have past from what?

What was the last story we covered?

Three days have passed since the calling of Philip & Nathaniel.

They were in Cana which happens to be where Nathaniel is from.

And so this story opens up with a wedding in Cana, three days after calling his disciples.

Wedding’s back in this day could have been as long as a week as they celebrated the marriage.

Many folks were from poor families and had no money, they had nothing and so a wedding was there only time to get together and celebrate.

They would have the ceremony and then they would parade the new couple around and have food and dancing essentially have a big party for a week long.

Think about it, they had nothing else to look forward to so this was there time to have some fun.

And so in the midst of this big celebration, we find ourselves in the story.

Now were going to work together to find two important details about this story that are in the text.

First, who was invited to the wedding first, or at least who does the text tell us about first?

Jesus mother, Mary, was at the wedding.

And so what does this tell us?

There is some sort of family connection here if both Jesus and his mother were invited.

How many in here have ever been to a wedding?

How often do your parents get invited to wedding’s and all of the kid’s get invited?

Having had a wedding in the last couple years I can tell you it’s pretty expensive.

Listen it was no slight or secret why very few of you were invited, weddings are expensive and we have too many big families, if we invited everyone and there kids it would be 1,000 people.

And so we only invited a very few select kids, basically those whose parents were in the wedding and a few additional.

But this is pretty common, typically you don’t invite the parents and their children, even if they are adults, unless you are close to them, so we obviously know that Jesus must of been close to this person as well.

How many of you have been invited to a wedding and were told to bring your friends as well?

Probably none of us.

Well Jesus was not only invited as well as Mary, but his disciples came as well.

And while culturally weddings were a little bit different back then, there clearly is a closeness between Jesus and whoever’s wedding this is if he were to travel to Cana to attend and was able to bring his friends with him.

To solidify that even more let’s look at this next verse

Now wine was a staple for all weddings.

It was a staple for every event they had.

A couple things to note from this verse, again, Mary clearly was close to this family if she was overlooking the wine supply or at the very least being notified when it was running out.

A second thing is the necessity of having wine ready, not only was it necessary as part of the wedding celebration, wine was much safer to drink then water.

They did not have water purification systems back then and much of the water was unsafe to drink.

And so they would mix wine with water to do two things, to dilute the wine to prevent over-indulgence but also to purify the water for safety.

I want to point out here quickly about wine.

I would encourage you guys at some point to have a conversation about alcohol with your parents.

As you exit high school and move into college or even just the post-school life there will be great pressures from all sort of angles about this.

I would bet that just about every show or movie you watch has alcohol in it not to mention the ads for it every where you turn.

It would be very beneficial for you to talk through before you get to that point from your parent’s point of view and in their wisdom the approach they take to the subject.

I bring this up because there is no clear directive in the scripture about alcohol being good or bad.

There are many principles and guardrails we are given but never a direct yes or no about this or that.

I will point of quickly there are three guardrails that are critical though: 1) drunkenness is a sin.

We see the results of this with Noah, we see the clear commandment in 1 Timothy not be addicted to wine, in Galatians we are given a list of types of people who will not inherit the kingdom of God and drunkenness is one of them. 1 Corinthians tell us not to associate with those who claim to be brothers but are drunkards.

And so 1) it is a sin to be drunk 2) we are subject to the law of the land, we are to submit to the government and its rules.

We have clear rules in the US how age and limits and what you can and cannot do, including driving or operating machinery if you have drank.

We are obligated spiritually to follow these laws.

And finally 3) you are under your parents authority.

You are biblically subject to your parents and must obey and respect them unless it goes against the bible.

I encourage you to have this discussion with them at some point so you can hear their thought process on these things.

I bring all this up because there are only 8 signs performed by Jesus recorded in the book of John.

And each of these signs is fulfilling a need, Jesus used each of these 8 opportunities to fulfill a need and show that he is the all-powerful one, that He was God.

And if wine in and of itself was wrong or sinful, Jesus would not of addressed the lack of wine.

If the wine or drinking of wine was a sin, his response would have been, “good, that solves that problem.”

Not having wine was a problem, a real problem.

The groom and his family was responsible for providing the wine and it was expected there would be enough for the entire celebration.

As a matter of face, the groom or his family could actually be sued if he didn’t provide enough wine.

At the very least it was embarrassing.

I have been to a wedding where they ran out of food, it was embarrassing and people still talk about it.

And so Mary comes to Jesus, there is no wine!

Mary comes to Jesus with this request and Jesus responds: what does this have to do with me?

The text says “woman” which I think is a poor translation.

It comes across as disrespectful and chippy, but really it should say “Ma’am”, Jesus wasn’t snapping back he was responding to his mother, what does this have to do with me?

My hour has not come.

Mary obviously knew that there was something special about Jesus.

There was only one person in all of the world who knew for sure that Mary was pregnant via the Holy Spirit and that was Mary!

She knew she was a virgin and she knew that his child was of the Holy Spirit, a miracle from heaven.

Mary knew that Jesus was from God and that he would deliver his people, that he would be a conquering king.

But she doesn’t know the timetable.

And so she says here, “Jesus, come on, I know you can do something about this.”

It’s not my time yet.

And Mary responds telling the servants to do whatever Jesus says.

Again we see she is in some sort of leadership position at this wedding, she is telling people what to do.

There are six jars there that are used for purification.

Roughly 120 to 180 gallons total of space for drink.

Hundreds of people could be supplied with these jars, but they are empty.

Jesus commands the servants to fill them with water.

They fill them all the way to the top with water.

Then Jesus commands them to take a cup out and take it to the master of the feast.

The master didn’t know where the wine was from, he may of never known they ran out.

And so he drinks it and is impressed.

The servant knew what had just happened but this guy has no idea.

It doesn’t tell us here but I wonder what the servants were thinking.

Perhaps they could see it was wine now, but maybe they couldn’t I don’t know.