Dear saints, this morning we hear of the first, or chief of our Lord’s signs. He does it at a wedding in Cana. It is a classic wedding text, and in it we hear that water becomes wine. We hear that Mary is at the wedding and that Jesus and his disciples were invited and present. During the festivities, the wine begins to run out. In that time and culture, running out of wine at a seven-day wedding feast would have brought great shame upon the bridegroom.
Seeking to spare the groom of that shame, Mary comes to Jesus for help. She is likely not a guest but linked to the wedding party in some way. Some scholars claim she comes to Jesus because He and the disciples put the number of guests over what was planned for. They say Mary is asking Jesus to go get wine and replace what they consumed. But that claim does not hold water. They are not running low on food; they are only running low on wine. So, unless you are claiming Jesus and His disciples drank that much wine, the claim does not stand.
Rather Mary comes to her Lord because she believes He can and will come to the wedding party’s aid. She believes that he can provide what they need. Yet we also see that she does not fully comprehend the reason she bore Jesus. She rightly thinks He is her Savior, but she also presumes He will use His power for any reason.
This explains the somewhat harsh response. Well, it is harsh to our ears. And while there is a slight tone of rebuke, Jesus continues to honor His mother as He should. He says, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” There are a couple of things here. First, He claims that it is not His responsibility that the wine is running out. He and the disciples did not overindulge. He did not plan on enough supply. It is not His problem. The second thing is that His hour is not yet come. Jesus says His hour comes in John 12 when some Greeks seek to see Him after the Triumphal Entry.
Whatever Mary makes of this remark, she is undeterred. She still knows who Jesus is, even if not fully. She looks to the servants, who may be hired workers for the feast, and says, “Do whatever he tells you.” And that is what they do. They take the six stone water jars and fill them to the brim. These jars were used for a ceremonial washing that had been taken from what was commanded by God and transformed into a man made law. The Pharisees had taken this cleansing ritual for priests and applied it to all people. Jesus uses these to show His glory.
After these jars are filled, Jesus tells the servants to “draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” I wonder what these servants thought to themselves. They had just filled a jar used to wash things with water. They know the wine is running, if not by now, run out. And now they are to take some of this water to the mast of the feast? But following the instruction of Mary, they do as Jesus says. They take the water.
That water, now wine, is brought to the master of the feast and he drinks it. He does not know that this wine came from a water jar. He only knows it is the finest wine he has ever had. He summons the bridegroom and chides him for bringing the best wine last.
In this lesson, we see Jesus submitting to His mother and ensuring that the celebration of this marriage is not interrupted. We see here an epiphany of sympathy. He uses His power to provide for the needs of this newly married couple. And He does this even though He is not responsible for there being enough wine. But He does out of sympathy for them.
He also does this even though His time has not yet come. Yet it is here, in Cana of Galilee, where Jesus manifested his glory with the first of his signs. This sign was for one reason: that His disciples would believe in Him. And they do. Throughout the ministry of Jesus, the disciples are witnesses to the teaching of Jesus. The miracles of Jesus. They see and experience His joy and pain. Reception and rejection. As they walk with Him, they learn to trust Him. Through His signs, they believe that He is the Son of God and the Redeemer of the world.
But even as they do so, they stumble and fall. At times, they doubt. This should provide us some comfort. They were with Jesus as He walked among them. We, some two-thousand-years later, are with Him, but we do not see Him in the flesh.
Though we do not have Jesus in the body with us, we do have what the Holy Spirit had the apostles write down for us. We have the Word of God. And in it, especially in the Gospels, we read what Jesus did and what He has done for us: He perfectly obeyed the Law in your place and was crucified to atone for your sins, saving you from eternal death.
The Apostle John even gives the reason for writing his Gospel, and thus, why he tells us of this sign: That all those who hear it would believe in Jesus. That Jesus is the Son of God, and that believing in Him you would have eternal life. We see in the signs and miracles of Jesus that they are not to make us “healthy, wealthy, and wise,” but that we would be wise to what is the Truth. To be wise in knowing and trusting in Jesus. This first and chief sign of Jesus at a wedding in Cana clues us into what all the Gospel, and indeed, the Bible is about. It is about Jesus. How he creates all and then comes to it after it falls to restore it. How he comes to redeem and rescue fallen mankind.
It seems that the disciples were always seeing some sort of sign or healing. They even performed them themselves! And while we do not see that sort of thing today, let alone in the regularity they did in those days, we do have important signs that Jesus has left for us. We do see miracles in our midst even today. In baptism, we see someone who was dead made alive. There we see someone who is an enemy of God become the very child of God. In absolution, we hear and believe and trust that it is the very Word of God that forgives us our sins. And in the Supper of our Lord, we trust that He is present in the bread and wine, and in being present He feeds and nourishes our bodies and souls, forgiving our sins.
The wedding in Cana is a joyous festival, but it runs out of wine. The church throughout the world today celebrates the joy of Christ weekly by coming together, hearing the Word, and participating in the sign, the sacraments, that our Lord has given us. But we also wait for the culmination of the wedding in Cana. We wait for our own wedding feast as the Bride of Christ. It is there that He will again bring out
the best of the best wine, and we will live eternally with Him. Amen.
Rev. Brent Keller
Peace Lutheran Church
Alcester, SD
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