THE SIGN AT THE WEDDING – John 2:1-11

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on January 21, 2018 under 2018 |

Preached Sunday, January 21, 2018 from John 2:1-11

Theme: The sign at the wedding in Cana reveals Jesus as the divine Mediator of the New Covenant.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding. And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.” Now there were set there six waterpots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing twenty or thirty gallons apiece. Jesus said to them, “Fill the waterpots with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And He said to them, “Draw some out now, and take it to the master of the feast.” And they took it. When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom. And he said to him, “Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!” This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him (John 2:1-11).

That is a much loved story from the life of our Lord. And it is often cited at weddings to show—among other things—that Jesus looks with pleasure upon such happy events. But I wonder if the true significance of this story is really as appreciated by us as it should be.

The story’s true significance is shown to us in the last verse. That’s where we’re told that this ‘beginning of signs’—that is, the first of the miraculous signs of our Lord that are recorded for us in the Gospel of John—was recorded for us to ‘manifest’ or ‘make plain’ the glory of the Lord Jesus; and so that His followers would have their faith in Him advanced and would believe in Him and trust in Him as they should.

Do you remember what some of those signs were? There were at least six others in the Gospel of John after this “first” one. There was the sign in John 4—another one performed in the town of Cana—of Jesus healing the nobleman’s sick son from a distance. Then there was the sign in John 5 of Jesus healing the man by the pool of Bethesda who had been in a state of infirmity for 38 years. Then, in Chapter 6, Jesus performed the sign of feeding 5,000 men by the Sea of Galilee with just five barley loaves and two small fish. Then right after that—also in Chapter 6—Jesus performed the sign of walking out on the Sea of Galilee to His disciples. In Chapter 11, Jesus performed the sign of raising His friend Lazarus from the dead. And then, finally—in John 21—Jesus performed the miracle to His disciples of the miraculous catch of fish after His resurrection. We don’t want to forget the story of His resurrection, of course. He Himself said to the unbelieving Jewish people that this would be a sign to them too. But all of the others we mentioned were specifically meant to be signs to His followers by which He revealed who He was to them. And this one—the sign at the wedding—was the first.

And I love how the apostle John puts all these into perspective for us at the end of his Gospel. He writes;

And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name (John 20:30-31).

As is true of all the signs that Jesus performed, this one has a specific focus to impress upon us. I believe that the story of the sign of the wedding at Cana reveals Jesus to us as the Mediator of a New Covenant—a new ‘agreement’ from God by which He administers His grace to those He calls His own. He did this by doing what only He could do; and that was to make the wine of joy come, through His Son Jesus, from out of the old stone pots of Old Covenant ritualism.

I have felt led to invite this morning that we look together at this first sign that Jesus performed. And as we do, let’s sincerely seek that John’s expressed purpose for telling it to us be fulfilled in us—that Jesus’ glory truly be manifested to us in a fresh way, and that we grow to believe on Him and trust in Him as we should with great joy.

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Let’s begin by considering …

1. THE SETTING OF THE SIGN: A WEDDING IN CANA.

Cana, as best that Bible scholars can tell us, was a small town just a little ways southwest of the Sea of Galilee—not too far from Mount Tabor (the ‘Mount Tabor’ in Israel, that is—not the one here in Portland!). If you were to read John 1, you would find the story of how the Lord Jesus met His disciple Nathanael; and as we discover in the last chapter of John’s Gospel, Nathanael was from this town called Cana.

John begins in verse 1 by telling us, “On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee ….” (v. 1). Which “third day” would this be? Because of the time necessary for the travel involved, I believe that it is most likely the third day from the time that Jesus had first met Nathanael and invited him to become one of His followers.

In verse two, we’re also told, “Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding”(v. 2). It may even be that Nathanael knew the couple in the wedding; since it was happening in his hometown. What’s more, as we see in verse 1, “and the mother of Jesus was there.” It may be that Jesus’ mother Mary knew the family of the people getting married; and it may even be that she was involved in the preparations for the wedding celebration. That might explain why she was able to go to the servants and give them instructions.

What a group that would be to have at your wedding! It’s certainly a pretty happy wedding when Jesus gets invited—and a pretty happy marriage too! And may I pause here to suggest an important lesson to be found in this? Jesus would not have been able to solve the problem that was encountered at the wedding feast later on if He had not first been invited. And so, it’s important that we get into the habit of inviting Jesus into the everyday, ordinary ‘human’ affairs of life.

We sometimes find ourselves crying out to Jesus for help in the large crises of life. And of course, we should. But I believe that the place where Jesus most commonly works is in the more mundane, every-day, regular matters of day-to-day living. A wedding, after all—though it is always special to those who are getting married—is a pretty common event in human existence. How much better of a chance we will have to see Jesus work and prove His glory in our experience if we make it our habit to invite Him first into the common areas of our lives! When difficulties eventually come into the different areas of our lives, and when we need His help in them, we’ll always be glad that we invited Him first.

* * * * * * * * * *

So the wedding was underway, and the wedding feast was being celebrated. And what a blessing it must have been that Jesus Himself was a guest.

But it’s then that a very significant crisis in the feast occurred. That’s when we learn of …

2. THE OCCASION OF THE SIGN: THE WINE RAN OUT.

Wedding feasts, back in those days, were big events. They often went on for several days. And to run out of wine in the middle of the feast—most likely because of a lack of careful planning and preparation—would have been considered a terrible and insulting offense to the invited wedding guests. It would have been considered a very serious social faux pas! Historians tell us that because of the customs of the day, it might have even resulted in the destruction of the reputation of the new couple. They would have been marked for life by it. John tells us, “And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, ‘They have no wine’” (v. 3).

Mary may have been somewhat concerned about this matter because she was somehow involved in the proceedings of the wedding feast. But I wonder if she may also have had a deep and serious concern for the difficult situation into which this would have placed the young couple—and perhaps their extended family. A large supply of wine to make up for the loss would have been extremely difficult if not impossible to obtain while in the midst of the feast.

And this appears to have been an opportunity for Mary to turn to her divine Son. One can almost detect a tiny bit of motherly manipulation involved in the way she told Jesus that they had run out of wine—Jesus, by the way, who was merely a guest. What was she seeking to do in bringing the matter to Him? What was her real motive? Certainly she would have hoped that He would meet the need and resolve the crisis that the lack of wine presented. But I wonder if there was far more than even that involved. After all, she knew some things about her Son that, perhaps, only a very tiny handful of people knew.

And think about what Mary would have already known about Him. She knew what the angel had spoken to her about her Son before He had been conceived in her womb by the Holy Spirit, and of how they told her that “therefore, also, the Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). She would also have remembered what the mother of John the Baptist—filled with the Holy Spirit—had told her when she said, “But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:42). When the shepherds came and reported to her the things that the angelic hosts declared to them about Jesus, she “kept all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). She stored these things up within her heart for thirty years; and perhaps she could contain them no longer.

So a need had arisen that only God could meet—a problem that only God could solve; and perhaps, in her mind, now was the time for her divine Son to reveal His identity to the world. All of this might have been involved when she came to Him—and perhaps nudged Him a bit—and said to Him, “They have no wine.” It was as if she was saying, “And will You now prove Yourself before the world to be the Son of God that You know and I know You truly are? Isn’t it high time You revealed yourself? Wouldn’t this be the perfect opportunity?”

To the ears of a different culture such as ours, Jesus’ answer to her might have seemed harsh and disrespectful. We’re told, “Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come’” (v. 4). What kind of a way would that be to speak to His mother—to call her “Woman”! But two things need to be remembered. First, Jesus’ reference to His mother as “woman” was used elsewhere in Scripture; and it was not harsh or disrespectful. It’s the same word He used for her while He was on the cross when—looking down upon His desperately grieving mother. He said, “Woman, behold your son!”; and then, turned to John and said, “Behold your mother!” (John 19:26-27). We should never think of our Lord—who was the very same God of the Old Testament who gave the commandment to honor father and mother—as, in any way, speaking in a disrespectful manner to His own precious mother. The name “woman”, in this case, can be rightly understood, I believe, to have the same respectful feel as, “Dear Lady”.

And second, Jesus’ reason for speaking to her in this way was not because she was pestering Him with a problem that should have someone else’s to solve. His statement, “… what does your concern have to do with Me”, may be understood as “Dear Lady, what is your motivation in turning to Me like this, at this time, for this matter?” I think a great clue to Jesus’ intention in saying this is found in His next statement, “My hour has not yet come.” It was as if Mary was trying to bring something of God’s divine program for the Lord Jesus to pass long before its appropriate time—to ‘hurry it along’, if you will.

What was the “hour” of Jesus that He was speaking of? He made several hints about it later in John’s Gospel. In John 7, for example—when His unbelieving brothers taunted Him to ‘reveal’ Himself at the Jewish feast—He declared, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready” (John 7:6). He told them that they should go to the feast without Him, and that He was not yet going up to the feast, “for My time has not yet fully come” (v. 8). And then, later on in John 7, the Jewish religious leaders sought to lay hands on Him and arrest Him; but we’re told that “no one laid a hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come” (v. 30). And then, later still in John 8, in the treasury of the temple, they sought again to apprehend Him, “and no one laid hands on Him, for His hour had not yet come” (8:20).

But do you remember what happened in John 12, as He entered into the city of Jerusalem to die on the cross for us? He declared, “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified” (12:23). And in His great prayer to the Father in John 17, just before He was betrayed in the garden of Gethsemane, He said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You” (17:1). Clearly, the “hour” in which He would be fully revealed as the One that Mary knew Him to be was coming; but it had not yet arrived, because it would only come when He would be lifted up on the cross and would give His life for our redemption.

Mary wanted Jesus to be glorified in a certain way early on—way before the cross—way before the Father’s time—way before Jesus’ purpose for coming had arrived. And Jesus, with tender love to His mother, would not allow even her to force things to happen when His hour had not yet come. What a faithful Savior to the Father’s purposes our Savior was!

Nevertheless, as John tells us, He did—in a sense—grant her request. He did so, however, in a way that only faintly ‘anticipated’ the full revealing of His glorious identity—giving only a hint of what would be most fully manifested in that “hour” yet to come. Perhaps, for this reason, we’re told, “His mother said to the servants, ‘Whatever He says to you, do it’” (v. 5). She submitted to His willingness to solve the immediate crisis; but also submitted to the fact that His hour had not yet fully come.

By the way, another aside: what great advice Mary gave us in those words! She turned the people who were in the state of crisis to the Lord Jesus and said, “Whatever He says to you, do it!” Can you think of better counsel for life than that? How much misery we would avoid in life if we followed her wise advice! What a great help we would be to other people if we told them the same thing!

* * * * * * * * * *

And that’s when we see …

3. THE NATURE OF THE SIGN: THE WATER WAS MADE INTO WINE.

When you think about it, there is a variety of ways that Jesus could have solved this problem. For example, we know that He would prove later on to have the power to multiply a food for thousands through a small portion of bread and fish. Certainly He could have taken a small cup of whatever wine might have been left, gave thanks to the Father for it, had given it to His disciples to pour out to everyone, and have multiplied it in great quantities. Or if He had wished, He could have sovereignty arranged in advance that a shipment of wine arrived right on time from somewhere else. As God in human flesh, He could even have made wine appear from out of nowhere. But the way that our Lord solved this crisis was significant to the thing that it was revealing as a “sign”—and in the end, it manifested His glory as Mediator of a New Covenant.

We’re told, “Now there were set there six waterpots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing twenty or thirty gallons apiece.” These large water pots sat by as a quiet testimony of a religious ceremonial ritual of the Jews. As Mark 7:3-4 tells us,

For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands in a special way, holding the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other things which they have received and hold, like the washing of cups, pitchers, copper vessels, and couches” (Mark 7:3-4).

The fact that they were “stone pots” might even symbolically suggest to us the deadness of that old religious legalism that were characteristic of the Old Covenant. And the fact that they were “empty” speaks of the vacuousness of those rituals to meet the real needs of the heart. What a picture it was that the Lord Jesus was giving of Himself as the One who brings the life and joy of New Covenant realities—where we are brought into favor with God through faith in His grace, and where the true holiness that came from His law is written upon our hearts!

What’s more, in solving this crisis in the way He did, our Lord was showing something of His authority as Mediator of this New Covenant by proving Himself to be the Creator God in human flesh. We’re told, “Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the waterpots with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim” (v. 7). The fact that they were filled to the top would have made it clear that it was water only—not wine—that had been put into the pots. Then, we read, “And He said to them, ‘Draw some out now, and take it to the master of the feast.’ And they took it” (v. 8). And note that, even though what was drawn out was water and not wine, it had become wine by the time it had been taken to the master of the feast. “When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom” (v. 9).

Consider the glory Jesus brought to Himself in this! Look at how He manifested who He is! Every year, our wise Creator turns water into wine through a long and natural process on countless hillsides and in countless vineyards around the world. But here, Jesus did what only God could do—but did it in a moment’s time and at His own command. Thus He proved Himself to be what Paul said of Him in Colossians 1:15-17

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist (Colossians 1:5-17).

In telling us this story, the apostle John was simply giving confirmation to us of what he had already told us about Jesus at the very start of his Gospel;

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made (John 1:1-2);

and that

the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (1:14).

Now; the next thing that John tells us gives us a little insight into the way things were done in a wedding feast such as this. We’re told that the master of the feast called the bridegroom after tasting what had been given to him; “And he said to him, ‘Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!’” (v. 10). Whatever else this may tell us, it certainly shows us that the water that Jesus had turned into wine was not water; nor that it was simply watered-down wine. Rather, it was wine of a very high quality—certified and approved by an expert!

And in a sense, Jesus further manifests His glory with respect to New Covenant realities. When He brings about the realities of the New Covenant, those realities are truly joyful and fulfilling. He is the Christ—the long awaited Jewish Messiah—whose kingdom reign means joy and celebration and happiness for all who trust Him! This makes us think of the glories and joys of the New Covenant that were expressed in the story we find in Matthew 9:14-17;

Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved” (Matthew 9:14-17).

The fullness of the joy of New Covenant realities is so great that it won’t even fit into the narrow confines of the Old Covenant forms any longer. Jesus not only proves His power as the Creator God by turning water into wine; but He also proves the joys of His glory as the Mediator of the New Covenant. He proves it by the fact that He the brings the very best wine to the feast of from out of the old, dead stone pots of religious ritualism.

* * * * * * * * * * *

And this leads us finally to notice …

4. THE RESPONSE TO THE SIGN: HIS DISCIPLES BELIEVED ON HIM.

We’re not told of any affect that this might have had on the master of the feast. We’re not even told of anything that this might have done in the hearts of the servants who had brought the wine to him. But we are told very clearly what effect this had on the disciples: “This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him” (v. 11).

It would be hard to think that our Lord’s mother wouldn’t have then told them something of what she knew of Him. And having already known something about Him from what John the Baptist had declared to them—and now having seen with their own eyes what He did at the wedding—they believed on Him even more!

Now, this is only one “sign”—one out of seven that John specifically writes about in his Gospel. And this certainly isn’t all that Jesus did. But as John himself tells us at the end of His Gospel,

And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name (John 20:30-31).

And what, dear brothers and sisters, should this mean to you and me? I believe that John puts it to us very well in the first few verses of his first letter; where he testifies;

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life—the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us—that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full (1 John 1:1-4).