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Sermon for Sunday, January 17, 2010

What Good Wine Does”

John 2:1-11

Weddings are for the most part celebrative events. As some of you know this past December I conducted my 250th wedding ceremony when Matthew and Jennifer were married. Even after doing all those weddings there was something about that wedding that made me feel like it was the only wedding I had ever done, but it’s not. I have had the privilege of sharing in some of your wedding ceremonies. We’ve done them here, at your homes, in a garden, in a park and this past year I did my first wedding on the beach…always wanted to do that. Now if I could just get one in Bermuda!

There are some weddings that I read about that absolutely amaze me. Some are pretty oddball events. I saw a news event where the couple was married sky diving. Not going to happen. Another was scuba diving….probably not. One couple got married outside a 7/11 on 7/11. She worked there. She met her fiancé there so she wanted to marry him there. She carried her bouquet in a Big Gulp cup and at the reception hot dogs and Slurpees were served…at reduced prices. All kinds of venues for sharing vows of love and fidelity.

When Kathy and I were married almost thirty one years ago this coming March, it was a pretty traditional wedding ceremony. We said the right words. Her dad certainly made sure I said them correctly and out loud, more than once. It was a fun day as far as the ceremony went, but after the wedding things got a little sticky. Some one called the church and said there was a bomb in the building. Well, that will make your day and make you think about promises. It was a hoax but you never know and it has always made March 17 an extra special memory.

The wedding at Cana was not exceptional for its location or for how it was done. It appears as though everything was fairly normal for that day and time until the wine ran out. That’s when a Jewish mother intervened….the mother of Jesus.  You would think you would be in real trouble if the mother of Jesus got involved!

But it was at that point we see Jesus step out of his humanity and into his divinity. He changed mediocre water into vintage wine. Don’t read a whole lot into that statement ---stepping out of humanity into divinity.” The point is that the intention of this miracle is found in verse 11: “This beginning of his signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee and revealed his glory and his disciples believed in him.”

I suppose the truth be told, most weddings are (even when they are most beautiful) are forgettable, except your own or the ones at 7/11. Unforgettable weddings usually have some unpredictable event – like a nauseated bride, a bridesmaid who faints during the wedding, or the smiling, sophisticated minister who calls the bride and groom by the wrong name.  Jesus, his mother and disciples attended an unforgettable wedding in Cana. People are still talking about this one.

It was apparently just your typical, traditional Jewish wedding celebration with an average and typical reception – until the wine gave out. It was the custom to serve the better wine first at a Galilean wedding reception. It makes sense, I guess. You serve the good wine first, when the palate is fresh and expectant.  But after a few glasses, who cares?  Both the guests and their taste buds are dull and then you can bring out the Boone’s Farm for the last call.

But to run out of wine before time---was a poor manners and unforgettable hospitality. My hunch is that if this episode had turned out differently and he didn’t change the water into wine, people would have still remembered because the hosts ran out of wine. I mean why go the wedding if the party is not good? That was a social disaster.  Picture a stressed out host trying to find more wine in the cabinets while quietly badgering his servants.

For whatever the reason, Mary, the mother of Jesus got involved in the wine problem. We don’t know why. Maybe it was a wedding of a relative. Maybe Mary thought that marriages were worth celebrating and they needed to be celebrated well. Can you almost hear Mary saying, “Don’t worry, let me talk to my son. He can fix anything.” So she tells Jesus, “They’re out of wine.”

Interesting reply from Jesus, “Woman, what do I have to do with you? My hour has not come.” The Message Bible says it like this: “Is that any of our business, Mother—yours or mine? This isn’t my time.”

Mary made it his time and it was at that wedding Jesus performed his first public miracle. His miracle was simple…at least if you were Jesus. Fill six large ceramic jars with water. They could hold 20- 30 gallons a piece. That is a lot of wine. Then take some and let the headwaiter taste it and it was excellent. And with 120-180 gallons of wine, there was probably enough for the rest of the reception.

The guests certainly tasted the improvement. “Everybody I know begins with the finest wines and after the guests have had their fill brings in the cheap stuff. But you’ve saved the best till now!”

Fred Craddock says that in the gospel of John  a miracle is an act that reveals something about God or God’s doing in the world that you cannot perceive any other way.(sermon by Fred Craddock). But you are not to just conceive of it as a miracle and be dazzled by it. You are to see beyond and beneath it and ask “what does all this mean?”  Very few seem to be able to do that at this first miracle. It is at the end of the story that the disciples are the ones who understood and believed in Him.

What did this miracle mean? Beyond, beneath it means that if Jesus can change water into wine, he can change us too. This is a miracle about transformation.  One wife put it after her alcoholic husband encountered the transforming power of Christ, “Jesus changed beer into furniture.” That is, money that had been spent on beer was not being spent on family needs.

Throughout the gospel story we discover that a relationship with Christ can turn the sour into sweet, bitterness into peace, hatred into love, anger into joy.

The wedding at Cana where Jesus performed his first public miracle is the story of new beginnings, transforming beginnings.

This is the story of any of us, any person who has found a transforming relationship with Jesus Christ.

Did you notice that this passage begins with the words, “And on the third day…” The “third day” would trigger something in those early hearers. I hope it does the same for you. When the early Christians heard “on the third day” they remembered another third day…a resurrection day. On that third day some women went to a tomb filled with death and despair and there they found life instead.  John begins his story about Jesus with the same kind of miracle at a party. It was as if he wanted to say early on….look what’s coming. When you think all is lost, all is gone, all is hopeless, through this One called Jesus, there is life, transformation.

As followers of Christ, you and I are to point to the One who makes transformation possible and real. You can tell the story of what He has done in your life. That is really what a testimony is all about…telling what Jesus means to you. Today you may not have a testimony, but who knows, maybe today He has saved the best wine for you because he doesn’t want you to leave here thirsty.

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Address
First Baptist Church, Ashland
800 Thompson Street
Ashland, VA 23005

Phone
(804) 798-9014

Fax
(804) 798-9043

E-mail
fbcashland@verizon.net

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