God Will Provide
This sermon was preached by Pastor Ted Carnahan on the Second Sunday after Epiphany, January 18, 2025.
Transcript
Grace, mercy, and peace be with all of you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The party was just really getting started. They were having a good time, but then they ran out of wine.
It's funny, the things that are sort of socially appropriate, things that you've got to do, and it changes over time, doesn't it? You know, the traditions around things like weddings. "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue." Well, not everybody does that nowadays. It used to be quite the thing. Everybody had to have that, but now it's not as big of a deal.
Similarly, all of us would pretty much agree that there ought to be some sort of a celebration for a wedding. A lot of times, couples today even put off weddings because they feel like they can't afford the kind of party that they need in order to really get their marriage started off right. I would suggest to them that perhaps getting married now and then having a party later would be a better course of action than delaying, but nevertheless.
Jesus at the Wedding
Jesus, who's just attending this wedding as a wedding guest, he's not there as the guest of honor. He's just a guy. When the stewards are starting to say, "There's a problem here, they have run out of wine," it is not Jesus who jumps into the rescue, but it is instead his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Mary says to Jesus, "They have run out of wine," as if he didn't hear already. You ever have your wife announce that there's a problem, but doesn't ask you to solve it, but knows that by announcing it, that you're going to do something about it? The trash can is full, my wife will say to me. That's it. Just notifying me, thought you wanted to know. There are socks on the floor in the living room. Fascinating, riveting conversation. The dogs stole your socks. Because she knows that if she announces that there's a problem, Jesus is going to do something about it.
She's confident enough that she can just ask, and she knows that Jesus is going to respond. The thing that Jesus says in response to that is actually kind of clipped. It's almost like he gets a little bit short with his mom, which is kind of off-putting. The English translation here is a little bit more full than the clipped way that he answers her, at least as it's recorded in the original language. He says, "What is that to you and me, woman?" It's even shorter in the Greek. It's "tis a," what is that to me, so what, almost. "What do you expect me to do about it?" he says.
But Mary has confidence in Jesus so that she turns to the stewards. Right after he says that, and says, "Do whatever he tells you." She knows that he's going to do something about it. She knows that he can do something about it.
The Miracle of the Wine
And so he instructs the stewards to go and draw some water. But what water do they draw? It's not just any water. It's not just water that was sitting in a jug like I was showing the kids earlier. It was water that was set aside and John calls these stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification. And they're not small jugs. These stone water jars probably hold 20 or 30 gallons each, and there's six of them.
When Jesus is making wine for a party, he's not making it in teacups. He makes 180 gallons of wine. And not only is it wine, but it's really good wine. Wine that is so good that the steward goes, not to Jesus, because the steward doesn't know what's going on, but the steward goes to the bridegroom, the one who is throwing the party, and says, "This is kind of remarkable. What I normally expect is that people serve really good wine up front because they want to look good, and then later on, when everybody's too drunk to know what's going on, the difference, they serve the cheap stuff because nobody's going to care at that point. But you, you've saved the good wine until now."
The Historical Context
Sometimes I think we lose track of what's going on in the day of Jesus. In Jesus's day, the people had already lived under the law and the prophets for over a thousand years. They had already received the teaching of the Torah. They had already been waiting for the coming Messiah, not just for a year or a couple of decades, but for six centuries. And here they are, living their lives under yet another oppressive ruling regime, among many, the Romans this time, but it had been the Assyrians and the Babylonians, and time just keeps going on, and things just keep getting worse.
And one would expect that as life keeps getting worse, that you've wound it up really tight, and it keeps on ticking and keeping good time, but as the mainspring starts to get kind of lax, it starts to tick a little slower, and the time keeps poorer, and it just kind of runs off until suddenly it stops. And it's easy for us to imagine that the world that we live in is like that clock, or like the Jews of that first century party, just trying to celebrate the basic things that they have there, but knowing that it has been a long time since they've heard from God, through the prophets, and wondering if God even cares about the situation.
And on top of that, these people, especially the bridegroom here, throwing this party to celebrate the launching of his new life with his bride, and here he is found in a circumstance that he isn't going to be able to readily get out of. One can imagine that he's bought all the wine that he can afford in order to keep the party going, so it's not going to be easy for him to get a hold of more at this late date.
The Significance of the Miracle
And into the midst of that sense of things running down and stopping, that sense of things running out, the sense of lack, and things not being enough for everybody, and not being enough to celebrate, here comes Jesus, and he's got something remarkable. Yes, he's making water into wine, and so don't let anybody tell you that Jesus was against alcohol. The excessive consumption of it, yes, but alcohol, no, his first public miracle was at this wedding, and he turned water into 180 gallons of wine.
But also remember that the point of this story is what John describes in verse 11. He says, "Jesus did this, the first of his signs." At the core of what John is telling us, and it's why the book of John is so different than Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It sounds different, it feels different, it's organized differently. The reason is because John wants to tell you about signs. He wants to tell you about the meaning of who Jesus is. He's not trying to give you a chronological description of events. He's not writing a history book for the future. He's trying to describe what Jesus means.
And what he's saying here in this first sign that he records for us is that Jesus has come, yes, to do miracles so that people will believe in him, but that that miracle might have something to do with wine. That that wine might have something to do with purification and cleansing us from our sins. It starts to sound a little bit like something we're going to do later this evening. It starts to sound like Holy Communion, doesn't it?
There's a connection, a thread running from the presence of Jesus at this wedding feast straight through these water jars and straight into the guests who are gathered there to celebrate. It's a different feast, but a wedding feast. The wedding feast of the Lamb. Because in the fullness of time when Jesus dies on the cross and he rises from the dead, he is now wedded to his bride. Who is his bride? His bride is the church.
And so we come together and we worship on the weekend when we come together and we receive the Holy Communion and we remember the words of God. We are receiving a foretaste of the feast to come. You've heard that language before in church. That foretaste of the feast to come is a foretaste of the culmination of all things when Jesus comes back and he is united again with his bride, the church, and we have this beautiful picture of a wedding.
You see, it may feel like the world is winding down around you. You may be feeling like you're trying to keep up appearances, but the shame is about to set in. Like there's not enough out there for you anymore. But you need only confidently trust Jesus like Mary does. She says, "Do whatever he tells you." People of God, do whatever Jesus tells you. And he says, "Fill the jars with water."
Because even though it seems like we have very little, we have much. Even though it seems like we're running out of reasons to celebrate, we have many reasons to celebrate. Even though it seems like the party is over, the party is just getting started and it will be better than it ever was before. For Jesus Christ is present at this feast and he's present with you each and every day.
And he calls you away from doubt and despair. He calls you out of shame and loss. He calls you out of the sin that you keep going back to out of this misguided idea that somehow you can find satisfaction in defying God. And he calls you instead into a relationship of celebration. He calls you and reveals his glory to you. He gives you faith and he gives you what you need for the day.
May you celebrate the coming and the return of Jesus Christ. May you remember that the best in our lives is yet to come. And may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds, strong in Christ Jesus our Lord, to life everlasting. Amen.
