I invite you to turn with me, please, to the gospel of John, chapter two. John's gospel in the second chapter. And follow with me, please, as I read aloud the opening 11 verses of the second chapter of John. On the third day, there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. And Jesus said to her, "'Woman, what does this have to do with me? "'My hour has not yet come.' "'His mother said to the servants, "'Do whatever he tells you.' "'Now there were six stone water jars there "'for the Jewish rites of purification, "'each holding 20 or 30 gallons. "'Jesus said to the servants, "'Fill the jars with water.' "'And they filled them up to the brim. "'And he said to them, Now draw some, draw some out and take it to the master of the feast. So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water, now become wine, and did not know where it came from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew, the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, everyone serves the good wine first. And when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine but you have kept the good wine until now. This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him. The second chapter of John begins with the words, on the third day. The Jews counted days inclusively. Jesus would later die on a Friday. And if you think of that Friday as day one, then the second day was Saturday, a day in which his body was dead in the tomb. And then on the third day, Sunday, he arose. Counting by that way of reckoning, as John 2 begins, Speaking of the third day, we need to think back to John's careful attention to a sequence of days. He's drawing attention here as he begins to present the work of Jesus of Nazareth. He's drawing attention to a very significant week, perhaps the first week in Jesus's public ministry, going back to chapter one, verse 19. He began this sequence of days and following that sequence, the last day that chapter one had spoken of, the day on which Jesus had found Philip and then Philip had found Nathanael and brought Jesus, brought Nathanael to Jesus, that was most likely the fifth day and thus the third day referred to here, inclusively would be the seventh day, the final day of this momentous week. It was a special week. Jesus emerged from some 30 years of almost complete obscurity, and for the first time, he began in a public way to be identified as one sent from God on a very special mission. It was in these very first days that men would first begin to follow him, and John has given us the details of the first five men that attached themselves to him, calling him Rabbi. And here at the end of this first week, he performs his first sign and wonder. It happened at a wedding. It happened in a place called Cana, a very small, an impressive community about 10 miles from Nazareth, where Jesus had grown up. Cana of Galilee is mentioned nowhere in the New Testament, save here in the Gospel of John. It seems likely that the mother of Jesus, Mary, had relatives in this nearby town or perhaps very close friends because the account that is before us clearly conveys that Mary had a sense of responsibility over this wedding. When the wine would run out, she felt like she needed to do something, she comes to Jesus imploring him to take action. So evidently there was a strong connection that Mary had to the family involved or the families involved in this particular wedding. For that reason, Jesus and those who were now associating with him were invited to come to this wedding as well. Mary is not referred to by name here, and she is not referred to by name anywhere in John's gospel. He consistently refers to her as the mother of Jesus. That may be because there would be other Marys connected with the ministry of Jesus, and John was seeking to minimize confusion. As is still true today, High expectations now, there were high expectations then as to what a wedding should involve. I've often, as a pastor, kind of longed for the day when someone would do a wedding, really, really simple. Because over the years, I've seen so much stress associated with planning for a wedding and all the details and all the expense that is involved. And there was something of that cultural expectation 2,000 years ago. There was a way that weddings were done in ancient Jewish culture, and they were prolonged affairs. Way back centuries before this, in the days of Samson, a wedding celebration took an entire week. But there was food to be served, and there was drink to be provided. And as is still true today, there was the the expectation that guests would be well provided for. For reasons not mentioned in the passage, the wine ran out on this particular occasion. In that culture, which was a shame culture, It would have been humiliating for the groom, especially in his family, to be exposed as having failed to be prepared to provide well and courteously for all of their guests. Well, that's the setting. That's the setting in which this first miracle of Jesus took place. In the remainder of our time, I ask you to think with me about the stimulus to this first miracle, the substance of it, and its significance. The stimulus, the substance, the significance. When I speak of stimulus, I mean the prod or the prompt to this miracle. And that stimulus was the interaction that took place between Jesus and his mother. Now, oftentimes in the Gospels, we see Jesus doing a miraculous work, having been stirred by someone on behalf of someone else. Someone who really cares deeply about someone in need comes to Jesus in treating him, to do something amazing, to do something wonderful on behalf of one that they love. We think of the centurion who pleaded with Christ on behalf of a servant. We think of the Syrophoenician woman who pleaded on behalf of her daughter. We think of the official. who came to Jesus on behalf of his son. Here Mary comes to Jesus on behalf of the wedding party. And again, we're inferring from the passage that she had some close connection to the wedding party. And we're reminded by her action that Jesus hears the pleas of people for those that they care about. It's never a vain thing. for us to speak to Jesus about people that we love and that we have concerns about. In this situation, the mother of Jesus approached him saying, they have no wine. Now his reaction to his mother's words and her subsequent response imply that her initial statement was loaded with expectation on the surface the words they have no wine seem completely innocuous. But we must recall that Jesus heard not only the words, but he understood perfectly the attitude from which those words come. And again, his response to her and her subsequent response to him clearly conveys that there was a loaded expectation underneath Her words, she was not simply expressing a concern, she was expecting him to do something about this dilemma. She was calling on him to take action to resolve this problem. Now, Jesus had not performed any miracle this far. And John doesn't give us a lot of detail, so we're not sure what precisely his mother expected him to do in the situation. But we know this much. For 30 plus years, Mary had treasured in her heart the truth that her son had been set apart from God and was different from any other man on earth. It had begun back before Jesus was even conceived in her womb. An angel named Gabriel had come to Mary and had spoken to her. Luke 1, verses 30 and following gives us the account. The angel said to her, behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. For three plus decades, Mary had had those words reverberating in her soul. And back when the magi had fallen down before her baby and worshipped and other miraculous phenomena had happened back in those first days. of the Lord's presence on earth. And as she had watched his development into a teenager and then into a young man, the only sinless person who ever walked upon this earth, as she had watched her special son's development over all these years, she had always known that the hand of God was upon him in a unique way, that this her boy would be great, that he would be the son of the most high, that he would have a kingdom that would never end. It's likely. that she was aware of what John the Baptist had said about Jesus, certainly she would have noticed that unlike any previous time, now there were men who were attaching themselves to Jesus, calling him rabbi. He was now moving out of obscurity into a more public role. She spoke to him about the wine having run out with the expectation he would do something very special about it. It's right for us to speak to Jesus about people and situations that we're concerned about, and we should have a confident expectation that he can and will respond to our petitions in a way that reflects the truth about who he is. He is kind. He genuinely cares. He is powerful. Jesus has the ability to intervene in situations in a way that you and I cannot. That said, it's not for us to dictate to Christ how his omnipotence and compassion should express themselves. Central to true prayer is the conviction that God's will is always better than our own. And this spirit of genuine Christian prayer is suffused with a concern that heaven's will would be done. And those who have any bit of humility about them recognize that the greatest threat to a sincere desire that heaven's will be done is our own instinctive craving for our will to be done. It gets in the way again and again and again. And Jesus sympathizes with that. He knows what it is to agonize over a tension between one's own will and the Father's will. And he experienced it in a way that no one else ever has in the Garden of Gethsemane. But he bowed even there to the will of his Father, praying, not my will, but your will be done. Jesus understands it can be excruciating to lay down our own will. And there can be times where our will manifests not just nine lives, but seemingly a million, as it just keeps getting up again, insisting that it be done. And we must plead with God for grace to have our own will subdued, trusting that His will is better. Mary's words, they have no wine, while innocent on the surface, seem to have conveyed a measure of self-will to which Jesus took exception. There's an element of rebuke in his response. Jesus said to her, woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. Now to address her as woman rather than mom or mother seems a bit harsh to our ears. We need to remember that Jesus would address his mother in the identical way, woman, when he was hanging on the cross and very tenderly. would speak to her and to the Apostle John about an arrangement where she would go under his custody and that he would treat her as his own mother with his departure from the earth. In that cultural context, it was not a harsh way of speaking to her. Perhaps we could better render it in our present culture as if he was saying, ma'am, Ma'am, what does this have to do with me? Some translations in terms of his question, render it, what do I have to do with you? That's the new American standard, and that certainly seems hard. The new King James says, what does your concern have to do with me? The NIV, why do you involve me? Jesus, again, was not responding so much to his mother's words, as he was to an attitude that she was conveying. And it doesn't seem to be going beyond the text to think that she was conveying a demand. If you remember the well-known story that's captured at the end of Luke 10. verses 38 through 42 of some sisters, Mary and Martha, who were very dear friends of Jesus. And you remember Jesus and the disciples going to the house of Mary and Martha on that occasion, and Martha being all caught up with wanting things to be just right, and the house to be clean and the meal to be hot and just so. And you remember, she became flustered and irritated that Mary was sitting there at the feet of Jesus while she was left to do all the serving on her own and she gets angry and she speaks to Jesus about it. And she, in effect, commands Jesus, get Mary off her duff and help him out. And there are times where we, the people of God, can speak to Jesus in a way that is totally inappropriate. It may be understandable from one angle, but it's not for us to tell Jesus what to do. It's for Jesus to tell us what to do. God's job is not to tie into our agenda. It's our job to tie into his agenda. And Mary was out of place. Again, it's not clear from the words she uses, but it's clearly implied by the way that Jesus responds, that there was a level of expectation that was inappropriate. Jesus said, my hour has not yet come. Both Jesus and John, in speaking of Jesus, refer repeatedly to a coming hour, Primarily the phrase refers to the hour of Christ's death, the hour in which he would die and then rise and then ascend. Jesus may have made reference to his hour not having come at this particular point in order to seek to impress upon his mother in a brief way that her expectation of what his unveiling as her special son, her expectation of what his unveiling would look like was going to actually unfold in a way that would be far, far different. What would unfold would be different from her expectation. She would see her son in glory, but his hour would reveal him as hanging on a Roman cross. His hour of glory would not be doing something that would impress the crowds and please the crowds. His hour of glory would involve his being rejected by the crowd and being taunted by the masses. It was critical for Mary to recognize that Jesus was not so much anymore her son, he was God's son. It was important for her to have a shift in her thinking that this Jesus, yes, her son, he was her God, her Lord. He was the promised one. He was the king. He had his own agenda and it was an agenda of following his father's will and she needed to humbly defer to that higher will. Now, despite his rebuke, Mary responded with remarkable faith. Note verse five, his mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you. And it really is a remarkable response. If her feelings were hurt by the somewhat abrupt way in which he had spoken to her, if she recognized, and certainly she did on some level, that there was an element of reproof in the way that he had responded, but it's remarkable how she immediately responds to his response. She simply turns to the servants and says, do whatever he tells you. She is confident that he will do something to resolve the dilemma of the wine having run out. Anticipating his effectual action, he tells the servants to be ready, she tells the servants to be ready to act. The King James Version renders her words, whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. Peggy White told me of a whole sermon being preached on that phrase, and that's got preaching power, doesn't it? Whatever he saith to you, do it. That's the disposition of a true Christian, just to know the will of God and to do it. There are so many things that come up in life. that are beyond us. They're beyond our control. They're beyond our ability to perform. If God doesn't come, then we're helpless. Well, we've got to leave those things with God, trusting him. It is for us to do what he has told us to do. Well, we come to the substance of the miracle. Having looked at its setting, its stimulus, its substance is simply the transformation of water into fine wine. The transformation of water into fine wine. There were six large stone water jars there used for the Jewish rites of purification. Jesus directed the servants to fill those jars with water. They did so. John draws our attention to the fact that each of these very large jars were filled up to the very brim. Jesus then told the servants to take some of the water, to draw some of the water, to take it to the master of the ceremonies. They obeyed, and when the master sipped of what had been brought to him, he is stunned because he's tasting an exceptional quality of wine. Now, he's not stunned because he recognizes a miracle has taken place. He's stunned by the fact that this is so contrary to the normal way that things unfolded in that culture. Normally, you serve your best wine up front, and then as people became more acclimated to drinking and eating, you'd begin to bring in the less expensive stuff, the lower quality stuff, thinking that people wouldn't notice as much. So the master of ceremonies is stunned simply by the fact that the groom, for reasons completely inexplicable to him, had waited to this point in the wedding ceremony for the very best wine to be served. John tells us that the servants understood what was going on. We're not told if the master of the feast explored things further to discover where did this great wine come from. We're not told if the groom and whether the guest at large investigated further to see where this fine, fine wine had come from. John simply draws our attention to the fact that the servants knew what had happened. They knew that it was water that they had put into those large stone jars, and they knew absolutely that when the master of ceremonies had tasted what they had drawn out, that the water had become exceptional wine. They knew that a miracle had taken place It seems that Jesus's aim was not so much to impress the whole crowd that was present, but rather to make an impression upon the five men that had just recently begun to follow him. This first of his signs was not only somewhat private, it was also an expression of compassion. Jesus' miracles generally would address a glaring need, something like being blind, or having leprosy, or being lame, or being possessed of demons, in some cases even being dead. In this case, it's nothing on that level of need from one angle. It's a courtesy. It's a kindness designed to avert a situation in which the groom and his family would have been humiliated to be in a situation where there were guests expecting more and they were out of wine to provide for those guests. But when we stop and think about it, We can appreciate how much it means to avoid situations of being publicly humiliated. Perhaps I'm not the only one who can remember scenes from high school in which there were certain individuals that were bullied and that were made fun of and that were humiliated. And there are situations in which emotional pain can be far more severe than physical pain. And Jesus, in this situation, on the surface, was showing a kindness to this family. Again, in a shame culture, it would have been humiliating for them to have been exposed as having prepared inadequately, and he supplied that need. He was not willing to be dictated by his mother's agenda, but neither was he unmoved by the wedding party's dilemma. In this first miracle, Jesus simply willed this transformation to take place. Oftentimes in his miracles, he speaks, and his speaking is a key part of what will happen. In other miracles, he touches, and his hands are involved in what takes place. In this, the first of his signs, there's no speaking to the water, there's no touching the water. He simply wills internally that the water will be turned into wine and that's exactly what happens. H2O becomes the finest of wine. We're reminded of the words of the prophet Jeremiah, God speaking through Jeremiah chapter 32, 27. Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for me? Well, we come finally to the significance of the miracle. Verse 11, the significance is spelled out in two ways. This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him. So John draws our attention in a twofold way to the significance of this first sign that Jesus did. He manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him. There's several words used in the New Testament to describe the miraculous acts that Jesus and the apostles did. Sometimes they're simply called signs, sometimes wonders, Sometimes they're referred to as power. Sometimes they're referred to as works. John likes the term sign. And he uses that again and again in this gospel. And the term sign draws attention to the fact that the miracles of Jesus were intended to point to something outside of the miracle itself. They were intended to draw attention to a larger reality outside of the wondrous work itself. If you had an important event that you were planning to attend, and you were dependent on signs in order to know how to get to this event that you really wanted to be able to attend. Well, the signs would be important. Without them, you'd be at a loss as to how to get where you want to go. But the signs are not the main thing. The signs are pointing to the main thing. The main thing is the event that you actually want to get to. And in a similar way, The word sign is underscoring that the miracles of Christ and the apostles were pointing to something larger than the deeds themselves. And in this case, they were pointing to the truth that God had come in the flesh, that God the Son had left heaven. The word who made the universe, the word who made you and me, took on human flesh and He was walking on earth amidst people. And Jesus acted as He acted in order to manifest His glory. He wanted to exhibit the fact that He was the Messiah that had been promised. He was the Rescuer that had long been anticipated by the people of God. He is the creator, the one who brought into being grapes and the process of fermentation and sunshine and soil, all that makes wine. He is the one who spoke these things into being initially, that it was nothing for him to will water to turn in to find wine. He's sovereign over nature, all powerful, very gracious and compassionate. He acted to manifest his glory, to exhibit who he in fact is. And the first five men to follow him, who had already been struck by his words, who had begun to follow him, not because they had seen any miracle beforehand, they saw now this miracle. And John tells us that they believed in him. they believed in him. It's not that they had been without faith, but now their faith deepened. The veil was pulled back from their rabbi for a moment and they beheld in him something that that they had not seen before. They saw his transcendence in a deeper way. They saw his magnificence in a deeper way. They saw his holiness in a deeper way. This man is set apart. This man was unlike them and unlike any other rabbi. Their faith deepened. They recognized that he was the son of God. and his glory was full of grace and truth. You'll remember back in John 1 verse 14, John spoke of the word becoming flesh, and we beheld his glory. Glory is of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. And in this first miraculous display, of Christ's glory, they saw grace and they saw truth. About 700 years before Jesus came, God through Isaiah the prophet had foretold a glorious day. We sang of that glorious day earlier in our service. And God foretold a glorious day through his prophets and one of the moving passages in which he foretold the glorious daycomings found in Isaiah 25, verses six through nine. And note how the imagery of wine is a part of this prediction of what was one day coming. Isaiah 25, six through nine. On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food. A feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well-refined. He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces. It will be said on that day, behold, this is our God. We have waited for him that he might save us. This is the Lord. We have waited for him. Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. And in those beautiful words, God, speaking through Isaiah, had spoken of a coming age of glory, describing it as an incredible banquet, a sumptuous feast to which people from all over the planet would come, and it would be a delightful time of intimate interaction and of laughter and of joy marked by the finest of foods, and by the very best wine. Perhaps as Jesus did this first sign at a wedding in Cana of Galilee, he was signaling, let the banquet begin. There is a glorious wedding that is coming, and I have come into the world to bring this glorious wedding feast to past, and may the celebrating begin The king has come, a new age was being ushered in. But his hour had not yet come and the glorious banquet would cost a staggering amount. It would be paid for by the blood of the God man. The son had come from heaven becoming a true man so that he could bear the indignation of God in the place of sinners. and only through his bearing that just fury of God, which our sins merit, it was only through his taking our place, offering himself a sacrifice, bearing the wrath that we deserve, that the way to the banquet would be open to anyone and everyone who will take Jesus on his terms, who will repent, and believe and come to the Savior, no matter what you've been, no matter what you've done. Through Isaiah, there's another prophecy that God spoke. It's found in chapter 55, verse one. The words are these. Come everyone who thirst, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come. Buy and eat, come. buy wine and milk without money and without price. Jesus came to earth so that we would come to him. And he sincerely and he earnestly invites each and every one to come to him just as you are and to come freely. He has paid the price for the banquet. He's paid it with his own precious blood. Behold his glory. Believe in him. Let's pray together. Our God, we thank you for the opportunity to ponder this portion of your holy word We thank you, oh God, that this is Jesus, that this is the fact of what really happened on this day in the small town of Cana of Galilee. We thank you, oh God, that this is not just a story, it's not a myth, it's history, and we thank you that it was written down, not just for our curiosity, to bring us to faith and to strengthen our faith, that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the promised one, the Lord of glory, the King who will reign forever. So Lord, we pray that you would give us faith and that you would feed it. We ask these things in Christ's name, amen.