Congregation, hear now the Word of the Lord. 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 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. Now, this miracle congregation of turning the water to wine is one of the most well-known miracles in the Bible. In Christian circles, this incident is used in normally two settings. The most popular setting you probably know is what? Weddings. Right? Most wedding liturgies begin with something like, God bless the institution of marriage, and that Jesus was there at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. That may have been in your own wedding liturgy, not that you were paying that much attention. But that's when you most often hear about it. That's because you were nervous, not because the wedding wasn't important, by the way. Now, the second place this passage is normally spoken of is in debates. And it's in debates about the use of alcohol. Right? Whenever you have a teetotaler debating a Christian who thinks you can drink alcohol, what's always brought up Well, wine must be okay because Jesus himself turned water into wine. So even though this passage is very well known and is very popular, it's used often in ways not intended by the scripture itself. Go down to verse 11. In this miracle it says, Jesus showed forth and manifested his glory. It doesn't say, Jesus performed this so you would know that marriage is a good thing. And it really doesn't say Jesus wanted to prove alcohol is a good thing for Christians. And so he turned water to wine. The question is, how does Jesus show his glory by performing this miracle? The context of the miracle is this is the very first miracle Jesus ever performed. He had just been baptized in the desert, and Galilee is not that far from where he was baptized. His mother was invited to a wedding, and in those days your children were also invited, so Jesus was invited, and his disciples, who were already identified with him now, were then invited also. In those days, wedding receptions lasted about a week. And though the ceremony was fairly short, you had about six days of partying. And they were very big parties. And so they were all invited and they would be enjoying the festivities. And one thing you didn't want to happen then, even now, but even more in ancient Near East culture, is to be a bad host. And what happens in the middle of one of the receptions is they ran out of wine. Mary hears the report that they ran out of wine and she approaches Jesus and says, they have no wine. And of course that raises the first question, why are you telling Jesus this? What are you expecting him to do? He has never even performed a miracle. He grew up in your own home. You've never seen him do anything. So why are you even telling him the news? She's not gossiping. She's expecting him to do something. And so what we see is that Mary does have some commendable faith here. Because even though he hasn't done anything miraculous, she looks at him and says, Jesus, do something about this. Well, she knew he didn't have casts of wine somewhere hidden that he could send his disciples to get. So she is expecting some type of a miracle from him out of this. So the very fact that she has enough faith at the very beginning of his ministry to ask this question, then raises the next question, then why respond to her this way? If she had the kind of faith this early on to say, Jesus, perform a miracle, why does Jesus rebuke his mother in the presence of all? Now, some have tried to soften the blow here and say, well, in Jewish culture, woman is a term of endearment. Well, it can be if you're not rebuking them. I mean, I could say that to my wife. I can say, woman, and something very positive. Or I could say, woman. It just depends on the tone and what you say right afterwards. And so here it is obviously rebuke. He says, what have I to do with you? Or another way to say that would be simply, why are you asking me this now? It is not my time yet, he says. Now this is quite a blow because one thing in Jewish culture is you don't embarrass your parents. Teenagers, are you hearing this? And you don't embarrass your parents publicly. You can do it privately because we all did that. But you don't do that in front of everybody. And this is exactly what Jesus does to his mother. He rebukes her in front of all. He says, woman, what do I have to do with you? It's not my time to do something like this. So what we see by this public rebuke is a very startling change of relationship now that Jesus has been anointed as the Messiah. He's no longer identifying as the Son of Mary as much as the Messiah of Israel. So now he speaks to her the way he would speak to all the Jews. He is the Messiah, and he is either encouraging, teaching, rebuking, and even speaks to her the same way. So he's not being disrespectful here. He's not being cold. He will often speak to his disciples this way. He will question them. He will rebuke them at the right time. And that's how he's treating his mother. So now you see a change in relationship between Jesus and his mother, now that he is officially the Messiah of Israel. Notice in the passage that John doesn't even name Mary in the text. He simply calls her the mother of Jesus. Something is changing here now that Jesus has been baptized. And notice that Mary gets this. Mary doesn't say a Jewish son should never talk to her mother that way in the presence of other people. How does she respond? She says to the servants, whatever he tells you to do, do it. Even Mary is recognizing, she's humbling herself here, and she's recognizing something has changed with Jesus. He is taking on the role that I knew He would eventually take on. And now He's the Messiah. Whatever He says, obey Him. Now in a moment we're going to see why Jesus rebukes his mother, but for now you see this change of relationship now that he's a Messiah. But it is interesting to think that Mary says to the servants, whatever he tells you, obey him. And that raises another question. What authority did Jesus have to tell a bunch of servants at a wedding what to do? It wasn't His wedding. See, even Mary's recognizing He's in charge of Israel. He's in charge. He has authority from God. So even in this setting, whatever He commands, Now let's look at the miracle itself. The manner of the miracle is important because it's unique. Of all the miracles we see in the Old Testament, none of them happen like this one. In the Old Testament, God usually uses a person. There's usually a prayer involved. Moses in the Red Sea, what does he do before the Red Sea splits apart? He calls upon the Lord, doesn't he? And what does God do? He sends a wind so they could see the movement of the wind over the sea. Well, remember Moses uses a staff, and he uses a staff to perform a miracle. What does Jesus use here? Is there any type of mediation, any type of instrument? Nothing. Where is the prayer to God for this to happen? There's no prayer to God. In other words, there is something happening here that's different than all the other miracles throughout the Old Testament. There's not even a description of how it happens. There was water, and all of a sudden there's wine. Jesus speaks, and something that did not exist now exists. What does that remind you of in the Bible? Genesis 1. There was no light, God speaks, and there's light. Jesus appears, there's no wine, Jesus speaks, and there's wine. So when it says in verse 11 that He revealed His glory, what He's revealing is that He's not a mere prophet, that He's the Son of God, that He is divine, that He has power in Himself to perform miracles. And He is omnipotent over creation. He can speak, and creation obeys. Now let's go back to this rebuke of his mother. He turns down her request to perform a miracle, saying, it is not my time yet. And that raises the question, you should have what? Time for what? What does he mean, it is not my time yet? Well, if you look at the Old Testament prophecies, often in the prophets, when they describe what will happen when the Messiah arrives in Israel, He will introduce a kingdom. He will establish a kingdom. And that kingdom is often described as a place where wine will be flowing. Let me give you a couple of examples. Joel 2.19. The Lord will answer and say to his people, behold, I'm going to send you grain and new wine and oil, and you will be satisfied and full with them. Amos 9.13, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when the mountains will drip with wine, and my people will plant vineyards and drink their wine. You think Mary knew her Old Testament? She knew it well. So you see what Mary was thinking? Jesus, you're the Messiah. I believe it. All those prophecies say that our country will be flowing with wine. Now you're in a public place for the first time. And you're ready to be the Messiah. What a great opportunity now to bring all that wine. They're even asking for wine. So now, fulfill all those Old Testament prophecies. Bring in the Kingdom. What wonderful faith, right? She believes that He is the Messiah. And she sees a great opportunity to right now make it all happen. But Jesus rebukes her and says, it is not my time yet. Now, the next question, well, how would she know the timing? Old Testament says the Messiah would bring in new wine. They need wine. This is a great time. Why does she deserve a rebuke for expecting what the Old Testament says? Because Mary had very selective memory. But the Old Testament, when it speaks of the Messiah coming, also speaks not just of the wonderful things He will bring, but of His suffering. Isaiah 53, He will be lifted up, He will be pierced through for our transgressions. Even the very first prophecy has the devil hurting the heel of the Savior. And remember when Jesus was born? And Simeon the prophet speaks about Jesus? To Mary, here's what he said, Behold, this child is appointed for the rise and fall of many in Israel, and he will be opposed, and a sword will pierce through your soul also. So she was told when he was a baby, he will suffer, many will oppose him, and you will suffer, because he will suffer. Has any of that happened yet? Obviously not. And so she had very conveniently ignored all the prophecies of his suffering and her own, and only focused on the glory and the good things to come. And that showed that she had not yet understood the extent of her own sin. that the only way she could enter God's kingdom is for someone to die for her sins. And that's why the Messiah came down. Think how many billions of people in the world pray to Mary every day. But we see here that Mary cannot help you because she's a sinner herself who needs a Savior, just like you and just like me. Now, in one sense, we can sympathize with Mary, what mother wants to see her son suffer. Yet, not only do we see Mary's faith here, now we see her lack of faith. She wanted to ignore the difficult parts of the Bible. Nobody does that today, right? Think of how many people want God only for the good things in life, but they want to ignore all the difficult parts about God in the Bible. And so Jesus said, what have I to do with you? It's not my time yet. That's another way of saying, Mary, dear Mary, you cannot have the glory without the cross. I cannot bring in a kingdom for you if I don't first suffer and die for you and take your sins upon myself. And how many people want God's help, but they don't want to come to God through the cross, through repentance and faith in Christ, as the only means to be in God's kingdom. And Jesus is saying that here. You can't have a kingdom until I die for your sins. Now from the miracle, we learn then about who He is. That He is the Son of God, but we also learn about His Kingdom. And notice how John describes the miracle in the description of the water jars. When John adds details, and these details in this portion of the passage seem very unimportant, He's not adding details for no reason. These are theological reasons to add these. So John describes the amount of water that was changed to wine, and even describes what those pots were used for normally. Pots were used for the Jewish custom of purification. That's where you would wash in the rituals to clean your hands or to clean instruments or plates. And so what is happening is, by John bringing this out, Jesus is symbolically saying, through this miracle, that the slavish rituals of the Old Testament are now ending. All those ceremonial washings, all those details of how to be holy before God, he's ending all those by dying in our place and bringing us to God directly himself. There's a new era about to come. of communion with God, that we won't need all these Old Testament rituals. So in the same way the water is turning to wine, because you don't use wine to wash, the symbolism here is the Old Testament and the law is coming to an end, and Jesus is coming to bring us directly to God. The new wine represents the work of the Spirit and the new covenant. Now, notice how John continues. He even wants us to know the amount of water that changed. Six water jars, holding 20 to 30 gallons each, filled to the brim. What did Jesus say? I have come to give life and to bring, what kind of life? Abundant life. The new covenant will bring abundant life, just like there was abundant wine. Now, before John ends the miracle, he has one extremely strange conversation that, again at first glance, seems like it has nothing to do with anything. He reports the conversation between the head caterer and the bridegroom. And after the miracle, this seems very anticlimactic. so that the head caterer goes to the bridegroom and says, this is really odd, because this wine that is being given out now is better than the original wine. Now you understand why, right? It was custom that in order to save money, you always gave the good wine first before everyone's inebriated. When everyone's inebriated, they're less discerning. Then you can water down the rest of the wine, you're not spending so much money, and nobody knows the difference. And that was the custom at all festivals. The good wine was at the beginning and everybody usually was somewhat drunk back then. Then you pass out the real cheap wine that's watered down so you don't spend so much money. And the head and the caterer said, this is odd. We're towards the end and this is the best wine. This is better than anything we've tasted before. Now, why does John add this conversation? Because the head caterer is unwittingly sort of explaining the new covenant, isn't he? He is saying that what Jesus came to bring is better than anything we've seen in the Old Testament. Better what God did for Israel under Moses. better than the law, better than even the prophets could describe in their symbolism and imagery. The permanent union that we will have with God forever, what Jesus came to bring, is better than anything of the old, and even in the way it's being discussed, brings that out. And so the choice of a wedding for Jesus' very first miracle is very appropriate. And especially the weddings in the ancient Near East. Because their weddings were different than our weddings. In our weddings, the bride is the center of attention. I mean, the groom just stands up there and does nothing. And what does the bridegroom, the bride does? She walks down in a procession. Everybody stands up and looks at her. And that's a Western wedding. The Eastern weddings were just the opposite. The bride stood and waited, and the bridegroom walked down the long aisle, and there were many attendants with him. And Jesus brings that out in some of the parables, doesn't he? How you are to meet the bridegroom and escort him to the wedding. So in that sense, the bridegroom, he is the very center of attention. And so the very first miracle looks ahead to that wedding celebration when we're all with Christ and He is the very center of attention. And what is that called in the book of Revelation? The great marriage feast between Christ and His Church. Christ and those He died for. So whatever your view of marriage, whatever your experience of marriage, or you wish you were married, no love of a spouse can compare to the love of Christ for His church. And so the purpose here is not to perform a miracle to show everybody that earthly marriage is good. It obviously is. But Christ is showing that He came to bring about an eternal marriage, a union between God and His people. that He would bring about by dying on the cross for our sins. Now notice in verse 11, John ends with the statement, His disciples believed in Him. Now their faith was somewhat weak, it was limited, but they believed that He was the Messiah, just like Mary, that He's the one that would somehow bring in the promises of God. They weren't sure how He would do it, they weren't sure what it would look like, but they knew that even at this point, that true eternal life, true blessing with God was found in Christ. So what's the point of this first miracle as we close? We were the bride, filthy with sin. Jesus was the holy bridegroom who sought us out, came down and married us to himself. Now He is up in heaven after He rose again. He's preparing a place. And when we die and we rise again, there will be a great marriage reception ceremony between Christ and His Beloved. All those who are washed clean by the new wine, the new blood of the Lamb. That is the meaning of the first miracle at Cana.