INTRODUCTION
I remember the first wedding I ever went to.
It was the wedding of my Aunt Jeanne. She was my mother’s youngest sister. The
wedding took place in my grandparents’ house. The preacher stood in front of
the fireplace with Aunt Jeanne and her husband-to-be Uncle Bill, and we all
stood around in the living room and in the entry hall. I don’t remember that
anyone sat down.
I suppose we had cake. That’s what weddings were
in those days.
Charlotte and I were married in the little
chapel at the University of Kansas. We had about 75 guests—our best friends and
relatives.
I bought a new tie to go with my blue suit.
Charlotte wore a borrowed dress.
You can see a picture of Charlotte and me in
our wedding finery just outside the door of our apartment.
My brother was my best man, and Charlotte’s
roommate was the maid of honor.
A friend sang a song. After the wedding we
ate cake and drank punch.
Weddings weren’t a big deal in those days—at
least in the circles we moved in.
My, haven’t times changed!
Now weddings are a really big deal. The bride
and groom each have three or four attendants, all in matching formal dresses or
tuxedoes, and they process in to stand in rows on either side.
And after the wedding, we all sit down to a
big dinner. It is pretty exciting. There are speeches. There may be music and
dancing.
In Israel, in the time of Jesus, times weddings—were
a Big Deal! Even more of a big deal than nowadays.
For ordinary people who had very little
excitement in their lives, weddings may have been the highlights of most
people’s lives.
And in John’s gospel, right at the beginning
after the gospel writer introduces Jesus—before Jesus does any teaching or performs
any miracles—he tells us that Jesus went to a wedding, with the first five
disciples that he had just met in the first chapter.
I. But before I tell you the story, I want to
share some things I learned about wedding customs in the Holy Land that would
have been true of this wedding. (This information comes mostly from a couple of
books by historians of the time: The Life
and Times of Jesus the Messiah, by Alfred Edersheim and Palestine in the Time of Christ, by
Edmond Stapfer.)
A. Marriage held great significance for
Jewish people of that time.
In the Old Testament the relationship between
the Lord and Israel was compared to that of a husband and his bride.
Some of the rabbis taught that God himself
spoke the words of the first wedding blessing at the union of Adam and Eve.
They say that the angels Michael and Gabriel
were the first groomsmen, and the angel choir sang the wedding hymn.
B. Young people became engaged at a young
age, but they couldn’t be actually married until the girl was at least
12-years-old and the boy 18.
The fathers of the boy and the girl would
arrange for their children to be married
According to the customs of ancient Israel,
before the wedding could take place, the young man and his bride-to-be had a betrothal
ceremony at the girl’s parents’ home.
Both families made promises. The young man
gave a gold ring or a piece of money or a letter to his fiancée with which he promised to marry her.
The young people were then considered legally
married, although the wedding would not be held for maybe a year. If the boy
died, the girl was considered a widow. To cancel the marriage required a
divorce.
Before he left the young man would say, “I am
going to prepare a place for you, and I will return for you when it is ready.”
Usually he went to his parents’ house and prepared a room for them there. This
is what is symbolized by the Chuppah,
(koo’pah) or canopy which is used in
Jewish weddings today.
The day for the wedding of a first-time bride
was Wednesday. The ceremony would be held at sunset.
The groom’s friends and the relatives of the
girl came to the house of the bride-to-be and led her from her parents’ home to
the home of her husband-to-be.
She went perfumed and adorned with a crown of
flowers on her head. Her hair was flowing loose.
Each of her bridesmaids carried a torch or
lamp on a pole.
Some waved myrtle branches. A band of drummers
and musicians playing instruments accompanied the procession.
As the wedding party wound through the streets,
everyone who saw it was obligated to join the procession, clapping and singing
and dancing and praising the beauty and virtues of the bride as they went. The
friends of the groom passed out nuts for the children.
C. When they reached the groom’s house, they
led the girl to her husband-to-be.
The steward—or master-of-ceremonies—would pronounce
the benediction and say, “Take her according to the Law of Moses and of
Israel.”
The bridegroom signed the marriage contract.
Then there would be the ritual washing of
their hands. A servant would pour water over each guest’s hands.
Wedding festivities might last up to a week.
The bride and groom spent each night during the festivities in the wedding chamber the groom had prepared. This was their
“honeymoon.”
It was the custom for the women relatives to
help in the kitchen.
As a friend of the family, we gather that
this was what Mary, our Lord’s mother was doing. That’s how she knew when the
wine had run out.
II. Now it’s time to read the story, from
John 2:
A. On
the third day there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus
was there; Jesus also was invited to the marriage, with his disciples.
When
the wine failed the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”
And
Jesus said to her, “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet
come.”
His
mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
Now
six stone jars were standing there, for the Jewish rites of purification, each
holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with
water.” and they filled them up to the brim.
He
said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the steward of the feast.”
So
they took it. When the steward 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 steward of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “every
man serves the good wine first; and when men 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.
B. For the wine to fail was a great
embarrassment to the bride and groom and their families.
Jesus’ mother came to Jesus with the problem
about the wine.
Jesus hadn’t yet worked any miracles. We
don’t know what Mary expected Jesus to do about it.
Since we read nothing about Joseph after
Jesus’s visit to the Temple as a child, we assume that Joseph had died and
Jesus had taken responsibility for the family. His mother had grown to depend
on him.
She said,
“They have no wine.”
Maybe she thought that Jesus would go out and
buy some wine for them.
C. Then Jesus said something that sounds to
us strange. He said, “O woman, what have
you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”
Scholars who study these things tell us that
addressing one’s mother as “woman” wasn’t rude in that language. It was a
normal, polite way to speak to a lady.
What must have seemed odd to Mary was: “What do you have to do with me? My hour
has not yet come.”
It seems that Jesus was reminding her that now
wasn’t the time to be going public with his mission. So what he would do, he
would do quietly.
Mary understood. She knew that Jesus was
going to help out, so she told the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
I think that John tells us that detail because
that’s what we all need to do. Whatever
Jesus tells us to do, we need to do it—whether we understand or not.
D. Jesus pointed to the six big stone jars
that had held the water the guests had used to wash their hands. He said, “Fill
the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim.
Now these were huge jars, each holding 20-30
gallons of water. Together they would hold 120 to 180 gallons.
I wonder what the servants thought. If each
of their buckets held two gallons, they would have to send down their bucket
into the well at least 60 times to fill those six jars.
They must have wondered what was going on.
You can imagine their surprise when they put their pitchers into the jars—and
drew out fine wine!
E. Jesus saved the day for the happy couple.
The wine Jesus provided made it possible for the wedding to go on to its joyful
conclusion.
I think it is striking that Jesus’s first
miracle wasn’t giving sight to a blind man, or raising someone dead, or
stilling a storm—but making wine to save a young couple from embarrassment.
And all that wine was a nice wedding gift.
That happy couple wouldn’t have to buy wine for a long time.
III. The Bible says that this was the first
of Jesus’ “signs.”
Every miracle Jesus does as recorded in
John’s gospel is called a “sign.” So we should ask ourselves, “What does this
miracle signify?”
A. First of all, it is appropriate that
Jesus’s first miraculous “sign” was performed at a wedding.
Weddings, in Jesus’s teaching, are symbols of
the Kingdom of God.
In Matthew 22:2 Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a
king who gave a wedding banquet for his son…”
In Revelation 19:9 the angel tells John, “Blessed are those who are invited to the
marriage supper of the Lamb.”
The kingdom of God is compared to a wedding
because weddings are about the happiest events in most of our lives.
The kingdom of Heaven is like a wedding
because the church—you and me and all believers together—are called Christ’s
bride. That’s how much Jesus loves us.
B. Wine is also a symbol.
In our culture wine is often a problem. We
have many other nice things to drink. Many of us don’t use wine at all. I
don’t.
But wine in those days was the drink that
enriched fellowship.
In Psalm 104 we read that God creates wine to
gladden peoples’ hearts.
So wine is a symbol of joy—the joy that Jesus
brings into every life he enters.
C. Changing ordinary water into rich,
delicious wine, symbolizes the
transforming power of the gospel.
Jesus changed ordinary water into wine in an
instant! What a powerful object lesson of the transforming power of the gospel!
We who are believers have experienced the
transforming power of the gospel. In 2 Corinthians 5:17 we read: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new
creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.”
D. But the most important thing that this
miracle signifies is abundance—Jesus
made something like 150 gallons of wine!
This illustrates Jesus’s saying, “I came that they might have life and have
it abundantly.”
If earthly wine signifies worldly well-being, camaraderie, and pleasure, the “wine” of eternal life
means fellowship with God and assurance
of eternal life.
This abundance of grace opens to our view a
better country where all tears will be wiped away and all the costs of following
Jesus will be swallowed up in eternal blessings of salvation.
A lady at a nursing home said to me, “I don’t
know how people can live without God.” I don’t either.
CONCLUSION
Our story ends with these words: “This, the
first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
In the first chapter of John’s gospel we read
of five men who had begun to follow Jesus up to this time. Andrew, Peter,
Philip, Nathaniel, and another disciple who is not named.
These disciples had already “believed in him”
in the sense that they believed what he said was true.
Now they had seen his glory, and they “believed
in him” in a deeper sense. They committed their lives to him.
A lot of people say they “believe” because
they agree with what Jesus said. They like Jesus’s teaching and they like the
idea of going to heaven when they die—but they don’t take the next step of
giving themselves to Jesus. When we give ourselves to Jesus in love and faith and obedience, that
is the faith that connects us to God and brings assurance of eternal life.
Have you seen Christ’s glory and believed in
him? I believe you have.
Let’s keep looking toward Jesus and fill our
minds and hearts with his glory—the
glory of his never-ending goodness.
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