Title: The Fixer
Text: John 2:1-11
Thesis: Jesus made himself known through the miraculous.
Epiphany Series: Encountering Christ in Epiphany
The First Sunday of Epiphany we encountered Christ at his baptism.
• The First Sunday after Epiphany: Christ’s Identity. The First Sunday after Epiphany we encountered Christ at his baptism where God reveals to Jesus and to us who He (Jesus) is. “This is my Son, whom I love, and with whom I am very pleased.” Matthew 3:17
Today, the Second Sunday after Epiphany, we encounter Christ at a wedding.
• The Second Sunday after Epiphany: Christ’s Power. The Second Sunday after Epiphany we encounter Christ at a wedding where he performed the first of many miracles that would follow. “This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.” John 2:13
(Miracles are intended to be a blessing to people but they are also intended to demonstrate that Jesus is God and to inspire faith in those who observe them.)
Introduction
When Bonnie and I were married, the ceremony was performed by her grandfather, who was a retired pastor. It was a beautiful event… very formal including an Italian tenor. But it was not without its memorable moments:
1. The Maid of Honor fainted.
2. Bonnie’s veil caught on fire when she moved too close to candelabra.
3. Her grandfather had Bonnie repeat her vows twice and did not ask me to say mine.
Though it was a memorable occasion for us, eventually all that will remain of our wedding day will be a dilapidated photo album that one of our children or grandchildren will tuck away in a box in an attic. Perhaps generations from now our great, great, great, great grandchildren will discover the album and thumb through it, wondering who the handsome couple might have been before sending it on to the landfill.
I understand Queen Elizabeth is quite upset about the upcoming wedding of her grandson, Prince William to Kate Middleton. In lieu of the tough economic times the couple has decided to scale down their plans by forgoing a traditional “royal wedding. One of their decisions was to arrive at the Abbey in a car rather than a horse-drawn, glass-covered carriage. It is reported that when Queen Elizabeth heard that, she immediately phoned Prince William on his cell and asked, “Are you going to ride your cycles (bicycles” to the Abbey?”
The Queen, very fixed on tradition, does not want the wedding to be a non-descript commoner’s wedding. She wants it to be a traditional royal wedding, woven with pomp and ceremony that will not soon be forgotten.
The wedding in our text today was probably, by the standards of that day, a very traditional Jewish wedding. However it was and continues to be an unforgettable wedding. People are still talking about it despite the fact that it occurred over two-thousand years ago in a dusty little, Middle Eastern village. It is remembered as “The Wedding at Cana of Galilee.”
We do not know the names of the couple who were married. We do not know if they were part of Jesus’ extended family or if they were family friends or neighbors. What we do know is that Jesus’ mother, Mary, was there as was Jesus and his disciples and that the host of the wedding ran out of wine before the celebration was over. And we also know that what made this the most remembered wedding in history is the fact that when the host ran out of wine, Jesus turned water into wine.
This morning I want to take some time to unpack the text so we can appreciate all there is about this story that gives us insight into who Jesus is. (Last week we encountered Jesus as the Son of God at his baptism.)
This week we ask the question, how do we encounter Christ in the story of the Wedding at Cana of Galilee?
I. Jesus was ordinary. Jesus did what ordinary people do… he went to a wedding with his family and friends.
On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. John 2:1-2
Wedding customs vary the world over. Some of the most interesting weddings are in foreign cultures.
The Massai people of Kenya traditionally practice arranged marriages. A father will give his daughter in marriage when she is a child, to a man who is usually much older. When she is between 13 and 16 years of age, the bride packs her things and is dressed in her finest jewelry. At the ceremony the father of the bride spits on the bride’s head as a blessing and then she leaves with her husband, walking to her new home. She never looks back fearing she will turn into stone.
In Southern Sudan the groom must pay the bride’s family from 20-40 cows. However the marriage is completed only after the wife has born two children. If she does not bear two children the husband files for divorce and asks that his cattle be returned.
Though there are many differences, the commonality in all weddings on every continent is that they are attended by family and friends. Weddings are the ordinary practice or ordinary people.
Jesus attended a wedding… we assume it was a Jewish wedding. A traditional Jewish wedding was not anything like our weddings today. In our culture a Saturday wedding is preceded by a Friday evening rehearsal followed by a rehearsal dinner for the wedding party and the families of the bride and groom. The wedding ceremony takes place the next day on Saturday afternoon or evening. Following the wedding ceremony there is a reception that may include a dinner or light refreshments, and the cutting of the cake. And then there is the dash through thrown rice and off they go to some exotic, honeymoon destination.
The typical Jewish wedding that Jesus attended likely began on Tuesday night when the groom and his friends, carrying oil lamps, would go to the home of the bride where they would stand in front of the house. The bride would come out to the front steps and remove her veil. They would all then parade to the groom’s home where the wedding ceremony would take place, followed by a week-long celebration.
In ancient Jewish culture, the newly-weds did not go on a honeymoon following the ceremony. Rather they hosted their families and friends with an extended open-house reception. During those seven days, family and friends came to their home bringing gifts and food. The wine flowed freely for those seven days.
Hospitality was then and continues to be in this day, a sacred expectation. It was expected that the food and the wine would be lavishly provided for all the guests.
Commentators believe Mary must have had a very special role in the festivities. Some believe she was the sister of the groom’s mother… an aunt entrusted with the details of the reception. So when the supply of wine went dry it was Mary’s job to get some more wine so that the groom and the bride would not be embarrassed. So she turned to her son and said, “Jesus, they have no more wine.”
Jesus’ response seems a bit harsh. “Dear woman (or Mother), why do you involve me?”
That sounds like he said something like, “So, it sounds like a personal problem to me.” Or, “A failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.” However commentators suggest that it was Jesus’ way of assuring his mother that he would take care of it. (We can hardly expect that Jesus would have been smart-mouthed and disrespectful to his mother.) And it would seem that Mary understood his response to be a willingness to help because she immediately instructed the servants to do whatever Jesus asked them to do.
You know the story. You know that he instructed the servants to fill six stone jars that were typically used for ceremonial washing with water. They did as they were told and then Jesus had them take a cup to the “master of the banquet” (who may have been the equivalent of a toast-master or head-waiter) for tasting. And when he had tasted it he said, “Wow! This is good stuff!” Actually he went to the bridegroom and pulled him aside and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”
I recently had a conversation with an elderly gentleman who was a milk taster back in the days when farmers sold their milk to produce houses and creameries. He said that you never swallowed the milk but always spit it out because if you swallow it, you lose the ability to taste the differences in milk samples. And then he added, “My dad used to say that after the first beer, beer is just beer.” In other words it all tastes the same.
But this wine did not just taste like more of the same. Jesus did not just drum up a hundred and eighty gallons of “Ripple.” This was good stuff. Jesus doesn’t do cut-rate, dumbed-down, econo miracles.
But the point is… Jesus took a potentially embarrassing situation and turned it into an honorable one.
So we know that Jesus was pretty much an ordinary person who had a mother and friends and relatives and that he even attended weddings. He was not always out there doing big things and saving the world… sometimes he saved a simple wedding.
It is however, this act of saving a wedding that reveals something more about Jesus.
II. Jesus was extraordinary. Jesus did what only a very extraordinary person could do… he turned water into wine.
“This, is the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.” John 2:11
So what do we know about Jesus so far?
We know that Jesus was identified as the Son of God at his baptism.
We know that Jesus was no kill-joy. As evidenced in this story and the stories woven throughout the Gospel accounts of his life, Jesus enjoyed life.
The ordinary Jesus was also an extraordinary Jesus. He was like us but he was also not like us. He is the Son of God and he is the miracle-working, wine-making, and even the “fixer” of failed wedding receptions. The ordinary Jesus did an extraordinary though inconspicuous, miraculous act in a humble home in a non-descript village in Galilee.
So we know that despite his extraordinary identity as the miracle-working, Son of the living God, Jesus is humble and inconspicuous in the way he intervenes in human affairs. He is no headline grabbing, publicity stunt seeking, wannabe great, celebrity. (He even expressed his reservations to display his glory when he said to his mother, “My time has not yet come.”
But apparently his time had come and God wanted everyone there that day and everyone who has lived since to know that Jesus is the Son of God and that His power is evidenced by this first of many miracles that would all serve to affirm his glory.
Conclusion: So what does that mean to us?
One of the reasonable and commonly understood rules for people who work together is that the person who drinks the last cup of coffee should be responsible for brewing a new pot of coffee.
In one church kitchen someone was obviously violating this rule so the church secretary posted a neatly-typed plea to the pot, “If Jesus drank the last cup of coffee, what would he have done?” Then she added, “Go thou and do likewise.” The next morning she found this scrawled response: “Jesus would have turned the water into wine instead of coffee.”
But seriously, what does knowing about this ordinary Jesus who is also extraordinarily the Son of the living God, who has “fixer” power to work miracles, mean to us?
If Jesus has the power to change water into wine, he has the power to change us and to change our situations too.
It means Jesus can turn the sour into sweet.
It means Jesus can turn bitterness into peace.
It means Jesus can turn hatred into love.
It means Jesus can turn anger in understanding.
It means Jesus can turn chaos into calm.
It means Jesus can turn a lost sinner into a saved saint.
