Just this past week, one of my daughters was looking through the scrapbooks that my wife has assembled throughout the years of various events in their lives. One of the things you’ll find for each of them is the famous “First day of school” picture. Those pictures are kind of fun to look at and compare from year-to-year, “Look at how little you were. You could almost fit in that back pack. Can you believe you wanted to wear that to school?” But those pictures not only bring to mind that specific point in time, but they also remind you of what happened during the school year. That was the year you lost your two front teeth, had all that homework, you had her as your teacher, got your braces on, got your braces off. Those “First day pictures” not only recall that day, but what would follow in the days to come.
This morning we get a bit of a “First day picture” in the life of Jesus. No it’s not Jesus’ first day of school. Jesus was 30 years-old at this point. It’s a wedding picture. Now let’s be clear so as not to start any heretical rumors. This is NOT Jesus’ wedding picture. Rather it is the picture of a wedding Jesus attended where he performed his first miracle. This picture of Jesus’ first miracle not only reminds us of what Jesus did on that day, but also what would follow in the days to come.
This wedding that Jesus’ disciple John describe for us and himself attended took place just a few days after Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist at the Jordan River. After his baptism, Jesus traveled to the area of Galilee, in the northern part of Israel where he began to assemble a small group of disciples called “The Twelve.” Jesus, along with his disciples, were invited to a wedding in Cana, a place not far from Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth. We’re told that Jesus’ mother Mary was also there and so it seems that this might have been a wedding for a family friend or maybe even a family member of Jesus and Mary. Whatever the case, the traditional week’s long celebration of a man and woman beginning their married lives together was well underway when Jesus and his disciples arrived. And that’s when it happened.
There was a potentially embarrassing situation that would have been disastrous for this wedding. Mary reports to Jesus, “They have no more wine” (John 2:3). Now we need to understand that this wasn’t like the bar at a 21st century wedding running out of beer or alcohol. Wine was a very common drink. To not have wine was in essence saying to the guests, “Go home. There is nothing for you to drink.” Mary saw the situation and she took it to Jesus. Now think about that for a moment. This doesn’t really seem like a crisis that Jesus needed to be involved in, does it? Couldn’t the servants or the master of the banquet have found somewhere to get more wine? But for whatever reason, that was not an option. This was not a problem that could be solved by any of them. Mary knew that it was going to take something extraordinary to solve this problem and so she went to Jesus. Mary was convinced that her son Jesus was capable of doing the extraordinary. She went to Jesus because she believed that Jesus was more than just her son. She believed that she was going to the Lord her God, someone who had the power to do the extraordinary and to solve the impossible.
How good are you at doing that? Do you ever look at the situation in your life and try to convince yourself, “I can solve this! I can handle this. I don’t need help.” That stubborn sinful nature so often convinces us that we don’t need help, that we can handle it all on our own. Instead of handing our problems over to Jesus, we hang onto them, try to carry them, and inevitably get crushed and overwhelmed by them. The Apostle Peter wrote, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:6,7). Humility is not humanity’s strong suit. Stubbornness is. Instead of being crushed by your troubles, and overwhelmed by the situations in your life, be like Mary. Humbly take them to Jesus and trust that he has the power, as your Savior-God to address every single one of them because he cares for you.
Just as amazing as what Mary DID say is what Mary did NOT say. She simply says to Jesus, “They have no more wine.” How often when we do take our problems to Jesus do we also include how we believe he should solve the problem? Did you notice who she did not tell him HOW he should solve it. She simply trusted that he would. And when you see his solution, it is certainly nothing that she or any one of us would have come up with. Can you imagine her saying, “Jesus, they’re out of wine. Why don’t you take those jars over there, fill them with water, and turn the water into wine?” Probably not the solution that she would have come up with. But have you ever noticed how God’s solutions to our problems are rarely what you would expect and always so much more amazing?
The nation of Israel, having observed the plagues like the one we heard of in our first lesson this morning meant to convince the Egyptians to allow the Israelites to return to their homeland, now stand on the edge of the Red Sea. The advancing Egyptian army is ready to slaughter these rebellious slaves. God’s answer to their problem? I’m going to provide a pathway through the Red Sea and then use it to swallow the Egyptian army. Which one of us would have come up with that solution? A shepherd boy with no military experience stands before a 9 foot tall giant named Goliath who had been leading the oppression of God’s people. God’s solution? A single stone and the swift thrust of sword that decapitates the giant. Which one of us would have come with that solution to this 9 foot problem? A body is taken down from a cross and placed into a grave, seemingly powerless and conquered by death. Three days later this man Jesus is alive again, raised from the dead. He rises to say that for all those who trust in him and what he has done for them, death will be entrance to life eternal. Which one of us would have come up with a solution to our sin as amazing as that? Our God does. Mary’s simple prayer, “They have no more wine” reminds us that it is always so much better lay your problems in the Lord’s hands and let him decide on how to solve it, rather than demanding that God give our solution, because God’s answers are always so much better than we could have ever even imagined.
Like Mary’s words, Jesus words are few and to the point. “Woman, why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come.” (John 2:4). Jesus’ calling his mother “woman,” may at first seem disrespectful. I’m pretty sure if I addressed my mom as “woman” it wouldn’t go over real well. But remember the unique relationship that Jesus and Mary had. While Jesus was her son, Jesus was also her God. By calling her “woman” Jesus was reminding her of that relationship, the reason why she approached him with this problem. Whether Jesus was correcting her, reminding her of what she has momentarily lost sight of, or whether it was confirming what she knew to be true, Jesus’ words indicate that Mary had come to the right person. She could be sure that not only was Jesus aware of the situation but that he was going to solve it at the perfect time.
What Mary did next shows her trust in Jesus. She says to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5). Why would Mary say that? She knew from personal experience (that little thing called the virgin birth) that sometimes God does things and asks us to do things that initially might seem quite strange. However strange or unusual Jesus’ directives may be, Mary encourages the servants to trust him as she did.
So when Jesus told them to fill up jars with water, they did what he asked even thought it didn’t seem to have anything to do with solving the problem at hand. And then Jesus tells them to do something that made even less sense, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet” (John 2:8). Notice that Jesus doesn’t ask THEM to taste the water. He just tells them to take the water to the master of the banquet for tasting. That didn’t make any sense! You don’t take water to get approved by master of the banquet! That’s only for wine. Do you think they started to put it all together? They certainly got it when the master of the banquet took a taste and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now” (John 2:10). How the servants must have thought, “This guy doesn’t know that half of it! If he thinks that the sequence of the wine is unusual, he should hear about the source of that wine!” Jesus’ disciples didn’t need to hear because they had seen it with their own eyes, what Jesus had done. With this miracle they saw they were even more convinced that Jesus was exactly who they believed him to be. He was God, the promised Messiah, sent to be their Savior.
John abruptly ends this account by saying, “What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him” (John 2:11). Jesus’ miracles were the signs that pointed to what you could not see, his divine nature. With every miracle that Jesus performed, Jesus declared himself to be the all-powerful God whose glory was not merely seen in the miracles he performed, but whose glory is most brightly displayed in the humility that he demonstrated. That here in human flesh is God almighty, serving us, living for us dying for us, eventually rising for us. Here stands God’s solution to our sin, the source of our salvation – certainly more amazing than we could have ever imagined. Amen.
