Unspeakable Joy

REASON FOR JOY

Online Sermon: http://www.mckeesfamily.com/?page_id=3567

John 2:1-11

17 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit

Romans 14:17, NIV

As a Christian do you feel unspeakable joy? Many try to live the first part the verse by strictly following the commands of Christ. Their hopes are that they may become right in the sight of God and have peace in their lives. Like the Pharisees, Christians often become so legalistic in their thinking that they tend to forget that following God’s commands is not to be a burden but a source of great joy. Today’s sermon is going to focus on the first miracle that Jesus performed: turning the water into wine. John describes this miracle in a manner that clearly points to salvation as being the source of our joy! Through His death and resurrection Christ has offered humanity new wine in new wine skins. These jars of clay need not worry about their fragility for those who have faith in Christ will have joy that wells up from the living waters.

All throughout Scripture we find verse after verse telling us to live our lives with joy in our hearts. Paul told the church of Galatia that one of the fruits of having the Holy Spirit live inside a person was to feel joy (5:22). David wrote that we are to “rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart” (Psalms 32:11). The reason for David’s rejoicing was due to his belief that God would truly fill him with joy from His eternal pleasures of His right hand (Psalms 16:11). This was the kind of joy that defies all of life’s circumstances no matter how harsh. Would it not be nice to have the kind of joy that Paul and Silas had when they were singing hymns to God in prison (Acts 16:25)? Would it not be nice to have the kind of joy that Job had and be able to say, “blessed be the name of the Lord be praised” (1:21), even in the face of overwhelming suffering? While it is easier to feel “happy” in good times, we live in a fallen world where chance happens to everyone … “feel good” happiness never lasts. It is not life circumstances that produce joy but following God’s commands in His love (John 15:11)! To feel unspeakable joy our attitude concerning God matters. Let’s examine Jesus’ first miracle in the hopes of finding the source of unspeakable joy by remembering how God has placed new wine into old wine skins through His Son Jesus Christ!

Remembering Jesus’ First Miracle

1On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.

The passage begins by telling us that Jesus’ mother, Himself and His disciples were invited to a wedding at Cana in Galilee. Why Jesus was invited to this wedding we do not know. The invitation could have come through the calling of Nathanael for it was his hometown (John 21:2) or from His mother who seems to have a prominent place at the feast. According to Jewish law the normal day for a wedding was Wednesday, the third day of the week. Reviewing the opening chapters of John we find that the wedding would either have taken place on the last of six or seven eventful days of Christ’s ministry. Most scholars believe the passage here signifies the end of a week in which Jesus performed this miracle.

To understand John’s reference to the “third day,” has led many commentators onto a rampage of speculation. If this third day truly was the end of a week in the ministry life of Jesus, then what week is John symbolically referring too? This week has been compared to the week of creation, “the week running up to the celebration of the giving of the law in later Jewish traditions about the feast of Pentecost,” the six days before the Passover at the end of Jesus’ ministry or the six days before the transfiguration of Christ. It is also possible that John is not referring to a week at all but instead the “third day” of His resurrection. While any of these are plausible I think two of them are more probable. If John wrapped symbolism into this passage then he might have placed the miracle on the seventh day to accentuate that the inauguration of Christ’s ministry ushered a new created order. This newly created order, one in which new wine is put into new wine skins, fits well with His resurrection that secured this new order. Even though John often attached spiritual meaning to most ordinary events, one must be careful speculating as to what John intended or the way in which the reader understood symbolism within this first miracle of Christ!