The Day Jesus Made the Best Wine

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During this season of Lent, as we prepare our hearts and our minds for the remembrance of Good Friday and the celebration of Easter, we're going to engage in a brief series in which we will explore a day in the life of Jesus. We will focus on brief but powerful vignettes in the Gospels that provide us with a genuine, realistic behind-the-scenes take on a typical day in the life of Jesus. What did the crowds see? What did the disciples observe? And what can we learn?

Now in the past together, all of us have considered the words of Jesus, his teaching, the stories that Jesus told. Last Lent, we addressed the emotional life of Jesus. But this Lent, I would specifically like us to focus on Jesus's dramatic, even supernatural actions. And our goal is not only to better understand Jesus' life, death, and resurrection; the goal is that we might be transformed more and more into his very own image.

So today we turn to the very first recorded miracle in the Gospel of John, where Jesus turns water into wine. John writes at the end of this episode that this was the first of Jesus' signs which manifested his glory. Now, a sign by definition points beyond itself to a greater meaning. And it's remarkable to me that, of all the things that Jesus could have done to reveal his glory, the first thing he chooses to do is to not only turn water into wine, but into the very best wine. So clearly this wine is meant to tell us something important about Jesus' life and mission, but the question is what? As we consider this wine, let's ask ourselves: 1) Why do we need it? 2) How do we get it? and 3) What difference does it make?

¹On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. ²Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. ³When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” ⁴And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” ⁵His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

⁶Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. ⁷Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.”And they filled them up to the brim. ⁸And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. ⁹When 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 ¹⁰and 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.” ¹¹This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

John 2:1-11

Why do we need it?

If turning water into wine is meant to be a sign, the first thing we have to ask is, why do we need this wine that Jesus offers? There's so much going on here in just the first few verses. John tells us that this wedding took place on the third day. See, already this story whispers to us of the resurrection, the dawn of the new creation. And the fact that Jesus attends this wedding in John 2 reminds us of the first wedding that takes place in Genesis 2. Very clearly, John is setting a contrast between the old creation and the new creation — the very first wedding and the last wedding, the first Adam and the second Adam — because now the true bridegroom is here, and therefore something new is happening. So let's pay attention to what this wine tells us about Jesus, about our world, and ourselves.

First of all, notice that John does not present Jesus at all in the way that we might expect of a religious leader. If it was up to us, we might imagine that Jesus was sort of a monk who lived a strict ascetic lifestyle — someone who withdrew from society and limited contact with ordinary people because he didn't want to be contaminated by the world around him. But instead, we find Jesus where he seemed to always be. We find Jesus at a party. Jesus is constantly invited to dinner parties and to celebrations, and he attends them.

Jesus was far from a recluse or a hermit or some kind of socially awkward religious person. No, Jesus is constantly rubbing shoulders with ordinary people. And he wasn't some kind of super-spiritual gnostic who took a negative view of the material world or of the human body or of earthly pleasures. He was not a dour stick in the mud, even though many Christians are often viewed that way. And that therefore tells us something important about the world in which we live. Jesus was not world-denying; Jesus was world-affirming. The one who made the whole world takes delight in it. Friendship, food, beauty, marriage, wine, these are all good gifts of God that are meant to be enjoyed.

Now of course it's true that the Scriptures, in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, very clearly and sharply denounce drunkenness. Ephesians 5:18: "Do not get drunk with wine." And yet at the same time, the Bible consistently affirms that wine is to be celebrated. Psalm 104 tells us that wine gladdens the heart. And the thing that's funny about it is that there's really no survival value to wine. You can't live more than a few days without food or water, but you can live without wine. But wine in the Bible becomes a symbol of the good life, and therefore it opens up a window on the human condition. It also tells us something important about ourselves. God has given us this whole good world to enjoy, and therefore, for us, this world is supposed to be a place of joy, of celebration, of laughter, and of abundance. And that's what we all want. That's what we're all seeking. We're seeking the good life.

But therein lies the tension, because things don't always work out the way that we hope or expect. So here we find Jesus attending this wedding in Cana, but then in a rather matter-of-fact way, without shock or surprise, the Gospel writer, John, simply tells us, "And the wine ran out." I wonder, have you ever been to a wedding where a bridesmaid fainted and fell flat on her face? I have. Have you ever been to a wedding where a groomsman got sick in the middle of a prayer? I have. Have you ever been to a wedding where the minister forgot the vows and swore under their breath into the microphone? I have, but it wasn't me. Well, have you ever been to a wedding where the wine ran out?

What strikes me about this problem is that it's so ordinary and it's so human, but you would also think that perhaps this would be beneath Jesus' care or concern, but it's not. It would be so easy to say, "Well, God doesn't care about weddings or wine or waiters." But apparently he does. The wine runs out, and as a symbol of the good life, isn't it true that eventually, one way or another, the wine always runs out? That's just how life works. We're all seeking the good life; we just chase it in a variety of different ways. For some of us, we might chase the good life through achievement. We devote ourselves to our schoolwork or to our career. We're trying to gain skills and experience that we can use to establish our position, put ourselves forward, and we try to squeeze as much joy and satisfaction as we can out of our successes or our accomplishments.

But then it's possible that we might find ourselves at work late one night. No one else is there. We're banging our head against the wall trying to solve a problem, but no one else seems to know, and no one else seems to care. And we might wonder to ourselves, "What's the point? Why am I working so hard?" Or you might be someone who says, "Well, I'm not going to fall into that trap. I'm going to devote myself to family and relationships. That's where the good life can be found." And for a while, it works. But then eventually the kids grow up, or perhaps your friends let you down, or maybe they move away, or a loved one dies, the person that you loved best in all the world.

Or perhaps you seek the good life through experiences. You might literally hop from one party to another, seeking that next new thrill, that next new adventure, that next new relationship. But then you wake up one morning tired and exhausted, and the party is over. See, as much as we might say, "Well, let's let the good times roll," one way or another, eventually we all know that in the natural course of things, everything comes to an end, whether we're talking about college, or a vacation, or a bull market, or our health, or our beauty. Eventually the wine runs out, and the party is over.

How do we get it?

So we need to recognize that yes, we were made for joy, for abundance, for celebration, but the wine of this world always runs out, and that's why we need the new wine that only Jesus can offer. But the question is, how do we get it? Well, Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the first one to spot this problem at this wedding. Now, Cana was only located eight or nine miles away from Nazareth, so it's very likely that this wedding was the relative of Mary and Joseph and Jesus, and that's why she's so concerned. But she's the one that first informs Jesus, "They have no wine."

Now you need to understand that this was not just a catering error. In the first century, in an honor/shame culture, running out of wine would be deeply humiliating. Weddings in the first century typically lasted an entire week, and it was the responsibility of the groom's family to make sure that everyone was fed and supplied. So to run out of wine was not only a social faux pas, it was a social disgrace — not a good way to start your marriage. If something like this happened, it's very likely that this bride and groom and their entire family would be ridiculed, scorned for years to come. So Mary informs Jesus of this problem, and it sets up this curious exchange between them.

Now, Mary must have had some knowledge of what Jesus was capable of doing, because why else would she turn to him for help? You can almost imagine Mary nudging Jesus with her elbow: "Come on, Jesus. I know you can do something." But at first, it seems as if Jesus speaks to her in a somewhat disrespectful way. He says, "Woman, what does this have to do with me?" But I actually don't think he's being disrespectful, because notice how serenely she responds to him. She almost playfully ignores what he says, and it reminds me that there's only one other place in the gospel of John where the mother of Jesus appears, and it's at the very end, as Jesus is hanging from the cross. There Jesus uses that very same form of address. He refers to her as "woman," but perhaps it should be taken as a more formal way of simply saying "Mother." Because there from the cross, he speaks quite tenderly to her and entrusts her into the care of the beloved disciple John, knowing that he himself about to leave her. And so he says to her, "Woman, behold your son."

So in returning to our story, clearly Mary can't be upset, because rather than rejecting Jesus, she recommends Jesus to the servants. Jesus is initially reluctant to help: "What does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” It's not time yet. But time for what? In the Gospel of John, Jesus will repeatedly speak of his hour, and this hour is initially kept secret, but eventually it will be revealed. Specifically, his hour is the moment when Jesus enters into his glory for everyone to see.

But Jesus informs his mother that he can't get involved now in this situation because it's not time yet. His hour has not yet come. So how does Mary respond? Well, like a good mom, she pretends that she didn't hear him say that, because she refuses to take no for an answer. Instead, she goes to the servants and simply says, "Do whatever he tells you," and then she walks away. "Do whatever he tells you."

What I would like to suggest to you is that Mary here provides us with a model of what it means to be a disciple, of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. And especially during this season of Lent, we might determine that we want to renew our commitment to follow Jesus in our daily lives. And if you want to know how to do that, you won't find a better guideline than right here: "Do whatever he says." Mary has such implicit trust in Jesus that she doesn't even need to worry about the details. She can walk away. “Just do whatever he tells you, and that'll be enough.” And this is what it means to be a follower of Jesus: You so implicitly trust him that you're willing to do whatever he asks of you, even if at first it doesn't make any sense.

Just think about this: When Jesus tells the servants, "Well, go fill these water jars with water because we've run out of wine," the servants probably thought to themselves, what does that have to do with anything? How is that possibly going to solve our problem? What good is that going to do? But you see, oftentimes Jesus may ask you to do something that doesn't make any sense to you in the moment. You don't see the point. You might read something in the Scriptures, you might hear something in a sermon, a thought might come to you in the midst of prayer, and you realize that Jesus is asking you to do something, but you really just don't see why. And your initial response might be to say, "Well, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to follow Jesus at this point unless I see a good reason for it."

But if God is God, don't you think that he might have good reasons for asking you to do something, even if you can't see them? We human beings, we're not merely finite; we are fallen. We're not only culturally conditioned; we're morally compromised. But God doesn't suffer from our limitations. And so don't you think it's possible that his wisdom and his perspective might be infinitely greater than ours? As Isaiah says in Isaiah 55, "My thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways." So he might ask us to do something that at first seems perhaps small or unnecessary, or maybe even painful, but he will never ask us to do anything unless it is ultimately for our good.

Imagine a surgeon, for example, who discovers a cancerous tumor within a small child, and out of love, this surgeon knows that he needs to apply the scalpel and cut deep in order to get the cancer out. And as much as he might try to allay the child's fears by explaining this process and why they need to go through this procedure, the child can't possibly understand why something so frightening could be coming from someone who intends good rather than harm. In a similar way, God so loves us, he is so committed to our welfare, that he will stop at nothing to rid us of anything in our lives that will stand in the way of our ultimate happiness.

But this leads to an apparent paradox. In his book “The Problem of Pain,” C.S. Lewis writes this in describing God's love for us:

When Christianity says that God loves man, it means that God loves man: not that He has some “disinterested”, because really indifferent, concern for our welfare, but that, in awful and surprising truth, we are the objects of His love. You asked for a loving God: you have one. The great spirit you so lightly invoked…is present: not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way…but the consuming fire Himself, the Love that made the worlds, persistent as the artist’s love for his work…provident and venerable as a father’s love for a child, jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes.

…We were made not primarily that we may love God (though we were made for that too) but that God may love us, that we may become objects in which the Divine love may rest “well pleased”.

[Therefore…]

To ask that God’s love should be content with us as we are is to ask that God should cease to be God: because He is what He is, His love must, in the nature of things, be impeded and repelled, by certain stains in our present character, and because He already loves us He must labour to make us lovable. We cannot even wish, in our better moments, that He could reconcile Himself to our present impurities …

What we would here and now call our “happiness” is not the end God chiefly has in view: but when we are such as He can love without impediment, we shall in fact be happy.

Now do you see this apparent paradox? Because God loves us, he cannot stand anything in us that would hinder us from our ultimate happiness. But you see, his chief end is not to make you happy. His primary goal is to make you holy. And yet it is then, and only then, that you'll experience true, lasting happiness.

So this episode reveals for us the essence of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. It means that you trust him. You trust him, even when you don't have all the answers, even when you don't fully understand. In verse 11, John concludes the passage by saying after this first sign, the disciples believed in him. But the way that John writes this sentence, it's very clear he's not suggesting that the disciples assented to a few intellectual ideas; from that point on, they believed that two plus two equaled four. No. Literally, he says that the disciples trusted in him, meaning that they entrusted themselves to him. They realized that they could rely on and count on Jesus no matter what. You see, trusting in Jesus is not something you do once and then never again. Trusting is like breathing. It is a living, repeated, moment-by-moment action. We trust, and we trust, and we trust.

What difference does it make?

So let's briefly retrace our steps. Why do we need this new wine? Well, because one way or another, the wine that we are seeking in this life to make us happy always runs out. And how do we get this new wine? By simply trusting Jesus at his word and doing what he says. And so if there's anything that you're sensing Jesus is calling you to do now, you've got to do it. But the ultimate deed the follower of Jesus is called to do is to trust Jesus at his word. But lastly, we might ask: Why? What difference does it make?

Well, notice that all Jesus asked the servants to do is to fill, draw, and take. Fill the jars. Draw some out. Take it to the master of the feast. Now notice there's no abracadabra. There's no special incantations or spiritual hoops they have to jump through. Just fill, draw, take. But when the servants do — when they take Jesus at his word and they simply do what he says — that's when the wine begins to flow. Trust is simple, but the results are far out of proportion from anything that we might expect or imagine. We have no idea. We really have no idea what Jesus has in store for us in our individual lives and within our community, and therefore this episode has something to teach us, finally and very briefly, about: 1) purification, 2) new creation, and 3) glorification.

Purification

First, notice John deliberately tells us that these six stone jars were used for the Jewish rites of purification. And in that sense, they represented the entirety of Old Testament practice. The religious leaders of Jesus' day were fixated and focused on remaining ceremonially clean. So they emphasized constantly washing one's hands and constantly washing bowls, cups, and utensils, because they understood that human beings are spiritually unclean, and we can't enter into God's presence, we can't enter into relationship with him, apart from purification.

But this is the moment when Jesus marks the beginning of his public ministry, and he does it in a way that flips religion on its head, because he takes the old water of religious duties and obligations and transforms it into his transforming grace. They were focused on superficial, external, outward actions. But Jesus knew well enough that that wasn’t the real problem. As he later explains, the problem is not the dirt that enters our body, but rather the real problem is the dirt that comes out of our hearts. And you see, we human beings, through our religious practices, might be able to wash our hands, we might be able to externally clean up our act, but who can wash a human's heart? Only Jesus can do that.

So Christianity turns out to be the very opposite of religion. Religion is all about what you do for God, but Christianity is about what God does for you. He transforms the water of religious duty and obligation into his transforming grace. And when you see that, it transforms the whole Bible for you as well. As you read through the Old Testament and even the New Testament Scriptures, it might taste like nothing more to you than water. But when you start to read it in light of Jesus, well then that water begins to taste like wine.

New Creation

This episode not only speaks to us of purification but also of new creation. Though this miracle, without a doubt, is supernatural, it is not otherworldly. And that is true of all of Jesus' miracles. His grace fulfills nature; it doesn't replace it. Now here, Jesus tells those servants to fill up those six jars, and John informs us that each of these jars could hold 20 or 30 gallons. So let's imagine that on average they each held 25 gallons. Well, six jars times 25 gallons is 150 gallons, which means that Jesus produces roughly 750 bottles of wine.

But the master of the feast, the sommelier, is not so much impressed with the quantity of the wine, but rather its quality. When he tastes the water-turned-wine, he can't believe it. He goes and he finds the groom and he says, "Normally, people serve the good wine first, and then after people have drunk freely and therefore can no longer tell the difference, the poor wine comes. But no, not you. You have served the good wine last. You saved the best for last."

That is the heart of this message: God has saved the best for last. No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. We have no idea the future that God has in store for us, and I suspect that's why God uses the image of a wedding feast to describe that great promised future. The Bible begins with a wedding in Genesis 2, and it ends with a wedding in Revelation 19. At the end of time, Jesus is going to return, and he will usher in fully and finally the new creation. He's going to make all things new, and that great day is referred to as the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. The future that he has promised will be like a great big wedding reception, filled with food and drink and music and dancing and, above all, joy. And I suspect, based on what we've read here, that the wine will be pretty good.

But what does this show us? It shows us that the promise of the new creation will far surpass the old creation, and therefore this new creation will be the lasting place where we can experience abundance, joy, laughter, celebration that will never end, because there we will finally be in a place where the wine never runs out. And he wants us to get ready for that now. That's why he's given us the Lord's Supper, as an anticipation, as a foretaste of that great celebration to come. But that great celebration for us will come at great cost for Jesus.

Glorification

And that brings me finally to glorification. Notice, John says that this was the first of Jesus' signs that manifested his glory. Jesus' glory will not be fully manifested until his hour arrives, but when that moment comes, Jesus will enter into his glory, and all the world will see that he is the Son of God. He is the world's true King.

So in the Gospel of John, when does that hour take place? You might assume that the moment Jesus enters into his glory is when he sits on a golden throne. But no, in John's Gospel, the moment when Jesus enters into his glory is when he hangs on a wooden cross. And that's why Jesus says to his mother, "My hour has not yet come," because if I do this, if I do this sign that begins to reveal my glory, it's going to start the clock. The countdown will begin, and this will lead me down a path that will take me ultimately to a garden.

And in that garden, Jesus will pray to his Father, "Father, if there is some way, please take this cup from me." And what is the cup that he's referring to? Well, according to the Psalms and Isaiah, it is a cup of foaming wine. It is the cup of God's anger, his wrath, not against human beings, but against sin, evil, and death. Jesus knows he's being asked to drink it, but he says, "Father, if there's some other way, take it from me." But there wasn't, and so the Father didn't. And therefore Jesus, there in the garden, prays. Even though he doesn't know all the reasons why, even though he knows that this is going to be painful, he says, "Not my will, but yours be done."

And earlier that very same night, when he instituted this supper, he told his disciples that he would not drink from the fruit of the vine again until he were to drink it anew in the kingdom of God. You see, before we could ever raise a glass with Jesus in the new creation, he had to drink that cup of God's wrath down to its dregs. But now that he has, he's made it possible for us to receive a clean heart, to experience the purification that only he can bring. And now he invites us to come to this table, to eat this bread, to drink this cup in anticipation of that great wedding feast. And as we do, we remember along the way that this is just the beginning, because Jesus always saves the best for last.

Let me pray for us.

Father, we pray that you might meet us at our point of need this morning and remind us that, in all the ways that we are chasing after the good life, the wine always runs out. And therefore, help us to turn to you and to trust you at your word, that only you can provide us with the new wine that will satisfy our souls. And therefore, help us to be fully devoted followers of you who implicitly trust you and do what you say, knowing that you have so much more in store for us than we could ever expect or imagine, because you always save the best for last. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Sermons

A Day in the Life of Jesus: The Day Jesus Made the Best Wine

Why do we need it?

How do we get it?

What difference does it make?