Sermon by Mike Stutso, Deacon In Training, based on John 2:1-11
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
I will have no wine before its time. Nope I’m not going to talk about making wine; I believe Jesus had that down pat without my help. Yes, today we will talk about wine because it’s sort of the center of todays’ Gospel from John. But is it really about wine?
Before we talk about wine let’s talk about John’s Gospel. According to Theologians, Jesus performed 37 miracles, some say 33, either way that’s a bunch of miracles. But in John’s account there were only seven miracles mentioned and he never calls them a miracle, he calls them signs. In other words, John is trying to point us beyond the actual miracle that it leads us to something with more of a meaning, that there is something more important than let’s say a simple glass of wine.
I believe John is trying to tell us that God is the source of all life, joy, happiness, and love. That God’s presence in our world is through the human presence of Jesus. But John seems to write from a different plane for a different audience which is not similar in nature compared to the other three Gospels of Mark, Luke, and Matthew which are called the Synoptic Gospels because the stories are very similar in nature.
I was really worried about where is the beef in this Gospel today; y’all remember that commercial for Wendy’s? Where’s the beef? So, I had to do some real homework and digging as well as thinking, which gives me a headache.
But I was able to find a lot of information looking way deeper than just the words of this Gospel. I received a new education about the Jewish life style and traditions. Then, all of a sudden, it was like I could see questions and something important in every sentence of this Gospel, it was a true awakening for me.
The Gospel starts by saying that it was the third day of a wedding in Cana; now the first thing I discovered is that Jewish weddings back then lasted seven days which is different today but still has more than 13 traditions and rituals that exist today. So was it the third day when Jesus and the disciples arrived or were they there the entire time or possibly is this symbolic of the third day when Jesus rose from the dead. This could be John leading us down the road with Jesus to the cross.
But Jesus and his disciples were there: it also says that Jesus’ mother was there in Cana with him. Now I looked up the distance from Nazareth to Cana and there were conflicting distances so I relied on my Bible which said it was about eight miles. If they were in Nazareth for their journey, I guess they could make it in one very long day. As I’ve said in other sermons, think about the terrain back then, I’m sure at best it was a challenge.
Something I could not figure out, did Jesus and his mother travel together or separately, and where was dad? Because in John’s account, Jesus was busy finding his disciples until the wedding and he found them and they traveled with him showing that his ministry had started.
There was no mention of Mary in John’s Gospel until now, and even then she was not called by her name (Mary), it was the mother of Jesus or Woman. One thing was for sure either they were related to the couple being married or very close friends. It didn’t say who knew who. But it does seem that we sort of invite people to a wedding the same way now as back then, we just don’t pick up a phone book and start picking names (y’all remember phone books, I still have one).
Now it jumps right into the problem, mom says there is no wine they ran out so Jesus makes a profound statement, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come”.
The other time Jesus calls his mom ‘woman’ was in John 19:26 on the cross, when he says “Woman, here is your son”. Now, where I come from if you called your mom, ‘woman’ you’d be wearing a house slipper on the side of your head, even on a fun run mom could hit her target.
Then I discovered that the term Woman when used by the Jewish and Greeks was a sign of respect which I was glad to discover because I just can’t see Jesus as being disrespectful to his mother. Technically Jesus is saying to his mom what exactly does this issue have to do with me and what would you have me do.
Well Jesus’s mother knows the traditions of those days to run out of food or drink over those seven days would have major fallout for years to come for the host, the bride and groom as well as the chief steward. This would have been thrown up in their faces for any event they might attend.
We all know how we judge weddings today: things like it was a beautiful day, the couple looked beautiful, the service was great the food was awesome and free bar was right on time. Now if they run out of beer no problem, I don’t like the stuff anyway but run out of wine or Tequila now we’ve got a problem but not a big one because I don’t really drink much but let something go wrong and we judge the success of the whole wedding.
Then Jesus says “My hour has not yet come”, which in John’s gospel when Jesus uses this phrase he is implying his death on the cross. Jesus knows what his mother wants him to do; he also knows that once he does something like this, he truly starts his ministry and his march to the cross.
So even though it wasn’t what we’d call a major miracle like; curing the sick, dying or diseased, feeding the hungry, the lonely or casting out demons. It is still very important, this is his first public miracle/sign which means Jesus is now starting his march towards the cross, it has truly started for him. It also means that Mary was present for his first miracle so technically she was there for his birth to his death. She was a witness to it all.
As I said Mary knows exactly who and what Jesus is but not to the degree of what will happen to her son. Now in a typical Jewish mother’s way she doesn’t tell Jesus what to do, she looks at the servants and tells them do what he tells y’all to do. Well enough said on what she is expecting of Jesus. He shows the respect that any child should show their mother or father. You could also say Jesus understands the Torah and the 10 Commandments, you know number five, “Honor thy Father and thy Mother”.
But before the miracle it talks of the six stone jars, please note the word stone, this is important in Jewish traditions and rituals. A well off Jew would have stone jars for the cleansing rituals that would occur before meals and going to temple. The stone jars would not allow for impurities to be imbedded in the jar. This would taint and prevent the ritual of purification. Most normal people would have had pottery jars for water not necessarily for rituals but for human consumption.
Let me ask you this question, can you imagine the work required to carve or chisel out a stone jar that held 20-30 gallons of liquid? I don’t think they had any bridgeport milling machines or lathes and for that matter electricity to run those machines. So, the servants do what Jesus instructs them to do and they fill all six to the brim (that could be a reflection of God’s love for us) and took some to the steward.
Well guess what, it was wine, now we don’t know if Jesus said or did anything to show others that this was a miracle or who he was. He just did it without drawing attention to himself or the need for thanks, which is the way he lived into his ministry; he didn’t need the attention to his presence but the presence of God through him for all of us.
Now the chief steward tastes the wine and tells the groom that he did the opposite of what most people do, he waited and served the best wine later in the celebration. I thought about it, and we would do the same, serve the top shelf stuff and wait till everyone is tipsy and break out the cheap stuff.
Let’s also realize that only the lowly and poor as in the servants, the disciples, and the mother of God knew what he had done. They are the ones that don’t matter much in the world of the rich and privileged. But in Jesus’ world and ministries they are truly the ones that matter because to Jesus, we all matter and he was here for all of us.
Throughout all the Gospels Jesus shows us the importance of all living creatures even when it upset the powers to be. Then the Gospel ends by saying this was Jesus’ first sign and revealed his glory and the disciples believed in him.
Well, I had a couple thoughts, we know that the four gospels always state that the disciples never really get it, so did they understand that he was the son of God or was he a great Prophet. Which we know that in the Hebrew Testament there were miracles performed by people like Moses. Or did they think Jesus really was just a good man. But we know through 2,000 years of interpretations that they loved him and followed him till the end and then it finally sunk in.
So, we put everything together, it was the third day of the wedding, is this a reflection of his Ascension into Heaven? Were they friends or family? We know that Jesus is 33 years old at this time and his ministries has begun because the disciples are with him. He shows his love and respect for his mother and the laws of Torah as well as all the people at the wedding by doing this sign.
Then there is the importance of the wedding to his mom. The stone jars are important and what they were intended for teaches us something new about Hebrew rites. We have the people at the wedding that do not realize what Jesus has just done and the fact that this is more than just wine, it is his ministries, they are now in motion, he has revealed his glory and his divinity. Jesus’ ministry is to teach us and to help us build the church and to prepare us for his departure and the arrival of the Holy Spirit is now in full swing. Everything Jesus is doing is shifting the importance of the sign to the far greater reality which lies ahead for all of us today as it was then. The fact is Jesus manifested his glory and establishes that he truly is the Son of God.
AMEN