The Sign of the Best Wine

John 2:1-11(esp. v. 11)

Sermon for the Second Sunday after Epiphany (c)         18/1/04

Hymn suggestions:  47 (v,1,2,5); 152

If you saw someone wearing an Olympic gold medal, that would be a sign to you that this person was an athlete who had competed and won the highest recognition in his or her event at the Olympic Games.

If you saw someone wearing an academic gown and hood, that would be a sign to you that this person had completed a course of study and had earned a degree.

If you saw someone changing water into wine - and very good wine at that - it would be a sign that this person was someone extra-ordinary.  In chapter two of John’s Gospel we see, through the eyes of the gospel-writer, Jesus changing water into wine.

Why do the Scriptures record this particular miracle, and what is it meant to teach us?  This event happened, it appears, when Jesus was taking ‘time-off’ with his mother and disciples to attend the wedding of a friend in Cana, in Galilee.  It could also appear that Jesus was simply responding to the request of his mother and using the power he had from God to save his friend, the bridegroom, from a very embarrassing situation. Creating 600 litres of the very best wine was certainly an amazing miracle, but was there another purpose to this miracle?

The main point of this miracle was not that Jesus wanted to please his mother or to save the bridegroom from a potentially embarrassing situation; nor was it simply, as someone once suggested, proving that Jesus is not a ‘wowser’.  This miracle is significant, though, for a number of other reasons.

The first thing that John says after telling us about the miracle is this: This was the first of his miraculous signs (v. 11).  The Gospel writer, John, makes a habit of speaking of Jesus’ miracles as signs.  They are not just a hap-hazard collection of miracles performed when and where he pleased and in order to meet his or other people’s personal needs.  They are signs.

If any of you saw the movie, “Bruce Almighty”, you will remember that when Bruce was given God’s powers for a time, he used them only to get what he wanted, an approach that eventually ended in disaster for him.  Jesus miracles were quite the opposite of that; they were ‘signs’. 

The signs we see on our roads, our streets, and in buildings are intended to point us to things, and make us aware of things.  The miraculous signs that Jesus performed were intended to point us to who Jesus is as the glorious Son of God and make us aware of the need to put our trust in him.

This, the first of his miraculous signs, was pointing to something very significant about Jesus.  John says that by means of this sign, He thus revealed his glory.  That means that from this point onwards Jesus began to show people who he really was - the Son of God.  He would no longer be known simply as the son of Mary, or the carpenter’s son; he would be known for whom he really was - the Son of God.

Mary had known that already.  Perhaps she had some kind of idea that Jesus was about to show the world who he really was.  She had approached Jesus and let him know about the groom’s predicament, saying, “They have no more wine” (v.3).  Jesus’ answer may sound harsh: “Dear woman, why do you involve me?” especially in light of the fact that he soon went on to fulfil that need.  Yet, Mary needed to be clear; so did his disciples, and so do we, that this miracle was part of a bigger picture.  Its timing was part of God’s timing, not that of any human being or human need.  This was God revealing the human Jesus as the Son of God.

How did this miracle reveal Jesus’ glory as the Son of God?  Think of the very first acts of God that are recorded in the Scriptures.  God created; and he created the earth and everything in it simply by his word of command.  When John began to write his Gospel he wrote about ‘The Word’ Jesus, who was ‘in the beginning with God’ and who ‘was God’.  John explained how ‘through him (i.e. Jesus) all things were made’ and that ‘without him nothing was made that has been made’   John then went on to say: ‘The word (i.e. Jesus) became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only’ (John 1:1, 2, 14). 

There, at the wedding at Cana, John and the other disciples were given their first glimpse of Jesus as the Son of the Creator God.  Just like God did at the creation of the world, the Son of God spoke…, and there was…, and it was very good!

The disciples and guests at the wedding were given their first glimpse of Jesus, the Provider God who cares for his people and meets their daily needs.  They would see more evidence of this as he fed the crowds with a few small barley loaves, provided a miraculous catch of fish, stilled a life-threatening storm, healed sick people, raised dead people to life, and finally was raised to life himself. 

Any devout Jew who had read the Old Testament knew the truth that no one could see the full extent of God’s glory and live.  Now the Creator, Provider God was in the world as a human being, in a way that all people could see his glory - and live!

This sign obviously had its desired effect on his disciples, for John concludes: and his disciples put their faith in him (v.11).  They not only saw the revelation of his glory; they believed in him as the Son of God.  You might ask, “Hadn’t they believed in him beforehand?”  The answer has to be, “Yes, to a certain extent.”  The fact that they left everything they had and followed him was an act of faith.  But now that they had seen his glory as the Son of God revealed in a miraculous sign, their faith in him was strengthened.  It was confirmed by the sign.

Later in John’s Gospel John tells us all that the reason for Jesus’ miraculous signs, and the reason they are written down for us is, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name (John 20:31).
In other words, the desired effect of this sign and the other miraculous signs of Jesus is that we put our faith in him; that we put our complete trust in him as our Lord and our Saviour.

If this miracle simply teaches us that Jesus is not a ‘wowser’, or that he is a ‘great mate’ to those who are in need, or even that he is a great ‘miracle worker’, then that is not enough.  This miracle is a ‘sign’ for us, as it was for the disciples of Jesus, pointing us to Jesus as the Son of God and directing us to put our trust in him.

This sign directs our eyes forward in the life of Jesus to the greatest of his signs; the sign he carried out when his hour had fully come, also in the presence of his mother and his disciples - the lifting up of the Son of Man on a cross.  Jesus also spoke of this as ‘the hour when the Son of Man is glorified.’  By this sign he would change, not water into wine, but consciences stained by sin into pure, unblemished consciences before God.  This, the greatest of his signs, also calls us to put our faith in Jesus, not just in Jesus the Creator, Provider God, but Jesus the Saviour God.

May this sign of the best wine - and the other signs written about in the Scriptures - do for you what Jesus intended them to do.  May they show you that Jesus is the Lord of Glory, the Creator and Provider God, come down in human form to show us the loving heart of God the Father, and his power to help, save and defend his people.  May these signs also call you to put your faith in him.  May they strengthen your faith so ‘that by believing you may have life in his name.’ 

And may your new life in Christ also be a sign to others; that they may also see your good deeds and glorify God who is in heaven.  Amen.