John 2:1-11
January 19, 2025
Throughout our life, we rely a lot on signs. When we drive down the highway, we will see signs for different streets or cities. When the fire alarm goes off in our homes, that is a sign that we may need to get out of the house or maybe some food is stuck on one of the burners and is causing a lot of smoke. When a family member or friend won’t talk to us, that is a sign that something might be wrong. And when people do something impressive, that may be a sign that they are destined for greatness.
There was a baseball player many years ago named Hoyt Wilhelm, from North Carolina, who played professional baseball for 21 years and was eventually elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He served in World War II, but after the war he played professional baseball, finally making it to the major league level at age 29 as a pitcher. In his very first at bat he hit a home run and his coaches thought this was a sign that he would not only be a great pitcher, but also a great hitter. However, over the next 21 years Hoyt Wilhelm never hit another home run.
In our Gospel lesson for today we see Jesus perform His very first miracle – He changed water into wine at a wedding. The Bible tells us that this miracle served as a sign that He really was the Son of God. However, there was only a small group of people (his disciples and some servants) who saw this miracle and you might think that if Jesus was going to do His first miracle as a sign of who He really was, wouldn’t He have done something for a large group of people to see? That’s what I would have suggested.
Jesus and some of His first disciples were invited to a wedding in a small town known as Cana and while they were there something unusual happened. They ran out of wine during the wedding reception. Now we don’t know who was getting married. Perhaps it was a relative or close friend of Jesus’ mother, Mary, as it appears that she has some kind of active role in making sure there was plenty to eat and drink at the reception.
By the way, did you invite Jesus to your wedding? Perhaps you did to the ceremony, where the Word of God was read, but what about afterwards? Did you invite Him to the reception? Maybe you spoke His name in a prayer before the meal, but did you forget about Him when the music and party started? If we think that inviting Jesus to our gatherings will turn them into boring events, then we need to think again. In fact, it was Jesus, of all people, who kept the party going at this wedding reception in Cana. Jewish wedding celebrations in the 1st century often lasted as long as 7 days, so if you did not plan carefully, you were bound to run out of something. And that’s exactly what happened in this text.
Mary was obviously aware of this, so she comes to Jesus and says, “They have no more wine.” Which, properly translated meant, “You’ve got to do something.” But what was Jesus supposed to do? We don’t know, the Bible doesn’t tell us. But I think we would all certainly agree that Mary may have hoped for some kind of miracle. After all, this was the virgin mother who had learned from an angel that she would give birth to the Savior of the world, who pondered the things about Jesus in her heart, and believed in Him as the One sent from God. Even though Jesus put Mary off a little bit by indicating that His time to act would only be determined by His Heavenly Father, Mary trusted that Jesus would do something, whatever was best, as she tells the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.”
“Do whatever is best, Jesus, I trust you.” Wouldn’t it be nice if our prayers were more often like that, where we trusted Jesus to do what was best for us? Instead, if you are like me, we usually give Jesus detailed instructions, including a timetable for how to answer our prayers as if we know what is best. God still wants us to pray specifically and boldly, but He doesn’t want us to forget our place or His place. We are His children and He is our Heavenly Father, the all-wise and all-knowing God. So even before Mary told Him, Jesus knew that there was no more wine. If it really had been a pressing problem, I would think Jesus would have taken care of the need before Mary was even aware of the shortage. But Jesus’ timing reminds us that this is how God often deals with us. It may appear that God is often slow in responding to us, but I think He does this so that we will turn to Him more often and more completely for the help we need, because He always does what is best for us.
So, knowing the situation, Jesus told some servants to take 6 stone jars, each capable of holding 20-30 gallons of liquid, and will them with water. Once they had done that, Jesus told them to draw some of the water out and take it to the master of the feast. I must admit I wonder what the servants were thinking when they filled the jars with water. Did they think Jesus was trying to trick everyone or that He really didn’t care about fixing the problem? Many times that’s exactly what we think about Jesus. We see all of the pain and suffering in the world and we wonder if Jesus cares. In particular, on this Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, we see how the elderly or infirm can be forgotten or ignored in our world, or how families are hurting with regret over decisions they made concerning life, and we wonder if Jesus cares, because He doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it. But He is doing something about it through places like the Church or the iChoose Pregnancy Support Services, located just down the street, that promote the value of life at all stages, just as He was doing something about the wine shortage at the wedding at Cana. When the master of the feast tasted the water, it had changed into wine. The wedding now had about 180 gallons of the best wine and everyone was happy.
Notice that Mary did not tell Jesus how to solve the problem, she simply trusted that He would. And when you see His solution, you realize that only God could have come up such a plan. After all, can you imagine Mary 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?” That is probably not the solution that Mary would have suggested. But have you ever noticed how God’s solutions to our problems are rarely what we would expect and are always so much more amazing?
When the Israelites had been freed by Pharoah from 400 years of slavery in Egypt and were standing at the edge of the Red Sea, knowing that Pharaoh had changed his mind and was leading his armies after them to bring them back to slavery in Egypt, what did God do? He parted the Red Sea, allowing all 600,000 men, in addition to women and children, to cross over to the other side, and then he closed the Red Sea as Pharaoh and his armies got close the Israelites, and the entire Egyptian army was drowned. Which one of us would have come up with that solution?
When David was a small shepherd boy and volunteered to fight this powerful 9-foot giant named Goliath in order to free a nation from oppression, what was God’s solution? With a single stone from a sling shot that hit Goliath in his head, David ended up killing the powerful giant and the people were freed from suffering. Which one of us would have come up with that solution? A man named, Jesus, is born in a manger. He lives a perfect life and demonstrates that greatness in the kingdom of God is found through service. He is crucified on a cross, but 3 days later He rises from the dead and says whoever believes in Him as their Savior will live forever in heaven. Which one of us would have come up with that solution for our sin?
Mary’s simple words, “Do whatever He tells you” remind us that Mary understood that only Jesus can provide real solutions to our problems, so she directed people to Jesus, and we need to do the same. It is always much better to give your problems to Jesus and let Him decide how to solve them, rather than demanding that He use our solutions, because God’s answers are always so much better than we could have ever imagined. Jesus gave a simple gift at a wedding as a sign of who He was – the giver of life, and to demonstrate what His ministry was all about – meeting our needs. I pray that we will use our gifts to bring the love of Jesus to everyone we meet.
