Dan Herold | John 2:1-11 | January 10, 2015
(Sermon starts at 18:40)
We just got through the Christmas holiday season. Undoubtedly most of us received some gifts during that season. There’s all kinds of different gifts; homemade and handmade gifts, expensive gifts that come in small boxes, expensive gifts that come in big boxes, and many more. While there are many types of gifts, there are really two classes of gifts. There are practical gifts—the ones you’ll use everyday. And there are “wow” gifts—the ones that surprise you, the ones that you never would have picked out for yourself but only someone who really truly knows you could pick for you.
In our Gospel lesson this morning Jesus revealed his awesome power and glory by giving gifts. He gave gifts that were practical and he gave gifts that wowed the people who received them. Last Sunday we heard about Jesus’ baptism which marked the beginning of his ministry and today we are going to look at his first miracle. We are going to talk about the first time Jesus gave the world a glimpse of his wonderful strength and glory at a wedding in Cana.
Think about the gifts you received lately. What are some of the practical gifts you received? Practical gifts might be things like clothing, shoes, school supplies…things like that. They aren’t necessarily gifts that make you say, “wow,” but they are important gifts because they are things you need and things you’ll use.
At the wedding at Cana Jesus gave a practical gift. John tells us that at the wedding banquet in Cana they ran out of wine. Now, some of us might immediately recognize what a terrible thing it is to run out of wine, but at Jesus time and in his culture it would be a huge disgrace to run out of wine at a wedding banquet. Isn’t that one of the things you worry about most when you host a dinner party? Making sure you have enough food and drinks for all your guests?
At the various food service jobs I had throughout high school and college we would occasionally run out of items. It seemed like no matter what day it was or what it was that we ran out of, if we ran out of anything everyone wanted to order it that day. Those days were the worst! We constantly had to tell customers that they couldn’t order what they wanted because we ran out of it. You couldn’t help but feel a little bad turning away customer after customer.
At a wedding at Jesus time the family was expected to put on a huge banquet for their guests. Their guests would have been traveling by foot over great distances to get to the wedding, so when they got there a one day celebration wouldn’t have been enough. Wedding banquets at Jesus’ time lasted days if not weeks! So, when the wine ran out before the banquet ended it was a big deal! Not just because it was a party and the wine ran out, but wine was the main beverage in their culture. Safe drinking water was hard to find so everyone regularly drank wine all the time. To the people at the wedding at Cana that day wine was like iced tea and lemonade are to us today—except tea and lemonade are much easier for us to make than wine.
So, when this catastrophe occurred the bridegroom and his family must have begun to panic. Mary, though had seen a few private glimpses of her son’s glory and power while he was growing up so she brings this problem to his attention. Mary came to Jesus and said,
“They have no more wine!”
But Jesus said it wasn’t quite his time yet. It wasn’t time for him to give a grand display of his power like he would later when he drove out demons and made the blind see. Jesus never said he wasn’t going to help, he just had something different in mind than what Mary was wanting him to do. Mary walked away then, but she told the servants to
This most frightening http://www.unica-web.com/whatisunica_revised.htm female viagra cheap motion pictures present sequences of the old parenting adage: team members act like their leader – despite all attempts to train them otherwise. If men do affect orchitis, they can treat it via herbal formula – Diuretic and Anti-inflammatory pill https://unica-web.com/archive/1998/1998-GA-Minutes.html viagra on line will be your best choice. This safe and highly effective tadalafil 20mg formula manages weight and increases energy. Therefore it is not recommended to cialis price canada drive a vehicle or perform any heavy duty tasks.One should tell their doctor and or technician whether or not they have taken any treatment, the condition would have been the same.
“do whatever Jesus told them to do.”
Next, John tells us that there were some stone water jars nearby—6 of them to be exact—and each jar held somewhere between 20 to 30 gallons of water. We are used to 12 ounces servings like we get in soda cans, so to put it in those terms each one of these jars held around 300 cans of soda. So these weren’t small water jugs by any means. Then, Jesus told the servants to fill up those 6 jars with water and they filled them up to the brim. Once they were full Jesus told the servants to draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet (or the wedding coordinator). So the servants took some water to the master of the banquet and sometime in-between filling the jugs with water and the master of the banquet tasting it the water had turned into wine and the master of the banquet had no idea where it came from.
Now, that was a practical gift. It was something very useful for the wedding banquet which Jesus provided. He demonstrated his glory, his power, and also his grace by providing such a useful and practical gift even when, as he said, it didn’t really concern him.
Jesus also gave a gift that made everybody say “wow” at the wedding at Cana. If you enjoy a glass of wine every now and then or if you have toured any of our local wineries you know that it typically takes a bit of time to make wine. Jesus made wine, though, in a very short period of time—and he made a lot of it! I gave you some numbers before…Jesus made around 200 gallons of wine! That’s a lot of wine! 200 milk jugs full of wine! And Jesus didn’t make bottom shelf wine either…it wasn’t just the quantity of wine that made the banquet master say, “wow,” but the quality did as well. In fact, the wine was so good that the master of the banquet called the bridegroom over and said to him,
“Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”
Jesus demonstrated his glory, power, and grace with this gift that wowed everyone who experienced it. The wine wasn’t the only “wow” gift that Jesus gave though. Yes, the wine usually gets the most attention in this Bible story, but there’s another gift that Jesus gave—it’s a gift that he also gives to us…faith. John tells us that after they saw this miracle,
“the disciples put their faith in Jesus.”
Jesus’ miracle at the wedding that day gave both practical gifts and a “wow” gifts. The wine itself was practical and helped out those hosting the banquet. The quantity and quality of the wine was amazing and it was the sort of gift that made the banquet master and the hosts say “wow.” Jesus didn’t need to give them wine though, and the wine wasn’t the only result of his miracle. The miracle of turning water into wine was also connected to another gift that was both practical and amazing. The miracle which Jesus performed led to the strengthening of the disciples’ faith—and that faith is both practical and amazing.
The only thing that can save us—sinful human beings—from God’s wrath and the eternal fire of hell is faith in our savior, but that faith doesn’t come naturally to anyone. Saving faith can only be given by the one who is powerful to save—your Savior Jesus. So, the faith that the disciples had and the faith that you and I share is a gift that is both practical and amazing.
It is practical because it’s something that we desperately need. It is the only thing that can save us and without it we would be lost forever. Jesus gave us our faith as a practical gift because he knew we needed it. It’s like when a parent gives their child socks for Christmas. It’s a good gift because it’s something the parent knows the child needs. The faith we share is also a “wow” gift, though, because it is truly amazing that anyone would give us such a special gift simply because they loved us. It’s also amazing because we would never have picked out Jesus to be our Savior on our own. If it was up to us we would try to earn our own way into heaven…we’d never think that anyone would lay down their own life as a sacrifice for us.
This special gift that Jesus gave his disciples through that miracle, and that he gives to us in ways that are no less miraculous than turning water into wine, is such a unique gift because it is both practical and amazing. The saving faith which Jesus gives us is something that we truly do need. It is very practical. At the same time, it is also a gift that causes us to stand in awe of the great glory, power, and love of our Savior. The gift of faith has spared us from so much more than embarrassment and ridicule because we ran out of wine at a banquet. Through faith in our Savior we are spared from sin and death and a place in heaven is guaranteed for us. What a wonderful Savior we have who gives us such practical and amazing gifts!
Amen.