The Wedding Feast (John 2:1–11) — A Sermon by R.C. Sproul

0:02 Our Scripture this morning is again from the Gospel according to St. John. I will be reading from the second chapter, verses 1 through 11. John chapter 2, 1 through 11. And on the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. And both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding. And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, They have no wine. And Jesus said to her, Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.

1:03 His mother said to the servants, Whatever He says to you, do it. And now there were set there six water pots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing twenty or thirty gallons apiece. And Jesus said to them, Fill the water pots with water. And they filled them to the brim. And He said to them, Draw some out now and take it to the master of the feast. And they took it. And when the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and did not know where it came from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew, the master of the feast called the bridegroom.

1:59 And he said to him, Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk than the inferior, but you have kept the good wine until now. This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him. He who has ears to hear the Word of God, let them hear. Let us pray. Father, now as we continue our study of this gospel, we pray that Your truth may be understood by Your people and that I may handle this text according to that truth. For I ask it in Jesus' name, amen.

3:01 Chapter 2 of John's gospel records for our edification the first miracle that was accomplished by Jesus in His public ministry. And you notice that when John records the miracles of Jesus, he refers to them as signs. This sign did Jesus do in Cana of Galilee. The word semeion in the New Testament Greek that is translated by the word sign here indicates that the miracle is performed not for its own sake, but rather to point the observer and the reader beyond what actually takes place to something that is sign-nificent. And obviously the New Testament tells us that the signs that are wrought by Christ in the first place call attention to Him as one who speaks the unvarnished word of truth.

4:15 is the miracle represents God's accreditation of this person's being sent from Him. But also in the case of Jesus, Jesus said that His signs point not only to His person, but to His work of bringing to pass the breaking in of the kingdom of God. Now that's important for us to understand because I think it's interesting that the very first sign that Jesus does is a sign that takes place at a wedding. It is a sign that seems almost profane in that it involves the making of wine for thirsty guests.

5:08 Well, let's look at the account. told that this wedding took place in Cana, and Jesus and His disciples, along with Jesus' mother, were invited to the wedding. I think we can assume from this that the wedding involved people who were known to Jesus, to His family, to His friends. Also, that it included His disciples, as well as Jesus and His mother, and also from what we're told by the size of the water pots and so on, that it was a very large wedding. And in the ancient world it was customary for the wedding feast to last as long as a week. So that when these people had a wedding, they had a wedding, and the celebration was a joyful event to be sure.

6:01 But in the midst of this wedding, something terrible happened. The host, who was the bridegroom, ran out of wine. Now that was two problems for him. On the one hand, it was a massive embarrassment for the groom to run out of the refreshments that he was providing at his expense for all of the guests that he had invited. Now maybe he didn't make enough provision in the first place, maybe more people came than he anticipated, or possibly they drank more than he anticipated, but for whatever reason they run out of wine. The second problem he's faced with is this, there is much evidence to indicate that in the ancient Jewish community if provisions such as this failed, that the groom could be liable for a lawsuit. That's how seriously hospitality was and continues to be treated in the Middle East.

7:12 This was a scandalous moment at this feast when the wine gives out. And Jesus' mother hears about the dilemma, and having compassion on the bridegroom, she immediately goes to Jesus, and she says, Jesus, they've run out of wine. Do something. Fix it. Right? And we get this response in the New King James where Jesus says to her, woman, what does your concern have to do with me. My hour has not yet come. Well, there are three questions about this response of Jesus to His mother's alerting Him to the embarrassment of the groom. First thing is that He speaks to her, and He calls her woman. And in our day and age, it sounds like He was being downright rude to her. But this was a title of respect. Remember, this is how Jesus addressed her when He was on the cross. This is how Jesus addresses, as we will see later, the woman at the well. It was a polite form of address. It is like saying, ma'am or madam. It's not like a cab driver in New York says, where to, lady? It's not that kind of an address. This is a very nice way of addressing His mother. So, Jesus is not being mean to His mother.

8:46 But then it says, what concern is this of yours? Now, if you have a different translation from you, chances are you have a different set of words there, because I can remember in my first year studies of Greek, looking at this text in the second chapter of John and reading this statement of Jesus and being completely baffled by it. And I'm glad to know that even today, Greek scholars aren't exactly sure how to translate this way in which Jesus says literally, what is this to you, to me? It's a strange, awkward construction. The translators are doing the best they can here with the way they render it. But Jesus is obviously saying to His mother, don't tell me what to do in my earthly ministry. Now He's taking His directions from His heavenly Father.

9:48 But the irony is, even after He tells her, take it easy, don't be telling me what to do, my hour hasn't come yet, He goes ahead and does it anyway and deals with the problem. But the other thing I wanted to say about this verse is that Jesus makes this enigmatic statement, my hour has not yet come. Just in passing, let me say this, that God willing we want to preach through the whole of the Gospel of John, and you will see again and again and again references from the lips of Jesus to His coming hour. Sometimes He refers to the hour as the hour of His passion when He is to be given over to be crucified. But even that goes beyond the cross to the resurrection, and He talks about the hour in which the Father will manifest His glory.

10:44 And Mary, in a sense, knows that Jesus at some point is going to have His glory manifested. We remember when we talked about the presentation in the temple with Simeon's prophecy where he told Mary that a sword would pierce her soul but that Christ would be exalted as the Messiah. And Jesus lived His whole life under the burden of that hour, the hour of death, but beyond that, the hour of His glory. And He says to His mother,

11:26 it's not time yet for me to enter into my glory. In a sense, I think He's gently rebuking her not to rush Him that He has other things that have to take place before His glory can be made manifest. But then He goes on, we go on to read, where His mother then said to the servants, whatever He says to you, do it. We could say this is the greatest sermon that Mary ever preached. No one ever received better instructions from anybody in all of history than these servants received from the mother of Christ when she said, whatever He says to do, do it. That has application far beyond the immediate task that these servants had. Now in verse 6, I think we get a clue as to why Jesus performed His first miracle at this wedding.

12:34 Verse 6 says this, Now there were set there six water pots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews. If you have seen water pots from the Mideast that are still used today, most of them are made from mud. They're earthen vessels. And yet in addition to those mud-made vessels for drinking, the Jews also made special jars and vessels out of stone. The simple reason was that the stone water pots did not contain contaminating bits of dirt. And these stone pots were always used for the rituals of the Jews of purification. So if you have water that is especially going to be used for purification, you don't want to have it mixed up with mud or with dirt.

13:41 And so they were specially designed. Now this is a big wedding, and every Jew who comes to the wedding has to go through a purification rite before he attends the wedding itself. If nothing else, he has to wash his hand and wash his feet when he comes into the wedding feast. And these jars apparently had been filled with water before for the purification rites of cleansing. All of this business of purification with water points back to the Old Testament economy. And when Jesus announces the coming of the kingdom in the New Testament, He will use the metaphor of wine to do it.

14:28 Remember when He talks about the new wine that has to be put in new wineskins, because He's representing a change from the old order of the old economy of the Old Testament and is going beyond water to the higher level of new wine. It is the new wine of the kingdom that He is bringing. Also remember the dispute that took place with the Pharisees when John the Baptist came onto the scene, and we looked at John, and we saw that John came in the garb and in the guise of the Old Testament prophet Elijah, coming out of the wilderness, living on locusts and wild honey. There's been some speculation that John the Baptist had taken the Nazarite vow. The Nazarites were those small group of specifically dedicated members of the clergy who did not use wine their whole lives. And so John comes in this spirit of austerity. And yet when Jesus comes, He's going out eating with the publicans, going to feasts, and the Pharisees say He is a glutton and what? A winebibber. And he calls attention that it was appropriate for John to be in this total mood of abstinence because the bridegroom was not present. But when the bridegroom comes, it's time for the party to start. That's the whole point of Jesus. And now he starts the party of the breaking in of the kingdom of God appropriately by making the provision of celebration. Let me just say this, that we have a tendency to think or we hear reports that

16:36 the Jews drank wine in the Old Testament because the water was no good. So they had to drink wine. No, the water was fine. And they drank water normally. Most of the time that wine was used was on special occasions for feasts, for celebrations, for the feasts of the Old Testament, for example, such as occurred in the Passover. Then they brought out the wine. Also remember that the wine industry, if you will, was one of the two largest industries of Old Testament Jews, the other one being the olive crop that produced olive oil. And what was done with the agriculture of the day, with the growing of vineyards, was the purpose of growing the vineyards was to produce wine. And you remember when Noah came out of the ark and he began his new life, the first thing he did after he built the altar was He planted a vineyard. And the purpose of planting the vineyard was to produce grapes from which wine would make. I'm going to mention a little bit about this in a moment, but just tenderly and gently let me say to you, the Old Testament Jew knew nothing of unfermented grape juice. It's perhaps best associated with Mr. Welch in the United States of America, but the grapes were grown to make wine, and that's what they did with them.

18:21 They made wine. And the word wine is used over 140 times in the Bible, and the word winos means fermented grapes. Now the Jews had very strict laws against drunkenness, and the New Testament repeats those laws against drunkenness. And also for that reason, there were occasions where the rabbis insisted that the fermented grape juice that they had that was wine be watered down to some extent, lest people fall into the sin of drunkenness. But the primary way in which people became drunk in the Old Testament and in the New Testament days was by drinking too much wine. And in fact, there's a little bit of euphemistic language here in the text that I read to you this morning about why the wine had run out, because actually the verb that is used there means not that the wine had all been drunk, but that the people had drunk too much wine, some of them.

19:28 And that was a problem that they had at the feast. So here comes Jesus to this feast. They've run out of the wine. Some of the people had obviously had too much wine. And what would you expect Jesus to do? Maybe use this as a perfect opportunity to chasten the people for overindulging in their wine. Maybe He would step up and say, that's what you get for abusing this gift that God gives to His people. It's not what He does. And He makes more wine, like 150 gallons of it, which most of the commentators indicate is a sign of the abundance of God's grace, that when the new comes, it comes with the abundance of God's blessing.

20:31 The Jews saw wine as a gift of God. It was that which had the capacity to make the heart glad. Calvin, for example, in talking about this said how appropriate it was that God used wine to signify the Passover feast in Israel because of the duow, significance of the drinking of wine. On the one hand, the drinking of wine had a certain bitterness to it, and yet on the other hand, wine was the symbol in the culture of that which brings joy and celebration. And so Calvin said how appropriate and fitting it was that Christ, when He celebrates the Passover, uses wine to indicate His own life-giving blood. And so the redemption of Christ is indicated in the very first miracle that He performs giving this wine. Now, let me just say quickly and carefully, this text of Jesus making wine has been extremely controversial from two directions.

21:48 On the one hand, the liberals of the 19th century who had a built-in allergy to anything supernatural and wanted to desupernaturalize the record of the ministry of Christ on this earth, said Jesus obviously did not make wine, because if He made real wine, that would have been a miracle. And they didn't believe in miracles. So they denied that Jesus made wine because they were denying that Jesus had the capacity to do miracles. And they did stuff like this. They say, well, the people had been serving this wine out of these water pots, and when the water pots got empty, there were still the dregs of wine at the bottom. And when you added more water to them, it gave a sort of hint to the taste of wine. And these people had drunk so much wine, they didn't know the difference. And so Jesus fooled them with a little trickery. Or my minister, when I was growing up, said, Jesus said, fill up the pots with water and give the people the water because after all, water is the best wine. I said, isn't Isn't that interesting that they would call it a miracle for turning water into water?

22:58 But you can see how many hoops the critics jump through to deny that Jesus really made wine. Then you go to the conservatives, and the conservatives jump through just as many hoops because they're embarrassed by the biblical text that would indicate that Jesus made wine Because the premise is that drinking of wine is a sin. And the syllogism goes like this, it is a sin to drink wine. Jesus was sinless, therefore what? He couldn't or wouldn't possibly have made wine. Instead of the classic Christian syllogism that goes like this, Jesus turned water to wine and drank it. Jesus was sinless, therefore what? It's not a sin to drink wine. It's a sin to get drunk on the wine, but not a sin to drink the wine. Now many people, particularly in America, have been reared in churches that have taught strongly that Jesus never made wine, Jesus didn't drink wine.

24:15 They'll say that the Lord's Supper was based on the fruit of the vine, which is simply referring to grape juice. Every Jew in Palestine knew that the fruit of the vine was wine, and everybody knows that the Old Testament feast of the Passover that Jesus celebrated in the upper room called for the use of real wine by divine sanction. But if you've been taught that all your life, that Jesus didn't make real wine, and that it was really grape juice, and if you're convinced in your conscience that that is the case, and you're convinced in your conscience that it is a sin ever have your lips touch wine, then for you to drink wine is a sin. Because the apostle talks about that in terms of what do you do when there's a dispute over what is proper ethics and what is not.

25:09 And if you by conscience are convinced that such and such an action is sin, and if you do it, believing it's sin, then you sin. It's not that the New Testament goes to a relativistic ethic, but it simply says that whatever is not of faith is sin, that something may not be a sin at all, but if you think it is and do it, then you have done something that you think is wrong. So you have acted against your conscience. That's why at St. Andrews when we serve the Lord's Supper, what do we say? We give you the option. We have the outer ring, which is grape juice. And that's there for those who are absolutely persuaded that one ought never to taste wine. Do you hear what I'm saying? I disagree with that. I think the Bible is manifestly clear that our Lord made wine, He drank wine, and that there's not a word in the Bible that teaches that it's sinful to drink wine. It's sinful to get drunk, but the abuse does not require the disuse. But people are absolutely convinced that it's wrong, and so for them I say, hey, you better not drink wine, because if you think it's wrong, then for you it is wrong, unless your conscience changes by more information.

26:32 So get out of what I want to labor that any further, only to say that what Jesus did was He not only ministered to this man's embarrassment, took care of all of the needs of the wedding party, but Jesus performed a miracle in their midst by which His disciples came to fullness of faith in Him. They saw the significance of Him. This is how He's beginning His public ministry with a work of miracle, a miracle that points attention not only to Him but to the new kingdom that has come to pass. The new wine, that even the new wine continues to ferment. That's why Jesus said you can't put the new wine in the old wineskins, because the old wineskins, which were made of leather through their elasticity, expanded because of the fermentation process, expanded and stretched the wineskins.

27:33 And those wineskins had been expanded to their limit, so that if you put new wine into those old wineskins, what would happen? They would burst and you would lose your wine. So you had to have new wine skids that had ample room to be stretched and expanded by the continuing ongoing fermentation of the wine. And Jesus is saying, I'm bringing something new here, something greater than water, something that gives you a blessing that you had never imagined. And again, this matter of wine links us to the night in which Jesus was betrayed, in which He took the elements that were in use during the Passover feast. He took the bread.

28:29 When He had blessed it, He broke it, and now He assigned a new significance to the bread, saying, this is My body broken for you, eat ye all of it. And in the same manner when they had eaten, He took the cup. And He said, now, this is the cup of a new covenant. This is the cup of the New Testament. This is the cup that goes beyond the purification water of the Old Testament. Because now this blood, this cup is My blood, not the blood of the lamb that was shed, posted on your door, but My blood, which is shed for the remission of your sins. And then, of course, the New Testament in the name of Christ invites all who are His, all who are repentant of their sins, all who put their faith and trust in Christ and in Christ alone for their salvation, all who come boldly to the throne of grace, if they're not under the discipline of an evangelical church at this moment, they are invited to come humbly but eagerly to His table to be nurtured by the bread that is from heaven, from the wine that is the new wine.