Sermon by Reverend Dr. John W. Mann | January 19, 2025

John 2:1-12

Sometimes in Glasgow I would get a call about performing a wedding ceremony and the bride or groom to be would say, “We want a simple ceremony in the back garden with just a few people there.”

Fair enough. The problem was, I have never conducted a simple ceremony in a back garden with just a few people present. That had to do with my response to the request. I would say, “Do you have a mother or aunties?”

“Uh, yeah.”

I would say, “When they get involved, which they will, they are going want all the bells and whistles of the church wedding. Believe me, they will get involved.” They always did. We had to be strict about weddings, or things could get out of hand. Someone once told me that you know it’s been a great wedding when the bride’s dress is torn in the fight at the reception. What people did after the wedding was of no concern to me. Before the wedding and during the wedding, it was my room and my rules. On the cover of our wedding arrangement brochure, outlined in a bold red box was this statement –

“A wedding ceremony is a service of worship. The wedding vows are a sacred promise. The marriage register is a legal document and signing it requires clarity of mind. Participants are advised to approach the ceremony with due reverence and respect, refraining from the use of alcohol or other intoxicating substances prior to the service. Any member of the wedding party who is intoxicated will not be allowed to participate in the ceremony. If the bride or groom are disallowed on this basis, the wedding will be cancelled and all fees forfeited.”

The story is told of Jesus changing water into wine. People say, “That would be a great talent to have.” Changing water into wine was not a talent that Jesus possessed, but a miracle that he performed. There is a difference. That’s probably one of the reasons why we come here today – to reflect on the meaning of that difference.

One time there was a wedding to which Jesus and his followers and his mother were all invited to. It must have been a big wedding then, at least as far as the guest list went. They ran out of wine. But since weddings could last for days, running out of something was a risk. But if the wine ran out, the party would be over and the wedding would be remembered as a failure. It would bring shame upon the host and his family.

Jesus’ mother told him, “They ran out of wine.”

She told him like a mother, with a certain expectation in her telling. Pointing out the obvious as if to say, “That garbage can is not going to empty itself.”

Jesus wanted to know how running out of wine was any concern of his. “My time has not yet come.”

Imagine Mary the mother of Jesus at this point in the story. Two expressions cross her face in the span of a few seconds. The first expression is a kind of eye roll in response to “my time has not yet come.” The second expression is a motherly glare that says, “Listen mister, your time comes when I say it comes and I say it comes now!”

Mary told the servants at the wedding, “Do whatever he tells you.”

There were six stone jars nearby. These jars were used in Jewish rites of purification and so they would be like washtubs. Jesus had the servants fill the jars with water, each to the brim. He told them to take some water out and take it to the wedding steward and have him taste it. So they did. When the wedding steward tasted the water, it had by then turned into wine. He called the bridegroom and said, “Usually people serve the good wine first and then when folks are drunk you serve the plonk. But you have saved the best for last.”

As the storyteller John tells it, this was the first miracle Jesus performed. As a result, his followers believed in him.

Questions and issues raised for me in this story are these – and they all relate to the question of, “What does it mean?”

Why did Jesus say to his mother, “What concern is that to you and me?”

Why would he say, “My hour has not yet come?”

What did his mother know that he didn’t know in telling the servants, “Do whatever he tells you?”

Is saving the best for last a good thing in this story?

We know that alcohol is not required for there to be a good time. Ideally at a celebration such as a wedding feast, the spirits are symbolic of the Spirit. The wine at the wedding points to the honored guest, the Spirit, the One who unites and brings everyone together – the couple in wedded union – the community in the common cause of fellowship and celebration.

When the wine ran out at the wedding in Cana, the mother of Jesus took it as her concern and his because it would have sent the message to any other guests arriving: Come and join the celebration, but you will have had your wine.

I see a link between the story and us in the idea that when people attend our “celebration,” will they find that we have “spirit” to share, or will we in relay the message, “We are empty, we ran out a long time ago, have nothing to give you?” People know the difference between wine and water.

When presented with the problem of no more wine, Jesus tried to tell his mother, “My hour has not yet come.” He implies that he is waiting for just the right moment, as in “this is neither the time nor the place for me to do my thing.”

His mother over-rides his concern. She is telling him, “People’s needs aren’t going to wait upon your willingness to act.” We might wonder what kind of a way that is to be talking to Jesus. But this is where we get into John the storyteller’s subtle way of telling the tale. The context and background of the story.

When we read the gospel of John, we realize that tells us something about the story in and of itself. By way of comparison, Mark was the first gospel. It was written in a time of great expectation. Jesus was coming back soon, so hurry up and get ready.

By the time John was written toward the end of the first century people were beginning to think, “Maybe God’s time frame is different from ours.” John portrays Jesus as Christ present in the world, here and now. He’s not coming back so much as he’s already here in Spirit and truth. That’s a larger-than-life story. That sort of understanding can have a profound effect on how we shape our story. Do we get ready for the end of time, or do we live in the here and now?

John was written for a Greek audience. The writer takes the story of Jesus, an obscure teacher in his time and creates a cosmic epic using Greek themes. There’s the duality between light and darkness. There’s the idea of the cosmos and Christ being a presence at the beginning of creation.         

The style of writing is a narrative. The narrator sets the stage, describes events from the life of Jesus, adds dialogue and then tells what they mean. The story begins with “In the beginning,” and ends by saying, “There are many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” That’s because if as the narrator implies, Christ is here and now, the stories continue to be written. Your life is one of them.

There are different levels to this story. On the surface of it we could say, “Jesus makes miracles happen. Believe this and look for a miracle in your life.”

I don’t think God expects us to sit around waiting for miracles to happen. The water into wine story hinges on Mary telling the servants, “Just do what he tells you to do.” We might ponder what the example of his actions tells us about what we should do. What is Jesus capable of doing in and through us?

Then there’s the idea of “saving the best for last.” We assume that’s a good thing. Maybe the steward at the wedding was saying, “Now that people are numbed with drink, they won’t be able to appreciate this as it should be appreciated.”

Some church communities can be like that. There’s not enough to go around, so we had better not share it. We’ll dribble it out in tiny drops to the folks who understand its true value and who can appreciate it in the proper way. We don’t want to share our vintage with just anyone. One must be worthy of it. One must qualify to taste of it. And we only serve red wine. We certainly can’t allow any white wine people in our midst. And sparkling rose people – why that’s just sick!

Maybe the steward at the wedding was saying, “The wine we serve well into the celebration is usually never as good as the wine we serve first.”

Some church communities can be like that. What we have now can never match the glory days of yore. Back when people were packed in to the rafters; back when we were known far and wide; back when the men (and it was always men in those days) who filled the pulpit were giants. It can’t possibly be that good. Why even bother tasting this new vintage? We’ll just remember and drift off to sleep.

Or was he implying, “This celebration just keeps getting better?” Why might that be? Probably because the spirit of what God has on offer never runs out. As long as you keep doing what Jesus tells you to do, it just keeps getting better. And that is the miracle of it. Amen.