How can we not get excited about this truth?  “We have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”  How could this truth not be a gift of joy to us this day and every day?  With what could we compare it?

How about a wedding?  An occasion of unmitigated joy; the creation of something new; a new name; a new relationship; a new covenant… No wonder that the first of Jesus’ signs in John’s gospel comes at a wedding, and the sign is one of abundance.  We’re talking about life here and what has come into being in the Word made flesh and dwelling among us.  Christ Jesus, without whom not one thing came into being and what has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

The main actor.  The star of the show if you like.  We like to think we’re the stars of our own show I know, I’m prone to it.  We live inside our heads after all.  You’d think that the stars of a wedding story would be the bride and groom.  This is normal right?  Not so here.  Jesus goes to a wedding along with his mother and his disciples – they’d all been invited and they were nothing if not social.  Nothing would ever be the same.  Same stuff different day is surely one of the most disheartening life-sapping realities around.  Nothing is ever the same when Jesus is involved.   In him is life.  Let’s pray as we prepare to look at God’s word for us today.

We’re looking at Jesus’ seven signs in the Gospel of John over seven summer weeks here.  Signs point to something beyond themselves.  They point to a greater reality.  The sign with the golden M on the En Route sign on the highway points to a greater and much more wonderful reality of Big Macs and McNuggets and fries and Coke and so on.  Here’s the other thing about these signs.  The involve things that are part of our every day – weddings, celebrations, wine, hospitality, sickness, bread, sight, the weather, wind and water, death and life.

These signs are not simply proof that Jesus is God.  They tell of who he is and what he does.  Weddings are significant events, but we get the idea that there may be something more significant going on when we read the beginning of John’s wedding story.  “On the third day, there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.  Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.”  A fairly normal part of village life and the lives of neighbouring villages.  Cana was located about 8 miles north of Nazareth.  Everyone is invited to the wedding.

When Jesus is involved, of course, things take on a new significance.  Light is not just light.  Water is not just something from a well.  Bread is not just bread.  This is one of those stories which I think is still fairly well-known in our culture today.  Water into wine.  It’s been used by people to defend or denounce drinking.  It’s been used by wedding officiants to talk about how it is a good thing to have Jesus involved in marriages.  Nothing wrong with that.   There’s something much more significant going on here when we look at this particular wedding story.  “Do you believe because I saw you under a fig tree?” is what Jesus had asked Nathaniel a little earlier.  “You will see greater things than these.  Very truly I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

Heaven and earth coming together in this new age that has been inaugurated in Christ.  New life.  New life in Christ.  We’re not just talking about a wedding.  This happens quite a bit in John.  Jesus speaks of being born from above and the question comes back to him “How can someone be born again?” and we realize that Jesus is not talking about returning to our mother’s womb (come on!).  Jesus speaks with a Samaritan woman of living water at a well and all of a sudden we realize he’s not just talking about being thirsty.  There’s a whole other level going on. 

This all sounds most grandiose I know and we need to keep the following truth in mind.  The glory of God is shown in the so-called mundane.  God’s ways are made known to us and through us in the every-day.  There is a problem here in the story (and what’s a story without some sort of problem?).  The wine gave out.  “When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’”  This is the problem and it’s a problem.  The wine is going to run out.  We’re not just talking about wine now of course.  We are talking about the human condition.  There are questions common to the human condition which we all do well to consider.   Where do we look for life?  What does it mean to really live?  In what are in whom do you hope?  What are who is the foundation of your life?  Here is the thing about our lives.  The wine is going to run out.  We will know loss.  We will know regret.  We will know shame. 

Here’s the thing about shame in our story. If you’re from certain cultures you know that running out of food or drink at a party is just not acceptable.  It brings shame to the family.  It’s a bad way to start married life.  Mary informs Jesus.  Does she expect him to do something about it?  It would seem so.  Is she requesting something miraculous?  Possibly.  We don’t know for sure. There were caterers who could handle that sort of thing – replenishment of wine stocks at a multi-day wedding (because these weddings were multi-day affairs).  We do know this.  Jesus is about taking shame away.  Jesus is about acting in the every-day. 

This is not just about win and you see it in Jesus’ response.  There is an ambiguity in the translation of Jesus’ answer to his mother.  Our NRSV Bible says “What concern is that to you and me?”  It can be translated “What do you have to do with me?” which speaks to the relationship between them.  This is not simply a mother talking to her son.  It’s a mother talking to the Son.  “My hour is not yet come,” reminds us of Jesus’ prayer in John 17:1 – “Father, the hour has come to glorify your son…” It might also be seen as a question.  “Has not my hour to go out into the world come?”  

The hour for something has come.  The time for the first sign.  It’s time for the first sign that John gives as to who Jesus is in terms of the Word having become flesh, the Lamb of God, the Son of God, the Son of Man.

He’s the bringer of a new age.  New life.  How do we respond?  We’ve already heard how some have responded in ch 1.  They followed.  They said “Where are staying?”  Jesus said “Come and see.”  Here we have Mary representing a faithful/faith-filled response to the reality of the living Word of God.  She says to the servants “Do whatever he tells you.” The mother of Jesus represents the response of faith.  The response that the Gospel of John is inviting us to.  What is Jesus telling us to do in the Gospel of John? “Believe in the father, believe also in me.”  “Abide in me.”  “Love one another as I have loved you.”  “Woman, here is your son,” to his mother from the cross.  To the disciple whom he loved “Here is your mother.”   Here is the new family of faith into which you’re adopted through me. 

Jesus is the bringer of a new age.  Six stone jars of water, each one holding 20 to 30 gallons.  6X25 gallons is 150 gallons which is 567 litres which is 756 bottles of wine. 

That’s a lot of wine!  We’re not just talking about wine.  That’s an insane amount of wine to introduce at the tail end of a village wedding.  When is wine not just wine?  When the new age has begun; new life is here; God’s grace will be known in a whole new way; and that’s a lot of grace!

“I came that they might have life,” Jesus will say, meaning his sheep, “and have it abundantly.”  Abundant grace.  Grace upon grace.  The prophets had spoken of it.  The lavishness of God’s grace in the age to come.

Joel 3:18 – “In that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine, the hills shall flow with milk, and all the stream beds of Judah shall flow with water; a fountain shall come forth from the house of the LORD…”

Jeremiah 31:13 – “Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry, I will turn their mourning into joy, I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.”

John doesn’t spend any time on when or how it happened any more than he spends time explaining how exactly the Word became flesh.  The point is that spiritual meaning is found in the realities of life.  The chief steward tastes the water that has become wine and says “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” God saves the best for last.  The usual order of life is reversed in the Kingdom of God.  In the new age inaugurated in Christ, the order of life is reversed.  Mourning is turned to dancing.  Sorrow is turned to joy.  The rich go away empty.  The self-sufficient go away empty.  Those who are in need are filled with good things.  Those who know their need for God, their need for grace are filled with good things. 

This man, this God, this Jesus is the source of life.  Eternal life.  What is eternal life?  Jesus will say in a prayer to his Father which we’ll look at in a few weeks.  “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (17:3)

That we may know God.  “I want to know you,” we sing.  We are no longer simply talking about wine or even just a miracle for that matter.  The thing is we can discount miracles.  A miracle is no guarantee of faith.  Even someone coming back from the dead is no guarantee of faith.  Anything can be explained away, after all.  The one who says “If only it could be proven in some way” is not in a position to take the walk of faith and no proof will suffice – not even someone coming back from the dead (as we know).  The invitation to faith is ever before us, and it remains in the answer to the question that someone once asked, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”  The invitation to faith is still “Come and see.”  Let us hear the words of the Psalmist newly as we hear the invitation to Jesus’ table.  “Taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him.”  Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.  We might ask at this point, “Weren’t they already believing?  They were following him after all.”  Belief, trust, entrusting our lives to Jesus is not a one-time event.  The word that’s translated “in” here actually means “into” or “toward” like there’s movement involved.  They believed into him.  I want to be believing into Jesus.  I want us all to be trusting into Jesus.  An ever-deepening trust as we consider what it means to daily to live in the grace of God and to understand that all is indeed grace.  “My grace is sufficient for you,” as God told Paul.  All is grace, and God’s grace is overflowing and abundant like hundreds of bottles of wine at a party. 

There’s an interesting postscript to this story.  “After this, he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples, and they remained there a few days.”  They remained with him.  Same word as abide.  “ Abide in me as I abide in you.”  Life returns to normal.  They stay together and they stay with Jesus.  We will get up tomorrow morning and make breakfast and walk the dog and do some laundry and look after ourselves and others and go to work and  and go to our appointments and do all the things that we do as we wait.  We wait for Jesus’ hour to come too, don’t we?  We have tasks to do just like the servants in our story.  We have jars to fill.  As we go about our tasks, may we be reminded that abundant life is not something we need to achieve or even seek.  Life lived in loving communion with God, in gratitude for the gift of grace – is… a gift.  Let us gratefully acknowledge this truth today as we come to the Lord’s Table and every day. May this be true for all who hear these words. 

Amen