From Perrier to Dom Pérignon

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Today's reading comes from John chapter 2, verses 1 to 12.

John 2:1–12

On the third day, a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee.

Jesus' mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.

When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, They have no more wine.

Woman, why do you involve me? Jesus replied. My hour has not yet come.

His mother said to the servants, Do what he tells you.

Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial

washing, each holding from 20 to 30 gallons.

Jesus said to the servants, Fill the jars with water. So they filled them to the brim.

Then he told them, Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.

They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine.

He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew.

Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, 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. Now, what Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee

was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory and his disciples believed in him.

After this, he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples.

There he stayed for a few days.

Good to be here. Good to get a lot of stuff's happened in our world.

We had the start of the Olympics.

I even watched some gymnastics last night. So there you go.

The hard part is that surfing's on, but it's on in Tahiti. That means that it

starts at three o'clock in the morning.

So if I look a little bit fuzzed out, that's because I enjoy surfing and enjoy watching it.

But also a lot has unfolded since last week in our passage, since the word became flesh.

And last week we looked at chapter one, verses one to 14, and we saw there that

the God of this universe has come in the flesh in the form of Jesus.

And following on from that in chapter one, John mentions nothing really about

Jesus' childhood or his kind of like adolescent years.

Rather, he fast forwards to his 30 years where we meet Jesus as he commences his earthly ministry.

And in chapter one, verses 14 and following, we see that John the Baptist called

the people in preparation for Jesus' coming to repent.

Repent the saviour was coming and he

wanted people to be ready for the saviour to be there so they

needed to repent they needed to confess their sin they needed to be baptized

in readiness for his arrival however things got a little awkward for John when

Jesus himself came up to be baptized John was taken aback a bit knowing that

Jesus hadn't sinned there was no need for confession and there was no real reason to repent.

So yet Jesus still wanted to be baptized by him.

See, John's baptism was symbolic, whereas Jesus, the Lamb of God,

would truly cleanse the world of sin.

Yet Jesus insisted and John baptized him.

And at that moment, God the Father affirmed the arrival of his son,

the Saviour, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus,

marking his anointing and confirming to all that the promised Messiah had come. It's unreal.

So here we are in chapter two, as Jesus starts his public ministry.

Now, what if God was one of us? Just a stranger on a bus, so the song goes.

What would he do? How would he inaugurate his earthly ministry?

So as we get into the story,

we can see what happens and how he starts his earthly ministry.

It's hard to think of a more important decision that most of us have to make than to get married.

I mean, it's not like you make a decision to go out on a date with somebody

and if it goes a little bit sideways, you think, well, that will never happen again.

No, marriage, you make a decision about who you want to spend the next 50 years

with or whoever God wants you to. next to birth and death, it's the biggest

decision or biggest event of your life.

Of course, you don't really want to remember the details of your birth and you

won't be there at your death, but you will be with that person that you commit

to all of your life till death to you part.

The decision to get married is huge, as is the wedding event itself. self.

You see, the average wedding in Australia is estimated cost of about $54,000,

according to One Fine Day Wedding Site.

Not that I always go to One Fine Day Wedding Site, and it's a really strange

name for a site anyway, because yesterday it was absolutely pouring rain.

And according to Alanis Morissette, the irony of life means that it's likely

to rain on your wedding day.

However, just having rain on your wedding day would have been good for some

of the weddings that I've have officiated.

And if you've officiated weddings, no doubt you have as well.

I've seen and been part of disasters of all times at weddings.

One was at a Newcastle wedding where we were having the rehearsal in a church

in Newcastle and the minister, for whatever reason, had a bit of a conniption

fit and said, well, you're not having the wedding tomorrow here.

And I just looked at and the bride said something he didn't quite agree with

and then it all went south from there.

And the other thing that happened is that he didn't want to even transfer the

officiating by the government.

You have to have it registered officiating.

So he didn't even want to transfer that. We were up the creek.

And then what happened is that a friend from Mayfield BAPS came along and said,

you can have it at our church.

So someone had to stand out the front of the church in Newcastle.

So we're now having it up. It was an absolute disaster ready to happen.

But rain and a venue cancellation would not gazump what happened here in the story of John 2.

See, running out of wine would just about top the list of wedding disasters

in first century Israel.

In fact, back then, people had been sued for running out of wine at their wedding.

It was just unheard of. It was a shame culture.

And for the groom to drop the ball so badly was going to bring shame upon him

and upon his new family that was going to be.

So here in John chapter 2, we have this wedding on the brink of disaster.

John 2 · chapter mention

The groom had blown it and his reputation was at stake.

And Jesus starts his ministry and enters the ordinary events of life and miraculously

changes water into wine.

What an unreal thing. But I don't know about you, whether you've thought about

it or not, changing water into wine seems a strange miracle to kick off Jesus' earthly ministry.

I mean, in John chapter one, we were told that the almighty God,

the creator God, had become human.

He humbled himself. He became one of us.

So what do you find God in the flesh doing? What's his first big event?

You would imagine it would be healing the sick or casting out a demon or calming

the storm or raising someone from the dead. No, Jesus changes water into wine,

which would be pretty impressive for like a Las Vegas magic show.

But the one for whom the universe was created from nothing is here on this earth

and he's found making grog for a wedding party.

A wedding party in the Nor'east suburbs of Israel to boot.

As one author put it, Jesus kicks off the spectacular ministry changing Perrie into Dom Perrion.

So if we look at the passage in a little bit more detail, we can get a bit of a handle on it.

We read in chapter two, on the third day, the wedding took place in Cana of Galilee.

Jesus' mother was there and Jesus and his disciples had been invited to the wedding.

That'd be a good title, I think, for a message series on the third day.

A lot seems to be happening on the third day in the Bible. So on this particular

third day, we have a wedding in Cana.

Now, we're not talking about the royal wedding at a palace, as you would expect

the king of kings and lord of lords to come and display his glory for the first time.

We're talking about a normal everyday wedding, probably a relative of Jesus

somewhere, not nowhere in a palace, but in Cana in Galilee. And Cana was literally

in the back 40 of Galilee.

Don't know whether you've been to some towns like that. I have a friend who

has a fairly large farm up in Caulfield, Queensland.

And let me say, Caulfield, Queensland exists of one racetrack,

which you had the Caulfield Cup before it came down here, and one pub that served

as a post office, a general store, and everything else in it. That's it.

Now, I'm not quite sure whether there was more houses in Cana of Galilee.

I can imagine there was, there obviously was a wedding reception place,

but it was literally the back 40 of Galilee.

So Jesus chose Cana, this insignificant town in Nor'east backwoods of Galilee

in front of about seven people to introduce himself as the Emmanuel, God with us.

But as we continue in verses two to six, Jesus' mother was there and Jesus and

his disciples also had been invited to the wedding.

When the wine had gone, Jesus' mother said to him, we have no more wine. Thank you.

Now, don't forget, this is Jesus' first public miracle.

Mary didn't know that, wasn't expecting a miracle. She didn't even know that

Jesus could do miracles.

Most likely, as he's not mentioned again in the Gospels, after Jesus' ministry

starts, Joseph was dead and Mary was a widow.

And therefore, Jesus being the firstborn would be the head of the household.

And he had this huge responsibility on him, the reputation of the couple,

and maybe even the reputation of Mary, if she catered the event, was at stake.

Dear woman, Jesus said, what do you involve me? A bit harsh,

you would think. My time had not yet come.

His mother said to the servants, which is interesting because this is about

all that Mary ever said in the whole of the Gospels, do whatever he tells you.

So Jesus turns water into wine.

Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial

washing, each of them holding 20 to 30 gallons.

Jesus said to his servants, fill the jars with water.

So they filled them to the brim. And he told them, now draw some out and take

it to the master of the banquet. But they did so.

And the master of the banquet tasted the water and had been turned into wine.

They did not realize where they come from, though the servants who had drawn certainly knew.

He called the bridegroom aside and said, 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 of now.

I can't remember what wine I had for my wedding. I think it had on picture of

the bottle had kind of crabs and seashells on it and things like that.

I don't know what it was, but I asked Susan the other day whether she remembered

or not, and she didn't. So that left me off the hook.

I expected Susan to go, oh, it was this, this, and across this moat,

and it had this fruity flavor and all this type of stuff.

Wine wasn't such a big hit amongst a bunch of cowboys, of which there were many at my wedding.

Beer tended to be more important than wine. And if the beer ran out,

I'd be roped and tied, that's for sure.

But here in first century Israel, wine was important.

And there's a problem, a disaster really, but Jesus had the solution.

And as I said, we're not talking about a magic trick where you would cover over

a glass of water with a napkin and you'd remove it to expose a glass of wine.

No, we're talking about a lot of wine.

We're talking about six times 30 gallons, or about 600 litres,

which is about 800 bottles of wine.

We need to hold on to that thought. Now, I'll put this in since the kids,

since the teenagers are in.

The wine was alcoholic because apparently the normal practice at a wedding was

when, as it went on, which was more than a night, by the way,

it went on for the whole week.

Eventually, the guests couldn't tell what they were drinking.

So they'd uncork the Aldi 2024 or the equivalent of the day.

But not this wine. Jesus made it, and it was abundant, and it was top shelf.

Personally, I couldn't taste really the difference. It all tastes like vinegar to me.

But the master of ceremonies could, and it was the finest wine. Problem solved.

John says in chapter 2, verse 11, this, changing water into wine,

was the first of the miraculous signs Jesus performed in Cana or Galilee.

He thus revealed his glory and his disciples put their faith in him.

A good question for us to ponder is how does this miracle reveal his glory?

And what is God trying to show us in this sign as miracles in John are called signs?

Jesus had seven signs in John. And while spectacular displays of power and authority,

like all signs, they point to something beyond the sign itself.

They are pointing to something about God's glory.

Now, I don't know whether Tom got that from, did you have that on the screen? No, we don't.

But there's a picture of a sign that I had, and maybe it will come up later.

Don't put it up until I tell you there, Tom.

But the first sign that Jesus displayed was the glory of God in the present.

The glory of God in the present. Jesus was invited to a wedding in everyday life.

It was not the opening of the Olympic Games, and it wasn't even a worship gathering

or some kind of temple gathering.

Jesus wasn't the center of the tension even.

See, obviously, the bride and the bridegroom were the center of the attention.

It's about the only time in your life you get to be famous.

Everyone wants to take your photo. Everyone talks to speeches about you. Everyone toasts to you.

And you're the center of attention for probably one day in your whole life.

And then it goes on from there. Now, it was a wedding party.

And he may have even been seated at table 19 behind the pylon or next to the

kitchen door or next to the toilet doors so everybody was walking by.

I'm not quite sure what was going on, but I know that he wasn't the center of attention.

And that was definitely consistent with Jesus' birth. He was born in a manger.

There wasn't any room for him to even be. He was a carpenter.

And now he made his first miracle in the everyday event of a wedding.

It was an everyday event of life.

And there's a question I have to ask myself. Am I expecting Jesus to be at work

in bringing God's glory in the everyday events of my life?

Not some special service, not a one-off event in my life, but every day.

And am I inviting him into my everyday?

And you would have to ask yourself that question too. But we also see that not

only is Jesus working in the everyday events of life, He transforms our concern

and makes it his concern.

When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, we have no more wine.

Woman, why do you involve me? Jesus replied, my hour has not yet come.

Now that woman, why do you involve me? While Jesus responds to Mary in a polite

way in that culture, it could be translated, dear woman, there is a fundamental

shift in their relationship.

It's not mum anymore. It's not son anymore.

Mary doesn't, gets it. She addresses him not as son, but as Lord.

And at this point, Jesus is saying, you and I have nothing in common.

My hour has not yet come.

And that reference to time and hour means that Jesus is working to a plan.

But it's not the plan of the wedding. It's not the plan of his mother.

It's the plan of the father.

And Jesus' plan and timetable were not driven by earthly things or by his mother,

but his Heavenly Father, and he's running on God's agenda, not on anybody else's.

There will be a time when there will be a sign, and we read about that,

the sign of him hanging on a

cross that will be public for all to see and this world to see even today,

where Jesus dies and enters in the fullest of glory of the Father in forgiveness of sin.

All the same, Jesus takes on the concern of Mary and makes it his concern.

And it's comforting, isn't it, for us to know that while in the scheme of the

ultimate glory of God, that our problems may really not factor into the whole scheme of things,

yet Jesus is concerned with our problems and will work out the major and the

smallest events of our life for his glory,

working in all things for his glory.

So Jesus works in the everyday. He's concerned with what concerns us.

And Jesus provides what's necessary to keep that celebration of new birth going.

I've mentioned before that sometimes we as Baptists believe that we've been

baptized by lemon juice into a life of suffering, but not so here.

John Chapman, the late John Chapman, Anglican evangelist, once said that people

who brought him to Jesus were keen and helpful, but they had a view of life

that saw most things as sinful.

The rule of thumb was that if you like something, then it must be wrong.

But that cannot be further from the truth, John Chapman said,

for everything that is good in your life, every pleasurable experience has come from God.

Think about it. Some of the good

things in your life that God has given to you. They have come from God.

We need to always remember. We need to always be thankful.

We need to be always part of the celebration of the good things that God has given to us.

There is enough in life to concentrate of the bad things.

I guess it's whether you're a half full, glass half full, or a glass half empty

type of person, the way that you're going to view things, whether you're going

to view about life and all its problems, or you're going to view its life and all its goodness.

I have to challenge myself on that all the time. I'm a glass half empty guy, that's for sure.

But I didn't challenge myself to look at the good things that God gives me.

And it's like in this over-the-top miracle with 60 liters turning into the 600 liters of the wine.

And it's this over-the-top miracle. And we see that happening in the Bible all

the time where Jesus comes out and feeds the 5,000 and then he picks up the baskets at the end of it.

And there's 12 baskets in all that entails. tails

it's picked it up and it's just over in a and it's abundant it shows us that

god not only wants us to get everything that's good he wants to confirm that

like he said in in john chapter 10 verse verse 10 i have come that you may have

John 10 · chapter mention

life and you may have it to its full,

not just at the time of your conversion but right throughout your life i guess

whether we see this This or not in today really depends on you and whether you

open up your eyes about how God has been good to you.

Like the disciples in verse 11, our response should be placing our trust in him because he's good.

So the sign points to God's glory in the present. Secondly, it points to a new way of approaching him.

In verse 6, water jars, which Jesus ordered to be filled. There were many purposes

for it, but it was ceremonial purification.

Although they were meant for purification, the problem was they didn't actually purify.

The Jews needed to keep these laws in order to maintain being clean and acceptable before God.

But Jesus wipes all of that aside. The old way of approaching God,

the keeping of the law, the Old Testament law has now been fulfilled in Jesus. and it is new wine.

We approach God now, not by what we do, but by trusting in Jesus, his son.

So Jesus comes along and the water becomes wine and these old jars are filled up with new wine.

And in the words of Paul, the old has gone and the new has come.

And we're all part of that, a new way of approaching God.

I know that when I started my ministry down at Narrabeen, the honourable member

of Pittwater, Robert Stokes, came along and said something at my.

Induction. And he'd come up to me afterwards and said, you surf?

I said, yeah, I surf. And he goes, why surf?

He said, you can call me Rob in the surf and not the honourable member of Pitwater, Robert Stokes.

So I did, called him off every wave I was on. We call God our Father,

Jesus our Lord, and we are called his children.

We have a new way of approaching God. He is approachable and we're able to come

into his presence as children and approach him as father and approach Jesus as our Lord,

God gives us a new way to come to him.

And it's through Jesus. And it's not how my life, how I live my life.

It's not about coming to church. It's not about reading the Bible.

It's not about giving money.

It's not about living a good life, although all those things are good.

Jesus and the

way we've come before God is because

he has provided forgiveness of our sin and we're

able to come before him the last thing is

that this sign points to the future glory of God that great wedding feast that

he is going to provide the large quantity of wine that was made was code for

when God would restore his people and bring salvation to this world and in Amos

we We read in chapter 9, verse 13,

that it speaks of the days that are coming, declares the Lord when new wine

will drip from the mountains and flow from the hills.

Wine has always been the mark of a good life that God offered Israel in the

promised land and he offers us in the eternal kingdom of heaven.

At the end of time, we will be invited to a wedding feast where Jesus himself

will be the bridegroom and we will be his bride.

And at that wedding feast, we'll have abundance of food and wine and glory to God in the highest.

We will sing for all eternity.

What a great wedding feast that will be. We won't have some cheap DJ in the corner, playing Abba.

Did we have that? No, we didn't. No, we will have the heavenly hosts and we

will sing with them, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to all and whom his favor rests.

That would be a Christmas thing. We'll get to that some other time. Let's pray.

Lord, we don't, we would expect for you to come in and give us signs that is

just off the planet that no one could ever imagine that the coming of this,

the great King of the universe,

the great Lord of the universe,

that every knee would bow.

We know that that's going to happen at this point, Lord.

You gave a sign to those close to you.

And I pray, Lord, that in our reading of that, we would recognize,

Lord, that you give us everything that's good.

You give it to us, life to us in abundance and a life that will go on for all

eternity into the future.

Help us, Lord, to be thankful. Help us, Lord, to remember that this demonstrated your glory.

And like the disciples, we are to put our trust and faith in you.

And we pray this in your name. Amen.