John 2:1–11

¹On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.

²Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.

³When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine."

⁴And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come."

⁵His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."

⁶Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.

⁷Jesus said to the servants, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim.

⁸And he said to them, "Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast." So they took it.

⁹When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom

¹⁰and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now."

¹¹This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

The gospel reading today brings to mind another wedding that took place 23 years ago last weekend. It was my wedding to Rebeca. The custom in Guatemala is that when someone gets an invitation to a wedding, he brings along his family and relatives. So estimates are that for the dinner and celebration after the wedding there were anywhere between 600 and 800 people present.

Weeks prior, the beverages had been ordered from the Pepsi bottling company about an hour drive away. They were scheduled to arrive in the afternoon to deliver a truck load of Pepsi. The delivery time came and went and no truck. The wedding itself came and went, still no truck. Finally it was time for the "fiesta" and no truck in sight. Turns out, unknown to us, we were in Coca-Cola territory so Pepsi would not deliver there. The dinner was served; hundreds of people expecting a party, and nothing to drink. Let me tell you, you just can't have a wedding banquet without something to drink. It is a dysfunctional, broken party. Instead of joy and gladness, there is displeasure and grumbling. To make a long story short, my brother-in-law went around to every store, buying up all the soft-drinks in town and finally the music started and the dancing began. The unhappiness and grumbling turned to joy and celebration until the first rays of sunshine could be seen in the east.

And so it was in Cana at the wedding feast. Nothing to drink; the guests were getting pretty upset. It was a dysfunctional, broken party. That is, until Jesus told them to fill the water jars with water. And so they filled them to the brim. The cup ranneth over. Then Jesus turned the water into wine and the fiesta resumed. The music and dancing and laughter started back up. Displeasure and grumbling turned to joy and celebration.

But why was this the first miracle? You have by now noticed that in the Bible the first thing mentioned in any list is the one given prominence. Peter is always mentioned first when the Apostles are named; that is how we know he was the leader among the disciples. The first word in a sentence is given the emphasis. Being first is the position of greatest importance; the principal position from which we get the word "prince."

The Apostle John intentionally points out that this was the first miracle Jesus did. So it has the preeminence among miracles. Yet it seems to us like such a trivial thing. We can understand healing the sick, casting out demons, and raising people from the dead as important and significant miracles. But changing water into wine? Bringing cheer to a party? It seems so trivial and unimportant. So let's take a deeper look into the meaning of this miracle and see if it may have a deeper meaning.

First we notice that this miracle takes place in a wedding feast. Wedding banquets play a major role in scripture, especially in the parables of Jesus. Often Jesus tells of a king or rich man inviting guests to a wedding banquet for his son. In every case, the wedding banquet is a figure of heaven. The joy and celebration of the wedding banquet signify the joy of heaven. The food and drink at the banquet signify being fed at the table of God in heaven which has already begun in Holy Communion.

However, the banquet without wine was less than perfect; it was marred, corrupt. It was a defective and broken banquet. Instead of joy and celebration it signifies the sorrow and unhappiness of our present broken lives. It points to eternal death instead of eternal life. Just as marriage is often a symbol of our relationship with Christ, a broken marriage banquet is a sign of our broken relationship with God. In Jeremiah when God talks of punishing Moab he says, "The wine will cease, and he will take away joy and gladness." The cessation of wine was punishment from God. A banquet without wine signifies God's displeasure, his wrath, his punishment.

So the wedding feast without wine speaks loudly to God's people about our separation from God by nature, our broken lives, about the sorrow, despair, loss of hope, depression, and sin in which we live in this world. As this was a broken wedding feast, our lives are broken by sin and death. We break our relationship with God and with other people. Our relationship with others is broken; we lack the pure love of Christ for others. We do not love others as ourselves. We have broken homes, broken marriages, broken families. We are selfish and self-centered. We are by nature alone in this world, without hope and without God. Joy and gladness are gone. Our lives are characterized by loneliness, anxiety, worry, depression, and fear. We are living in the broken banquet without wine.

Then Jesus comes to the wedding. He came and suffered in our world without the wine of gladness. When his mother first asked him to do something, he said it was not yet time. Time passed while Jesus was a guest at the party without wine. He suffered the thirst and displeasure of the imperfect and deficient banquet. Just as Jesus lived in our broken world, he suffered as we suffer. He felt the loneliness, the sorrow, the pain that all of us feel. He was tempted to sin just as we are tempted. He carried the burden of guilt just as we carry the load of guilt, even though he did not sin, yet he bore our guilt. He felt the pain of rejection and hatred from his brothers. He even knows the horror of being arrested and taken to court and falsely accused of crimes he didn't commit. He knows the pain of the lash, of beatings, of thorns in his flesh. He eHHH

faced the terrors of death and hell. He was a guest at our broken wedding feast void of joy and gladness every bit as much as we. He knows our sorrow and grief!

In fact the broken party resulted in his death. He not only shared in our suffering and sorrow; he not only felt our pain; he not only shared in our guilt; he took our sin and guilt to the cross and paid our debt before God. He shed his holy, innocent blood in payment for our sin. If the payment for sin is death, he paid for our sin with his own death on the cross. And by his death we are forgiven. God has proclaimed us holy and righteous on account of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Jesus came to our failed party. But he did something about it. He absorbed our failure; our sin and death into himself and exchanged it for his perfect righteousness. He came to take away your sin and brokenness. Your sins are forgiven. He heals your broken life. His fixes this broken world.

So when the time had come, he ordered them to fill the water pots to the brim with water. This first of miracles had to be with water. For it was out of water and through water that the heavens and earth were formed by the word of God. The earth was deluged in water to purify it from the sin of mankind and through that same water Noah was saved and a new race of man was created, a new lineage from Noah. The old mankind had been destroyed and a new mankind emerged from the Ark. As in baptism, the old man of sin is drowned and the new man of righteousness is born.

It was through the water of the Red Sea that the nation of God's people was born as they were delivered from slavery and death. That very same water that drowned their enemies. And it was water drawn from the rock in the wilderness that gave them life in the dry, arid desert. To the guests at the broken banquet, water was more than mere drink, it meant creation and life. It was newness and renewal. It was refreshment for the soul and life everlasting. And today water signifies the drowning of sin and the creation of new life in Christ in the waters of Holy Baptism. So the pots were filled with water to the brim; overflowing as the Psalms tells us, "My cup runneth over." It was no accident that the first and foremost miracle involved water.

But when the water was drawn and given to the host to test, it was the finest wine he had ever tasted. Wine, throughout the Old Testament, signifies God's blessing; it is joy and gladness. Melchizedek blessed Abraham and brought out bread and wine and they ate and drank. The drink offering to God was of wine. The Psalms sing of the joy of wine that gladdens the heart. God pronounced his blessing on Israel saying that the barns would be filled and the vats bursting with wine.

And to us today, wine signifies Holy Communion. The fruit of the soil, grain and grapes, bread and wine; they are the wedding feast of the Lamb, our wedding to Christ, our communion with God.

Wine is associated with the blessing of God. God foretold through the prophet Jeremiah, "There shall be a day when the watchmen will call in the hill country of Ephraim...for the Lord says, "Sing aloud with gladness, raise shouts of joy and proclaim praise...behold I will bring them from the north country and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth...for the Lord has ransomed Jacob and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him. They shall come and sing aloud on Zion and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine and the oil...I will feast the soul of the priests with abundance and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness," declares the Lord.

By this miracle, the Water of new life and the blessing and gladness of wine shout out: The Day of the Lord has come! Now is the Day of Salvation! Now is the Day we shall be redeemed and brought to Zion. The coming of Jesus is the coming of the kingdom of heaven. He restores joy and gladness by taking our sorrow and despair with him to the cross. By his death and resurrection, the wedding feast is restored! Heaven is opened to all who believe in Jesus! Joy and gladness have been restored to us.

And it all took place in the wedding feast: a wedding speaks of the union between God and man in Christ Jesus, our Lord. We are united to Christ in the marriage of the Lamb. In the water of baptism and the wine and grain of Holy Communion we are united in marriage to the Lamb for all eternity.

There could have been no more perfect miracle to reveal Jesus as the Son of God and our Salvation. The arrival of Jesus is the Day of Salvation; joy and gladness are restored; our sins forgiven; and we are snatched out of the grip of death and sin into the kingdom of life and holiness.

The final verse in our text says, "Jesus manifested his glory." Literally, the word manifest was the word "Epiphany." Literally, the glory of God was "epiphanied" in this miracle. It was manifest to us and to all the world. The celebration and joy of heaven is now revealed to us for all time.

Amen.