January 17, 2010 Isaiah 62:1-5 John 2:1-11

“Let’s Have a Party”

The scene is a wedding in the village of Cana, a village not that far from Nazareth. Perhaps the bride
and groom were friends of Jesus, or his family. William Barclay suggests that Mary was such a close
friend of the family that she was in charge of the arrangements. We don’t know that, but we can
assume there was some connection or else Jesus and his mother wouldn’t have been there. We do
know that in Palestine a wedding was a really big event. The festivities lasted far more than an
afternoon and evening like weddings in our own day. Their weddings carried on about a week starting
on Wednesday. The ceremony itself took place late in the evening, after a feast. Following the
ceremony the young couple was conducted to their new home. By that time it was dark and they were
escorted through the village streets by the light of flaming torches with a canopy over their heads. The
newly weds were taken to their new home by as long a route as possible so that as many people as
possible would have the opportunity to wish them well. The newly married couple didn’t go away for
their honeymoon; they stayed at home; and for a week they kept open house. They wore crowns and
dressed in their bridal robes. They were treated like a king and queen, were actually addressed as king
and queen, and their word was law. In a life that held much poverty and constant hard work, this
week of festivity and joy was one of their supreme occasions.1
Weddings, then as now, were a very happy time, a time in which Jesus evidently wanted to share. But
at this wedding party something went wrong. Biblical scholar J.D.M. “Derrett, who is an expert in
Oriental law, made a careful study of Jewish wedding customs, and found that the wine supply at
weddings was dependent to some extent on the gifts of the guests. He thinks that Jesus and his
disciples, because of their poverty, had failed in this duty and had thus caused the shortage.” 2 Other
scholars feel that perhaps because Jesus brought along 5 of his newly called disciples there wasn’t
enough wine. We don’t know any of that for certain. We can never know why this crisis came about.
We do know that John tells us that the wine “gave out.”
For a Jewish feast, wine was essential. “Without wine,” said the Rabbis, “there is no joy.” 3 It wasn’t
that people got drunk. Drunkenness was in fact a great disgrace. So the problem wasn’t running out
of wine per se. The problem was how one treated ones guests. At any time, the failure of provisions
would’ve been a problem, for hospitality in the East was, and is still today, a sacred duty. For the
provisions to run out at a wedding would’ve been a terrible humiliation for the bride and the
bridegroom. If the wine runs out at an event today, that’s the breaks. For the couple who’s wedding
Jesus was attending, the result would’ve been a major loss of face, an embarrassment from which the
couple may never have recovered.
To avoid this humiliation for the bride and groom, Mary went up to Jesus and said, “They have no
wine.” Jesus replied to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet
come.”
1 1. Barclay, William, The Gospel of John, volume 1, The Daily Study Bible Series,
The Westminster Press, Philadelphia, PA, 1975, pp. 96-97.

2 2. Brown, Raymond E., The Gospel according to John (i-xii), The Anchor Bible,
Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, NY, 1966, p. 102.

3 3. Barclay, p. 97.
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Before we continue, remember a couple of things here. First, Jesus calling his mother “Woman” was
not disrespectful.4 If one of my children had ever seriously said that to Cheri, or to another woman,
they’d be in big trouble. For Jesus, however, this wasn’t a rebuke, nor an impolite term, nor an
indication of a lack of affection. It was his normal, polite way of addressing women – though it’s also
possible that there’s some symbolism at work here that we 20th century Christians don’t understand.
Second, in John’s gospel, there are almost always at least two layers of understanding at work in each
event we read. There’s a surface layer or surface meaning, and there’s a deeper layer, a deeper
meaning that would’ve been understood by Christians in the Early church. It’s in this deeper layer
that we understand why Jesus mentions “the hour,” the hour that has not yet come. “The hour” is
John’s technical term to refer to the period of the passion, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus,
and it’s God who’s in control of the hour. God was to let Jesus know when the hour had come – not
Mary, not the disciples, not even Jesus himself, only God was in control of when that hour, that time
of passion was to begin. Only God’s demands on Jesus were to be heeded, and God had not yet
shown Jesus that the hour was to begin. So Jesus responded to Mary, “My hour has not yet come.”
Continuing on then. In some ways, this passage from John feels like a synopsis of a much more
elaborate story. It’s as if we only have an outline here. We’re not told why Mary expected Jesus to be
able to do anything about running out of wine in the first place. It’s not like she was angry, nor does it
sound like she expected him to do some miracle to produce more wine. But even after Jesus had told
her that his hour hadn’t yet arrived, she turned to the servants anyway and said, “Do whatever he tells
you.” It’s like we’ve missed a couple of paragraphs of dialogue and an explanation here.
Nonetheless, we know what happens. Jesus tells the stewards to fill the 6 stone purification jars to the
top with water, “fill them to the brim,” he says. These were the big jars that held the water used in the
purifying washing of ones hands during the meal, and the purifying washing of ones feet after walking
outside. Each of the jars held between 20 and 30 gallons. 6 times that means that Jesus presented the
chief steward with between 120 and 180 gallons of wine, more than that party was ever going to
consume.
And not only was there an abundance of wine, it was superb wine. The steward said, “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.” Instead of being humiliated by running out of wine, the wedding
must’ve been a triumph, something that was talked about in Cana for generations. “Remember the
Abrahm’s wedding. Now that was a wedding. After 3 days, they brought out the best wine I’ve ever
tasted. What a wedding!”
What a wedding indeed! But as you read this story, do you ever think to yourself, in the deep recesses
of your heart, think to yourself but never, ever say aloud, “Where’s my wedding wine? I have
problems too. And in comparison, my problems are much worse than running out of wine at a
wedding. When is Jesus going to solve my problems like he solved the problem for that couple?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad he created that wine in abundance. But what about me? Couldn’t he
do the same thing for me?”
Do you ever feel just a little bit like that? Do you ever wish that Jesus would miraculously solve your
money problems, or your health problems, or your family problems, or your school problems? Do you
ever wish that your worries would be over just as quickly as Jesus turned the water into wine?
Probably so. It’s probably a feeling we’ve all had at least once in our life. “If only Jesus would help
4 4. Brown, p. 99.
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me like he helped that couple!”
Of course, looking at it eternally, Jesus has helped us far more than that Jewish couple was helped, at
least as much. In going to Jerusalem and from there to Golgotha, Jesus gave each of us the
opportunity to spend eternity with God in heaven. There is no greater reward than that. That’s the
greatest party there is. Through his death and resurrection, the sins we commit are forgiven and the
penalty of death we deserve was paid by Jesus himself. That’s far greater than having an
overabundance of wine at a wedding.
But we’ve got to confess that sometimes, in the dark of the night, when we’re staring sleeplessly at the
ceiling because of the ache in our hearts, the anxiety in our guts, the torments in our heads – we’ve got
to confess that heaven seems too distant. Our problems are here and now, and God is way out there in
what we hope is the distant future. The forces of darkness seem to be greater than our earthly ability
to overcome them, and we don’t think we can wait for our heavenly reward. “What do we do,” we
wonder, “when it doesn’t feel like God is answering our prayers?”
First, know that you’re not alone when you feel this way. The Psalmist cried out, “My eyes fail with
watching for your promise; I ask, ‘When will you comfort me?”5 And again: “O God, why do you
cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?”6 When we
despair, when our pain and suffering is more than we feel we can bear, know that others have walked
these steps before us. And know too, that God was faithful to those who called upon Him. God has
acted in the past, and God acts for us today. God may not act as fast as we’d like. God may not act
the way we want God to act. But God does act. As the Psalmist goes on to say, “Yet God my King is
from of old, working salvation in the earth. You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads
of the dragons in the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the
creatures of the wilderness.”7 God has been, God is, and God will be faithful to all who love the Lord.
Second, understand that not everything is going to work out like we hope it will, or even as God wants
it to work out. As the title of Rabbi Kushner’s book puts it so well, bad things do happen to good
people. Innocent children are victims of drive by shootings. The poor seem to get poorer while those
who’ve gotten rich dishonestly seem to thrive. The poorest of nations, Haiti, suffered the terrible
earthquake. Sometimes there seems to be no justice in the world. That doesn’t mean that God wants
it that way. God knows what injustice is, because God’s son suffered the greatest injustice of all time.
For whatever reason, though, God has chosen not to magically right all wrongs, punish all evil, reward
everyone who is good. But God is with us when we suffer, and somehow, through the midst of the
darkness, God helps us through until we’re able to see a faint glimmer of sunshine.
Finally, understand that much of the stuff we worry about is totally out of our control. We suffer for
our children, our friends, our neighbors. We ask God to bring about change in their lives, but we
don’t control our children, our friends, our neighbors, and neither does God. We end up worrying
about things we can’t control. In essence, we try to take responsibility for things that are not our
responsibility. As pastor, I can only do so much. I’m not responsible for everything that this church
does or doesn’t do. As husband, I can only do so much. I share responsibility for my marriage, but I
can’t make a marriage all by myself. As parent, I can only do so much. My wife and I do our best to
5 5. Psalm 119:82

6 6. Psalm 74:1

7 7/ Psalm 74:12-14
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teach our children, but finally, Jerry, Paul and Laura will live their own lives, make their own
decisions, and perhaps break our hearts in the process. But I can’t control others. I can only live my
own life which is hard enough.
It’s not a mistake that Jesus taught, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will
drink, or about your body, what you will wear. . . Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor
reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than
they?”8
Easy for Jesus to say, we may think, he didn’t have kids, he didn’t have a spouse, he didn’t have bills
to pay, retirement to worry about, elderly parents to care for. What concerns did he have?
But of course, Jesus was concerned with the whole world, wasn’t he? He was concerned about my life
and yours, my sin and yours. If anyone was going to worry, it would’ve been Jesus. But Jesus didn’t
worry, at least not that we know. He didn’t worry because he trusted God, trusted God more than any
of us trust God, and in that sense too, Jesus is our model.
What do we do then when we find ourselves staring sleeplessly at the ceiling, night after night,
wondering why, to use this morning’s question, why Jesus doesn’t provide wedding wine for us? We
can try and separate what we can control from what we can’t control, and turn that which we can’t
control over to God. We can understand that bad things are going to happen, even when God wants
only good for us. Bad things happen because we sin, because the world is sinful, because that’s
simply the way it is.
But through it all, we are to know that God is faithful. God knows how we suffer, how we worry
about so many things. God knows that for many of us, the party has run out of wine. God will,
however, make wine out of water if we have patience. It may not happen as quickly as we’d like, but
it will happen.
Our God does not fail. Even in the darkest night, even in the depths of our despair, even when we’re
faced with problems much greater than running out of wine, our God is with us. Open your heart and
feel His presence. Open your heart and know God is with you. Open your heart, and let the Lord
comfort you in your pain and in your grief. For great is the faithfulness of the Lord.

8 8. Matthew 6:25-26
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