ENCOUNTER AT CANA

Sermon Summary, 9/2/18, “Encounter at Cana” (John 2:1-11)

The marriage in Cana is a wonderfully simple story of Jesus turning water into wine, a kid’s story on the surface.  Unique in the Bible, the only story of water into wine.  Jesus begins his ministry in John with something brand new.

Yet John runs far deeper than that, like the mention of Jesus being buried in a garden.  Jesus being raised in a garden, restoring the curse that had begun in a garden.  We only find that in John and only by reading below the surface.

John begins with soaring words, “In the beginning was the Word.”  Still in the first chapter he is the “Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world; and on the next day, the ladder, the way to heaven, the Son of Man upon which angels of God will ascend and descend.  And then the third day, there was a marriage.

Marriages were not only a celebration for a couple but also the whole village.  They represented the perpetuation of the village and the village celebrated for a week.  What a disaster if the wine gave out on the second or third day!  The couple would be known as Mr. and Mrs. Wineless their entire lives!

But Jesus says, “my hour has not yet come.”  Jesus thinking about his death even in the midst of celebration.  What does his Mother know?  We don’t know, but she tells the servants, “do whatever he tells you.”

“Now there were six stone jars standing there for the Jewish rites of purification each holding 20 to 30 gallons.”  John is telling us that the jars are empty, just like the old sacrificial system, empty, corrupt, inadequate.  Jesus is about to do a brand knew thing.  He will do for the world once and for all what the old system has never been able to do.  He says, “fill the jars with water, and they filled them to the brim.”  One hundred eighty (180) gallons, thirty-six hundred (3600) goblets of wine!  And Jesus fills our lives with that same extravagance. 

“When the steward of the feast (the one responsible to insure all at the wedding are joyful) tastes the water now become wine but did not know where it came from, he called the bridegroom and said, ‘Every man serves the good wine first and when the men have drunk freely, the poor wine.  But you have saved the good wine until now.’” It is always now with Jesus.  Jesus fills our lives now and it is always now!

The first of his signs in the gospel, pointing to  the reality that Jesus is the Son of God and that we can have life in his name.  We are called to believe and follow the signs.  For Jesus has saved the good wine until now.