John 2:1-12
January 20, 2013
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
A wedding is just about the biggest, most lavish event most people will ever attend. Chinese weddings are notorious for 10 or more dishes with food overflowing huge platters. By the time, we get to the sixth or seventh dish, we are moaning about too much food. And typically, the last dish is rice just in case you may still be hungry!
When Joy and I were married over 40 years ago, we had our Chinese wedding banquet at Canton Restaurant on Canal Street in New York City Chinatown. Being Toisanese, my mother insisted that for the banquet to be successful, we must have a bottle of Johnny Walker dark whiskey on every table. But because Joy’s father was a pastor of a church, he felt that he didn’t want to suggest that drinking was acceptable especially since he had to minister to many people who were alcoholics around the community. But when Toisanese people invite guests to a wedding banquet, we would say, “Have a drink!” or “giem dew!” Having Ng Gai Pei or Johnny Walker is another way of saying, come and celebrate.
At the end, the compromise was that my mother’s guest list would have the Johnny Walkers and Joy’s parents’ list would only have sparkling cider.
First Century
Back in the first-century, a wedding celebration was a big deal too. In Jesus’ days, it was common for a wedding to last an entire week! Seven days was the Jewish custom. That’s seven days of feasting, drinking, abstaining from work, and enjoying the company of loved ones, all as a way of celebrating and sharing in the new family’s joy. Now that is a party and it probably wasn’t cheap.
Knowing all of this, on the third day, not even half way through the wedding celebration at Cana in Galilee, Jesus’ mother was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding along with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”
Wine held a deep practical and spiritual significance for Jewish partygoers. Practically, wine did what wine does for us today. It’s the reason why my mother was so insistent based on her background that Johnny Walkers needed to be on every table. Wine filled the stomach, gladdened the heart and helped the mind drift from matters that might hinder one’s effort to a weeklong wedding celebration.
Spiritually, wine served as a sign and symbol of the joy and blessing that flow from God’s right hand into the hearts and lives of his chosen family (Psalm 104:15; Proverbs 3:10). Without wine—which was the centerpiece of the feast—the celebration would no doubt come to a grinding stop, with its absence leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of the guests and shame in the heart of the host.
So, Jesus steps in. At the behest of his mother, Jesus makes sure that the celebration does not cease. Filling six large, stone water jars, Jesus performs his first sign, transforming 150 gallons of water into an overflow of top-shelf, aged to perfection party wine. For sure, this was not the kind of wine that comes out of a box and can be bought in bulk at Costco. This according to the chief steward is “good wine.”
Why Good Wine
Why would Jesus provide wine for this party? There are, at least four reasons. The servants, disciples, perhaps the wedding party witnessed the sign firsthand the beginning and inauguration of a whole new celebration. Jesus, the Savior is sending a message that all that which the wine and wedding signified spiritually and culturally for the Jewish people was now available to be tangibly and fully enjoyed through him, the Christ.
It’s like this, you uncork a bottle of merlot and you begin to fill your guests’ glasses and they thank you with this undeniable sense of joy. The first reason for good wine is that forgiveness of sins leads to joy. Knowing that through the work of the cross, the God who convicts you has now forgiven you and is in love with you. Maybe the kids are a mess, the bills are piled up and work is unfinished, but because of Christ, the only thing that matters—being right with God—has been reconciled.
The Apostle Paul himself was overwhelmed by the challenges that faced him when he asked, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). In other words, “If God is really on our side through Jesus Christ, then what could one possibly come up with that could drag us down?” We can drink to that because sins are forgiven and death is conquered. Jesus fills us with joy!
The second reason for good wine and a great wedding is a sign of optimism about the future. It doesn’t matter if you’re in day four of a Galilean seven day wedding or at the seventh dish of a Chinese banquet, having good wine leads us to be positive and hopeful about the future.
In the Old Testament, wine and weddings were tied to the hope of eternity. In Isaiah, we hear the promise of one day, “…the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear” (Isaiah 25:6). One day we will enjoy a wedding feast to beat all wedding feasts, where God’s forgiven people will celebrate their eternal, resurrected life with him in love in a brand new home.
John’s account of this sign in Cana is to tell us that in Christ that promise has come closer than ever. When we look at the blood of the cross and the emptiness of the tomb, we see more than a reason to be hopeful; we see a guarantee of our hoped-for future. With this future in mind, we have hope through every storm, every fight, in good days and not so good days, knowing that Jesus has fought, won and guaranteed a glorious, feast-filled future for us. In Christ there is every reason to be optimistic about the road ahead.
The third reason for good wine and a great wedding is we are abundantly blessed. Seated around a table with family and friends and the waiter is constantly coming out with dishes after dishes, we are stirred to believe that we lack nothing. The glory of Jesus, revealed is this sign at Cana in Galilee, is that he mediates the grace of God’s kingdom by giving us life and abundance. Jesus says, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Every time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we drink Jesus, “good wine” and share his abundant life in the world.
Some people have calculated how much wine did Jesus actually turned from water. He filled six stone jars each containing 20-30 gallons. He made somewhere between 120-130 gallons of good wine. Since there are 16 cups in a gallon, he made between 2320 and 2880 cups of wine. If each person at the banquet drinks three cups of wine, he made enough wine to serve at least 640 or up to 960 people. This number is supposed to astound us about the generosity of God.
The abundance of God’s grace is seen beyond this first of Jesus’ signs in Cana. Jesus fed the five thousand, restored sight to a man born blind, raised Lazarus from the dead, cleansed the lepers, and gave many others more abundance than they had before.
I think the next time I attend a wedding banquet, rather than to complain about the fact that there’s too much food, I will say quietly to myself, “These wonderful dishes reminds me that in Jesus, we lack nothing and he came to give us life and we have this life in abundance!”
And the fourth reason for good wine and a great wedding is how Jesus filled six stone jars that were typically used for the Jewish rites of purification. The jars would normally be used for the washing of hands and utensils, meeting the need for constant cleanliness as the law required. By transforming the water of these jars into wine for the party, Jesus is sending a message that the blessings he brings would meet the deepest needs of the people.
He was sending a message that at the party that he hosts, the wine of his truth would do more than gladden the heart and reddens the cheeks, it would do and give the things of God. It would bring purity, providence and so much more. Those who drink from him would not only feel rich and there’s enough for a week but they would be rich and be in abundance in the things of God for eternity!
Have a Drink
We know that good wine at great wedding makes us feeling joyful, hopeful and abundantly blessed. At the same time, we know that Jesus has saved a wedding party from disaster by giving us a sign of good wine from water but if all of this is true, why aren’t more of us walking around with a smile on our faces or having another drink? Have you been walking around as if you’re headed to a funeral? Have you been buried in worry, stress and shortsighted fears? If so, why?
Later in John’s Gospel, Jesus would make this beautiful statement regarding the reason for his arrival and the purpose of his ministry. He said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Jesus came and is crashing your party so that you might live richly, joyfully, hopefully and abundantly.
Now before I finished this sermon, let me say how this marvelous sign in Cana has been much abused by pastors like me over the years. I don’t want you to go out of here this morning and say that our pastor says it’s okay to drink Johnny Walker and good wine. Alcohol is the elephant in the banquet and during the period of Prohibition, Baptists who were at the forefront were uncomfortable with this story. They wanted to explain why Jesus was not only at a party that served wine but that he even picked up the bar tab!
Some conservative scholars believed that in Jesus’ days the wine was really unfermented grape juice or another theory was that people habitually diluted their wine three-parts-to-one water, so that it had no kick at all. Now this is hard to believe because those of us who have visited the sunny Mediterranean land would know that the agricultural economy of vineyards is everywhere you looked and everybody having near-at-hand the capacity to ferment grape—can anyone seriously make the case that most people voluntarily diluted their favorite drink with water? Besides, elsewhere in the Bible there are numerous exhortations against drunkenness—evidence that alcohol abuse was as much of a problem in Jesus’ days as it is in ours.
Whether we have a glass of good wine or Johnny Walker, we must drink responsibly. It was real wine Jesus produced in Cana. He did so out of compassion for the wedding party and for their parents—and very likely, too, to show he had a better use of those stone jars filled with water for purification rituals. Jesus transforms the water of guilty obligation into the wine of celebration.
Raise Your Glass
This week, try something different. Imagine that you’re sitting at a wedding banquet. Imagine that you have not a worry in the world. Raise your glass and toast the fact that all is right with you and in the world today. Imagine that Jesus is with you having forgiven your sins that have made you very optimistic about your future. Just imagine that you are blessed with abundance of wine and food flowing to you. Imagine that in Jesus, all of your deepest needs have been met in the things of God for eternity.
As we say “giem dew,” “giem boy,” raise your glass, have a drink because Jesus has revealed his glory and we have come to believe. You not only have good wine but now you have new wine in Christ. Let us taste the new wine together.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, in coming to us, you have revealed to us the manifestation of the divine and human life together. Give us the eyes to see and the faith to believe that you have brought reconciliation to the world, hope for another tomorrow, and the blessings of abundance. Our greatest need of being restored to a right relationship with you has happened in the life, death and resurrection of you, Lord Jesus. Grant us a foretaste of your joy here on earth so that we might one day enjoy you forever. Amen.