Presented to
614 Regent Park 17 Jan 2016
by Captain Michael Ramsay [a]
I
remember when I was younger than my older two girls are now - maybe 10 or 11. I
remember once we were watching TV in the living room –my mom, my dad, my
sister, and I - and I, as a 10 or 11 year-old boy make some apparently
hopelessly inappropriate comment about something on TV so my mom decides that
it is time for my dad and I to have a sex education talk and banishes the two
of us to the kitchen.
My
dad and I talk about what we are supposed to talk about for a while but the
conversation eventually changes to other interesting things such as God and
family history. It is an easy transition from sex education to family history
especially as my grandfather’s father brought the first rodeo across Canada; he
was always travelling from the east coast to west. He had another reason for
travelling too. He had one family out west in Saskatchewan and another family
back east in the Maritimes – until, of course my great grandmother found out.
My great grandfather could have used one of these sex-ed talks. I am eagerly
learning all of this family history from my dad and it is starting to get
really interesting as we have long accomplished our assigned topic and task and
we are actually laughing about some of the more interesting family stories and
other things.
It
is at this point that my mom hears all the laughter. My mom comes into the
kitchen and with a firm voice reminds us why we are supposed to be here. It is
not supposed to be fun. It is so ‘I can learn a lesson,’ she says. ‘And how is
the sex education talk going?’ She asks. To which, as an 11 year-old boy, I
reply, ‘Very well, I’ve taught dad everything I know’. My dad continues, ‘Yes,
I’ve learned a lot.’ That doesn’t go over so well. We laugh. Mom doesn’t. I, however,
am glad that my dad had added to my comment because it means that I am off the
hook and able to sneak out of the room and out of trouble as Dad is now the
recipient of Mom’s attention.
Our
pericope today speaks to –among other things- a relationship between a mom and
her son. We have an interesting exchange between Jesus and his mother here in
vv. 3 -5 of John 2. Jesus is older than 11 in our story today; he is probably
in his early 30’s. He is at wedding, probably a family wedding.[1] He is there,
as is his mother, his brothers, and his disciples (a least the first 5 of them,
anyway).[2] The wedding is taking place in the town of Cana. Cana is really
close to where Jesus, his mother, his brothers, and most of his disciples live.
It is only 8 or 9 miles north of Nazareth. Eight or nine miles: what is 8 or 9
miles from here? That is still part of the GTA. This wedding in Cana is pretty
close to Nazareth.
Whoever
is getting married is obviously a family member or a close friend of the family
because we notice that when trouble arises – the running out of wine – it is
Jesus’ mother, Mary, who either volunteers or is tasked to find the solution to
the problem. Mary and Jesus, his brothers and his disciples are not just casual
guests. They must know the people getting married fairly well. They (or at
least Mary anyway) have some significant role to play in this event.
Now
we have just finished the Christmas season here and we looked briefly - as we
often do around Christmas - at the 1st Century Judean engagement/betrothal
arrangements that are really quite different from traditional Canadian
engagements. Today, in our pericope, we have a wedding. Now Galilean weddings
in the first century did have some things in common with Canadian weddings of
the 21st century. There were often lots of people; friends and family would
travel a great distance to attend the festivities. Then, after they did travel
all that way, the family would often stay to visit for a while– especially if
they walked there, which many of them would have in 1st Century Galilee.
Marriage
celebrations then and there, unlike weddings here and now lasted quite a while.
A wedding ceremony nowadays can reasonably be expected to last between 30
minutes and 2 hours and then add another hour or few for the reception
afterwards. There and then in Galilee it was expected that the wedding
festivities would last for up to a week.[3] The Bridegroom was the host. He and
his family would then be expected to host all the relatives, friends, and
family from both sides for this week: providing them all with accommodations,
food, and beverages. Here and now in our world today it is embarrassing enough
if we don’t quite make enough sandwiches for a funeral or some other event.
There and then, can you imagine if the marriage celebration began on a Monday
and was to last until Friday or Saturday but you ran out of food and drink for
your guests on Wednesday? It would be humiliating! You couldn’t just call to
have pizzas delivered. You couldn’t just have someone run down to the store to
pick up a sandwich tray. You would be out of food; you would be out of wine and
the whole town, your whole family and the whole lot of your new in-laws would
all be thinking a few things about you if you ran out of wine at your wedding
celebrations.
This
is the background to the story when we get to the part of this pericope that
always interests me, verses 3,4 &5:
3 When the wine
was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him,
“They have no
more wine.”
4 “Woman, why do
you involve me?” Jesus replied.
“My hour has not
yet come.”
5 His mother
said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
This
will be Jesus’ first recorded miracle. The question many people seem to
ask here is why is Jesus’ first miracle to make wine (and it is wine; it is not
grape juice![4]) for people who have already had quite a bit to drink. If they
had roadside check stops in those days, I probably wouldn’t recommend that any
of them drive home.
The
questions that strike me though are:
1)
Why is Jesus’ mother even asking Jesus to do something about the fact that they
have run out of wine? Why doesn’t she ask Jesus AND his other brothers who are
there? This is his first recorded miracle; so why just ask Jesus? Does
she expect him to do some kind of a miracle? Has Jesus done something similar
at home before? In the context of the Bible here (John 1-2), it has only been
in the previous few days that Jesus has even just acquired his first disciples
– he probably doesn’t even have all of the twelve yet; did his mom expect Jesus
to send these disciples to do something or did she know already (before he had
ever performed any public miracles) that he could and that he would perform
miracles such as this – making wine at a wedding? [5]
2)
Another question I have pertains to Jesus’ response to his mother’s request.
When asked by his mom to do something, he says: “Woman, why do you involve me?
My hour has not yet come,” To this my dad would respond, if I ever
uttered such a phrase, “Is that anyway to speak to your mother?” Aren’t we
supposed to honour our mothers and fathers? How honouring is this response?
3)
And another question that I have relates to Mary’s response to Jesus’
comments. Mary asks him to solve the wine problem in whatever way he will solve
it. Jesus replies in such as way as one might infer that he is refusing to help
his mother: “Woman, why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come.” But this
does not faze his mother at all; she seems to ignore his objections all
together and says to the servants, “do whatever he tells you”? Why isn’t Mary
fazed by Jesus? Why does she seem to completely ignore his response to her as
if he is a toddler or a child protesting for the sake of protesting?
Can
you imagine the scene at the wedding: The wine has just run out. It is a
potentially devastating situation for the bridegroom and his family and Mary
and Jesus are having this little discussion as recorded in vv. 3-5.
More
questions then arise, of course, such as: Why is the author of the Gospel of
John telling us this story? What is the text saying? And
more importantly: what is God doing here in the story?
The
wedding party has run out of wine. Jesus has just had this encounter with his
mother. He then proceeds to save the day by turning some jars of water that
they used for ceremonial hand cleaning into about 150 gallons of the best wine
possible, to be served when most people have been drinking for a while and so
they won’t even notice how good it is.[6] John 2:11: “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.” This miracle is Jesus’ first sign of who
he is and what he is doing and his disciples put their faith in Him.
Jesus’ transformation of water into wine causes his disciples to put their
faith in Him.
Lots
of questions: let us explore the text a little more here as we address them. This
miracle of Jesus’ was no small feat. There was a lot riding on the fact that
the wine would show up. If it didn’t, the bridegroom would have been
humiliated. Jesus, in turning the water into wine, and not just any wine but
into copious amounts of the best wine of the wedding, not only saves the day very
dramatically but He shows what God can do and His disciples here and now put
their complete faith in Him. This is an important part of the story.
It
is the same in our world today, when we are faced with difficult situations,
when we are faced with family members putting demands upon us, when we are
faced with embarrassment, when we are faced with humiliation, when we are faced
with even not being able to provide for our family in our world today, Jesus is
there for us just like Jesus is there for his friends and family in Cana. The
only questions for us then are: do we believe in Jesus, like his disciples do?
And are we willing to put our faith in him, like his mother does?
Speaking
of questions, I am not going to leave us hanging entirely about the questions
we mentioned earlier. Let’s see what we can find in the way of possible
answers. First about the question that everyone asks regarding Jesus making
wine for people who had been drinking and were possibly even drunk - does that
mean that Jesus condones drunkenness? No, the Scriptures condemn drunkenness
more than once actually (Leviticus 10:9, Proverbs 31:4-5, Ecclesiastes 10:17,
Isaiah 28:7, 1 Timothy 3:8). However, making water into wine has been
associated eschatologically with divinity (Jeremiah 31:12, Joel 3:8, Amos
8:11-14; cf. also Enoch 10:19). [7] This text isn’t addressing drinking. It is
addressing divinity and eschatology. Also providing this wine is a real and
important part of showing hospitality to your neighbour in 1st Century Galilee,
especially on an important occasion like a bridegroom’s wedding. Jesus isn’t
promoting drunkenness, on the contrary Jesus is showing his faithfulness to
those around him, as well as to God; and he is showing that we can put our
faith in him.
Now
about the other questions: the questions about the way Jesus was addressing his
mother. He wasn’t actually speaking with any disrespect. The word translated
‘woman’ here in our text, when he addresses his mother can be seen as a neutral
or a positive term and he does definitely honour his mother in the text by
fulfilling her request and much more (cf. Matthew 15:28, Luke 22:57, John 4:21;
cf. also 2 Kings 3:13, 2 Chronicles 35:21).[8] Jesus doesn’t leave her in the
lurch; he saves her as he saves the festivities. Mary takes no offence by what
Jesus says and she has perfect faith in him as she even instructs the servants
in this story to “do whatever he tells you.”[9] I think this is good advice for
us today too. Whenever we are faced by life’s crises, like Mary and the
servants, we should have the faith to ask Jesus what to do and then we should
have faith to do whatever Jesus tells us to do. He is faithful and we can put
our faith in Him.
So
then pertaining to those of us who are here today, I know that there are people
in this congregation and even in this room who are facing challenges every bit
as big as Jesus’ friends and family at the wedding. Some here are facing
challenges of possibly not being able to provide for your family or yourself –
January is a long month for some. Some here are without work. Some have even
lost jobs. Some are faced with the daunting prospect returning to work after a
long break. Some have serious health challenges. Some have lost loved ones, friends
and family members. Some of us are grieving friends who have moved on in one
way or another and some of us are faced with family problems every bit as
intense as the challenges of today’s text. Some of us are facing new realities,
different from anything we had ever hoped for or expected. Some of us are hurt.
Some of us feel betrayed. Some of us are anxious, some of us are angry, and
some of us here today are just plain sad. Sometimes life can be overwhelming.
John’s
record of Jesus’ miracle of turning the water into wine has a special message
for each of us who find ourselves in situations like this here today. When
things look as bad as they can look; when there seems to be nothing that we can
do; when it seems like our life and our world is ‘going to Hell in a hand
basket’, as they say; when it seems that everything going askew, we can put our
faith in Christ – just like Mary did and just like the disciples did. When
everything seems to be going sideways, we can put our faith in Christ and we
can turn our will and our lives over to Him. Just as Jesus was faithful in the
midst of the chaos and concern at the wedding, saving the day, and his
disciples put their faith in him; Jesus is still faithful here and now in the
midst of the chaos and confusion of our lives so that we too can put our faith
in Him and we too can be saved.
Let us pray.
---
[a] A version of this sermon was
presented to Swift Current Corps on 06 Jan. 2012. Available on-line at: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2013/01/john-21-12-and-they-believed-in-him.html
[1] Cf. Rosemary King, “17th January:
2nd after Epiphany: The Marriage at Cana (John 2:1-11)," The Expository Times 121, no. 3
(December 2009): 134.
[2] Colin G.Kruse, John: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL :
InterVarsity Press, 2003 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 4), S. 93.
[3] Stack and Billerbeck, Das Evangelium nach Johannes in Kommentar
zum Neuen Testament aus Tulmud und Midrash, (Munchen, 1924), 401. Cited in
William Hendricksen, John, in New Testament
Commentary, (Grand Rapids, Mi: Baker Academic, 2007), 114.
[4] Cf. William Hendricksen, John, in New Testament Commentary, (Grand Rapids,
Mi: Baker Academic, 2007), 115.
[5] Cf. Colin G.Kruse, John: An Introduction and Commentary.
Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 2003 (Tyndale New Testament
Commentaries 4), S. 93: these were after all eschatological signs.
[6] Gail R. O’Day, The Gospel of John,
in The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol.
9, ed Leander E. Keck, et. al. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), 538.
[7] Gerard Sloyan, John, in Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for
Teaching and Preaching, ed James L. Mays, et. al. (Atlanta, Georgia: John
Knox Press, 1988), 36-37
[8] ‘Gail R. O’Day, The Gospel of John, in The New Interpreter's
Bible, Vol. 9, ed Leander E. Keck, et. al. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press,
1995), 536-537.
[9] Cf. Merrill C. Tenney, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis
CD-ROM:John/Exposition of John/II. The Public Ministry of the Word
(1:19-12:50)/A. The Beginning Ministry (1:19-4:54)/3. The first sign (2:1-11),
Book Version: 4.0.2
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