Well, turn with me in your Bibles to John chapter 2. John chapter 2.

We completed John chapter 1 a few weeks ago, and we saw there in John chapter 1 several testimonies. to who Jesus is, and we’ve walked through all of those different sections there in the first chapter of John’s gospel, and you saw at the beginning, John introduces the gospel that he’s written and the things that he’s going to be telling us about in the remaining chapters of this gospel. We saw his own testimony to who Christ is, and in his introduction, again, he shows us the things that he will testify to in the rest of the book.

We saw there in the prologue, in the introduction, that Jesus is the word that he mentions there, and that means that he is the very communication of God to man. We saw that Jesus is God, that he was with God, and he is God. He is the light, and he is the life, and he is God in human flesh. Then we saw the testimony of John the Baptist. And we spoke about John the Baptist and his life and ministry and the things he was doing there. And specifically when he saw Christ, he said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And then because of John’s testimony, because of what John was declaring about Christ, we saw that the very first disciples came and followed Jesus. And that was the passage we covered last time there at the end of John chapter 1.

And the last disciple we saw come to Jesus was Nathanael. And Nathanael declared, after hearing Jesus’ own words about himself. After Jesus saying that, Nathanael, I saw you when you were under the fig tree, Nathanael answers him in verse 49 and says, Rabbi, you are the son of God. You are the king of Israel. And then Jesus answered and said to him, because I have said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? Truly you will see greater things than these. And he said to him, truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man. That was the last verse of chapter one there, and that’s where we left off.

And all of those testimonies we see in the first chapter, all of it relied on words. They were words that people were saying, or words that John wrote, and we read them, and they are words about who Jesus is. We see the testimony of John the Baptist, the testimony of the disciples, and they are declaring with their mouths who Jesus is in their eyes. And as we come to chapter two, we begin to see more than just words. More than just words testifying to who it is that Jesus is, what Jesus’ true identity is, we can begin to see miraculous works done by Christ. We see in this passage that this is the first of the signs that He did to manifest His glory.

This first section of John’s Gospel, really up through chapter 12, is often called the book of signs. That’s because John records for us six different signs or miracles that Jesus did. In fact, in reference to those miracles, John always uses the word sign. Other places in scripture use words like miracles, but John always calls them signs. Why does he do that? Why does he call them signs? Well, what do signs do? They point to something. They tell you something you need to know. And these signs that Jesus does, they point us to what we need to know about him. They are evidence that John uses to prove the point of this gospel. One of the most important questions that you will ever face is a question that Jesus gave his disciples.

First he had asked them, who are people saying that I am? Who is it that you’re hearing that people think that I am? And they had all sorts of different answers. John the Baptist, or Elijah, or all these different answers that they had. But then Jesus looked at them and said, who do you say that I am? These ones that followed him, these ones that saw the signs that he was doing. You see this in all three of the other gospels. In Matthew 16, 15 specifically, he said to them, but who do you say that I am? After seeing the evidence, What is it that you come to know about Christ? What conclusion do you come to? And if you remember, John’s gospel, at the end he gives us his purpose statement. These things have been written, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. That’s John 20:31.

So all of the things that John includes in this gospel, including this miracle that we’ll see today, this sign that points to Christ, he put it in there so that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And in our text today, we see the very first sign that John records, the first sign that Jesus performs that points to the fact that Jesus is the Christ. that He is the Son of God. And it’s amazing in studying this story, this account of this first miracle of Christ, how different scholars and Bible commentators, they try to allegorize and find different meanings for every little thing in this story. They talk about the meaning of the water, and the meaning of the wine, and the meaning of the head waiter and the groom, and they try to make it all symbolic of one thing or another. But that’s not what John’s doing here. This isn’t an allegory, this isn’t a parable. John’s telling us a true story that happened.

He’s telling us, this is what really happened after we started following Jesus. We went to this wedding, and you’ll never believe what happened when we were there. John is giving us a true account of what Jesus did. This is a true story. And this is exactly how we should read it. This is true. This really happened. And it is a sign that points us to who Jesus is. Because Jesus does something here that only God can do. He does something that doesn’t follow the laws of nature. which means he performs a miracle. And he proves that he is the Christ, the Son of God, that he’s God himself. He does things that only God can do. And as we’ll see, those who had eyes to see noticed what he did, and it strengthened their faith. They believed in him.

This story is told as a narrative. So the text breaks up in the elements of a good story. What we’ll see here is, number one, the place. So the first two verses of chapter two tell us the setting of what’s going on. Then number two, we’ll see the problem. Verses three through five introduce a problem into the story. And thirdly, in verses six through 10, we’ll see the provision. And lastly, verse 11, As a good storyteller always does, John concludes the story with the purpose. Why it is that Jesus did this and why it is that John is telling us this.

So I’m gonna read the entire account here, John chapter two, verses one through 11. This is the word of the Lord. And on the third day, there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee. And the mother of Jesus was there, and both Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding. And when the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. And Jesus said to her, woman, what do I have to do with you? My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, whatever he says to you, do it. Now there were six stone water jars set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing two or three measures each. Jesus said to them, fill the water jars with water. So they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, draw some out now and take it to the head waiter. So they took it to him. Now when the head waiter had tasted the water, which had become wine, and did not know where it came from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew, the head waiter called the bridegroom. And he said to him, every man serves the good wine first. And when the people have drunk freely, then the inferior wine. But you have kept the good wine until now. Jesus did this in Cana of Galilee as the beginning of His signs and manifested His glory and His disciples believed in Him.

We see here the beginning of this account in John chapter 2 verse 1. We see the place that this happened. First you see there, it was on the third day. Now this is consistent with how John has been speaking here, because as you remember from chapter one, we’ve been following a span of consecutive days. Four different times, John says, and on the next day, and on the next day, and on the next day, and on the next day. And the last time we saw that was when Nathanael was called, when Nathanael came to Christ. And we know from later on in John’s gospel, chapter 21, verse 2, that Nathanael is from Cana.

So now, three days after that encounter with Nathanael and Jesus, they come to find themselves in Nathanael’s hometown. So you have the encounter with Nathanael at the end of chapter 1, verse 51 there, and then verse 1 of chapter 2 says, and then on the third day, so three days after that, They come to Cana. So if you’re counting the days, this has all happened within a week’s time, seven days. That from when John the Baptist, we first saw that encounter with him to this wedding in Cana is all within a week. And this town, Cana of Galilee, it’s a small town. And it’s come to be identified as they try to find the locations in the Bible as they’re spoken of to modern day Israel and the things that we find today. It’s come to be associated with a place called Qirbet Qana. which is now, today, it’s an uninhabited place. There is no town there anymore. It’s in a ruin, and it’s nine miles south of Nazareth. And I tell you all that just to kind of paint the picture for you that it’s not very far from where Jesus grew up. Jesus grew up in Nazareth, and less than 10 miles away is where this little town is.

And again, Nazareth itself was a small town. It was said to have at its peak a max of about 500 people living there. And Canaan was even smaller than that. So you’re not talking about a big city with masses of people here where they find themselves. And this is the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, somewhat. There’s relatively few people as compared to, as we’ll see later on, as he interacts with people in Jerusalem and some of the other big cities. So most likely this was a wedding of someone that Jesus and his family probably knew. You have two small towns very close to each other and that’s where Jesus grew up. So it was probably people that knew him. And it says that his mother was there.

So it was the third day, there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there. And apparently she was already there. Evidently, she was helping with the wedding, as we’ll see later on, as she’s the one that comes to Jesus with the problem. She’s there helping with this wedding, and Jesus and his disciples show up. Interestingly, and you’ll notice as we go through the book of John, John never uses Mary’s name. He always calls her the mother of Jesus. He never refers to her as Mary, and that may be to avoid confusion with other Marys that are mentioned, but in reference to his mother, John never calls her Mary. But it says in verse two there, both Jesus and his disciples were invited to this wedding.

So Jesus and his newfound friends, you remember, it hasn’t been very long that these men have been following him. These new guys that Jesus has around him all the time, they’re all invited to this wedding. And they are about to see something that will confirm what they’ve already begun to believe about Jesus. Remember, they’re all following him because someone brought them to him, or someone said, you gotta come meet this guy. We’ve found the Messiah from the Old Testament. You gotta come meet him. And then they come to him, and now they’ve been following him. And then they’re about to see something that confirms that they ought to be following this guy.

And interestingly, several different commenters mentioned this, but it’s very true that Jesus attending a wedding and performing his first miracle at a wedding, it says something significant. That Jesus, especially in that time period, realized that weddings are significant. Weddings matter. Weddings are sacred. They’re a big deal. And it’s actually because of this passage that the Catholic Church has come to believe that weddings are a sacrament, because Jesus did his miracle at a wedding, and so that sanctified it. But we don’t need to go that far with weddings. But it does say something about marriage.

The idea of marriage is something that God came up with. It’s not something that man invented. It’s not a social construct. And even today, marriage has become so de-emphasized, it’s basically becoming obsolete, that most people today, especially unbelievers, but even within the church, they’re starting to de-emphasize the importance of marriage. And as you see the story here taking place at this wedding, you realize that weddings were a big deal. And even in that time period, weddings were a pretty significant occasion. Sometimes they lasted up to a week. And there was a large party that was involved, and there was all sorts of things that went into this wedding. It was quite an ordeal and a celebration. It was a costly event.

So as John is telling this story, he’s setting this stage for us of who’s involved, the characters of this story, and the setting where this is taking place. It’s in Cana of Galilee. It’s at a wedding. Mary, Jesus’ mother, is already there, and Jesus and his disciples are invited. So that is the place. That is the build-up, the lead-up, the scene of this story.

Next, we see the problem, our second division of this text, the problem, and that’s in verses three through five. John says, and when the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. And Jesus said to her, woman, what do I have to do with you? My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, whatever he says to you, do it. So as John has set the scene here, he immediately jumps to the problem. He doesn’t tell us any of the other people that were there or any of the conversation that happened or any of the events that took place at this wedding. He just jumps right to the facts.

When the wine ran out. And this was a big deal. In those days, the groom was responsible for the cost of the whole wedding procession. So if the wine runs out, not only would this be a huge embarrassment on behalf of the groom, it would imply that the groom doesn’t have the means to provide for his family. It would create some pretty big problems. In fact, there’s even historical evidence that if something like this happened, the family of the bride could sue the groom. There’s apparently cases where that happened. This was a big problem that Jesus’ mother brings to him.

When Jesus turns the water into wine, as we’ll see here in a moment, it wasn’t just some party trick. He wasn’t just trying to impress his friends. He wasn’t just trying to do anything. He was meeting a need. Each and every miracle that he performs has a purpose. Jesus doesn’t just perform miracles to show off or to just do miraculous things. He has a purpose in everything that He does.

And something else we need to mention here is that yes, this was real wine. It’s something that is often debated or misunderstood or hard to understand for Christians in our day and age. But this was real wine, this was alcoholic wine. And again, there are some, perhaps even some of you, that would have a problem with the idea that Jesus would make real alcoholic wine. And it’s fine to have personal opinions about alcohol. It’s fine to have personal stances or your own practices, as long as that’s all they are. and they don’t become extra-biblical standards that you expect other Christians to live up to.

I’ve heard some preachers preach this, that wine in the Bible was just grape juice, it wasn’t like the wine we have today, or that it was different in some way, and that’s just not true. The Bible uses other words for juice, and it’s not the word for wine used here. They’re separate things. And wine, by any definition, even in that day, wine was fermented grape juice, which by nature has alcoholic content. And whether or not, as some do claim that it had different alcoholic content, different levels than wine does today, that’s debatable for one thing. And it’s irrelevant because the Bible warns against drunkenness either way.

In fact, when the Bible warns against drunkenness and being addicted to wine, it assumes that the word wine means alcoholic wine. So that’s what it’s talking about. When the Bible uses that word, it’s consistent. So when it says here that Jesus made wine, it was wine. And apparently it was really good wine, from what we see later in the story.

So what do we do with that? What do we do with this fact that Jesus made wine. Would Jesus really have made real alcoholic wine? Well, one thing to understand is it was a staple drink in that region. It was an agricultural region, they had a lot of vineyards, and they didn’t have the refrigeration that we have today, and they didn’t have any other way to keep the produce of their vineyards from spoiling. So they fermented it, which naturally, in the process of fermentation, creates an alcoholic content in that beverage. So in fact, it wasn’t until very recently in the church that the idea of wine or alcohol itself got such a bad connotation.

It wasn’t until actually the year 1869 that Thomas Welch invented the first shelf-stable grape juice so that you could have grape juice in a bottle that didn’t spoil or ruin. So that’s not until 1869. So before 1869, what do you think everyone used for communion? It was wine. or it was freshly squeezed grape juice, which not everybody has that capability. So, we shouldn’t read our own modern opinions or understandings or presuppositions onto the words of Scripture.

When we read that it’s wine, we should understand that it’s wine. We shouldn’t try to be more holy than the Scriptures are. Try to reinterpret things according to our own modern sensibilities. Really, it wasn’t until the American Prohibition that the idea of wine itself, or alcohol itself, got the stigma that it has.

The Bible does forbid drunkenness, but it never forbids drinking wine. In fact, there are several passages that promote and encourage drinking wine to the glory of God. In the Old Testament it speaks especially, you have Psalm 104. The whole Psalm 104 speaks of all the things God created and the purpose that he created it for. And it speaks of wine in verse 15, that wine is given to gladden human hearts.

In Proverbs 31 it says to give wine to someone to relax their heavy or anxious heart. Ecclesiastes 9.7 says to drink wine because we are joyful and accepted by God. Earlier I read the passage from Amos and you read a lot of passages speaking of the new heavens and the new earth or the kingdom of Christ and the new wine that will flow. And then 1 Corinthians 10.31, whether then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. So the Bible does not say that you cannot drink wine. You cannot partake in it. And in fact, Romans 14 specifically says not to forbid such things.

So again, it’s fine to have your own personal position on it, and that’s good. There are a lot of good reasons to abstain. There are. And if that’s where you’ve come to as your conviction, that’s great, and you ought to hold to your conviction. You ought to do everything out of faith, and if that’s where your your own study and your own conviction has led you to, then that’s what you should do. Don’t go against your own personal convictions because of anything else or anyone else.

And at the same time that the Bible does not forbid or even sometimes promotes partaking in wine or drinking wine. While at the same time the Bible does very strongly condemn drunkenness. It very strongly condemns drunkenness. Drunkenness is a sin and we should not be given to drunkenness. Drunkenness can be defined as what 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 warn elders against, and that is to be addicted to wine. It doesn’t say partaking in wine at all. It says addicted to wine. So drunkenness is the abuse of wine or alcohol.

One passage that speaks to this pretty clearly is Proverbs 23, and it’s the picture of the fool as opposed to the wise man, and the fool is one who is addicted to wine. In Proverbs 23, verses 29 to 35, it explains what this person is like. It says, who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? who has redness of eyes, those who linger long over wine, those who go to search out mixed wine. Do not look on the wine when it glistens red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly. At the end, like a serpent, it bites, and like a viper, it stings. Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart will speak perverse things, and you will be like one who lies down in the heart of the sea, or like one who lies down on top of a mast. They struck me, but I did not become ill. They beat me, and I did not know it. When shall I awake? I will seek yet another.”

So this is the picture of what the Bible talks about as drunkenness. It’s this idea of lingering long after wine, or when alcohol becomes something that you long after, it glistens and sparkles and goes down smoothly. This is desirous language. When alcohol becomes a strong desire for you, that’s when you know you have a problem. And that’s very serious, and it’s a sin. And the Bible says we should not be given to wine or be given to drunkenness.

We also see commands like in Ephesians of don’t be drunk with wine. And that means to be intoxicated to the point where you’re not in control. That too is a sin. But what we see here in the kind of the biblical picture of wine and drunkenness is that the abuse of wine and alcohol is the sin that the Bible warns us about, the abuse of it.

But the reality is that the Bible also speaks of wine as a gift from God. It is a gift, and like any gift from God, it can be abused when it’s not used in the way God intended it. Now, there are different consequences to the abuse of different gifts, but it’s a gift from God, and you can think of many other gifts that if you abused it, you’d be sinning. You’d be sinning grievously.

So back to our question, now that we have an understanding of what this means here, we want to see clearly what John is telling us happened at this wedding. Back to our question, yes, Jesus did make real wine here, and that is not a problem with what the rest of scripture says, because drinking wine is not a sin. And in fact, given the time period he lived in and the setting and all the things we know from other scripture, there really is no reason to think that Jesus himself did not partake of wine. There’s no where that says he didn’t, and other scripture alludes to that.

In fact, Luke chapter 7, if you want to turn there just to see this with your own eyes, Luke chapter 7 verses 33 and 34, and there’s other correlating passages in the other gospels, but this passage here, Jesus is speaking and he says, John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say he has a demon. The son of man has come eating and drinking. And you say, behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”

Jesus is comparing himself with John the Baptist and the reactions that they get. Jesus came eating and drinking what John the Baptist wasn’t, and they still had a problem with him. That was bread and wine mentioned there. And because of what Jesus was doing, the eating and drinking, they said, wrongly, Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard. I don’t think they called him a drunk because he was drinking water.

So just to kind of shape your thinking about the time period Jesus lived in and the settings surrounding what’s going on here in this passage, if you have a problem with Jesus making real wine, It’s because of our own modern presuppositions and ideas and images of what wine is, not because of what Scripture itself teaches us. And again, we can have our own convictions and our own conscience telling us what we should do with something like wine. But we need to be careful about how we think of others in this light.

Sometimes when Christians see other Christians partaking in wine as an exercise of their Christian liberty, it is up to their conscience in order to do so. But when some Christians see other Christians do that, they automatically think less of that person. You see another Christian post a picture on Facebook of them with a glass of wine. And what are the thoughts that go through your head? That’s where we need to be careful, not to impose our own convictions, our own conscience onto other people, because that’s what’s happening with Jesus and the Pharisees here in Luke 7.

You could say it this way. They saw Jesus post a picture, and what did they think? They saw Jesus eating and drinking, he says, and they accuse him wrongly. Well, what do we do when we see other believers doing things that go against our conviction? In our mind, we can tend to accuse them of sins that they are not committing. So it’s just something to be thinking about, and as we read a count in scripture of Jesus making wine, be careful how you impose your own presuppositions on the text.

So back to our passage here. Kind of, just to kind of address that word there. But back to John chapter two, verse three. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. So there’s the problem. Mary was apparently helping with the arrangements for this wedding again because she is the one with knowledge of the problem and she brings it to her son. She knew who to come to. But not because Jesus had done this before. Not because Jesus was known for making wine out of water. But because she had come to depend on her son.

And in the adult life of Jesus, his human, his earthly father, is never mentioned. Joseph is never mentioned in the adult life of Christ, so it’s probably safe to assume that he had probably died at this point. And so Mary was probably a widow, and so she had come to depend on her oldest son, who would become the man of the house. Again, you have no mention of Joseph, so it’s safe to assume those things. So she naturally comes to Jesus with this problem at this wedding. In verse four, Jesus said to her, woman, what do I have to do with you? My hour has not yet come.

Now, this sounds really offensive to us. To respond to your own mother by saying, woman? No, that’s probably not the tone he used, but if you read into the context and all the things surrounding this, this was not a rude reply. It was polite, but it was not intimate. Jesus doesn’t say mother or anything like that. He is making a point in the way that he’s responding to Mary. Again, it’s a polite response, but it’s not the intimate response you would expect for a mother and son. You’d almost be saying something like, ma’am. It’s not rude, but it’s not, yes, mother, or something like that. Again, it’s hard to grasp in English the way that Jesus is speaking here, but the next phrase explains what he’s doing. It explains what he means by the way he responds. He says, what do I have to do with you?

Now the obvious answer to us, and the way that you may have responded if you’re Mary, like what do you mean? I’m your mother. What do you mean what do I have to do with you? But this literally says, what to me and to you? And that statement, along with Jesus’ initial address, it’s politely informing his mother that their relationship was different now. His ministry had begun. He had been anointed by the Holy Spirit, and his public ministry had begun, and so he was not at the beck and call of his mother any longer. Their relationship was different now. Mary was to relate to him no longer as merely her son, but as her Messiah, as the Son of God, and as her Savior, as the things Mary knew about when she sang after his birth, or leading up to his birth, I should say, when she found out who it was that she was carrying in her womb. And Jesus is signifying by this response, now is that time.

But then he says, my hour has not yet come. So Jesus makes it clear here that he was going to act by God’s timetable, not by hers or any other man’s, but by God’s timetable that was decreed before the foundation of the world. That’s what that phrase means. He is letting them know that I have an hour. There is an hour that has already been determined, but that hour has not yet come.

So what hour is he speaking of? Now there is the crucifixion that is often referred to as his hour, but I don’t think Jesus assumes that Mary is asking him to be crucified. So he’s not saying, well, it’s not time for that yet. I think what Jesus is saying is it’s not time for me to fully reveal the glory of God. It’s not time to show the full glory that he was capable of revealing. It was not the appointed time for Jesus’ full glory to be on display. But, as we’ll keep reading, the miracle he does perform would make it unmistakable that he does have the glory of God. It wasn’t time for full revelation, but he would reveal some of it. Because verse five continues, his mother said to the servants, whatever he says to you, do it.

So as Mary hears Jesus’ response, she kind of gives it over to him. She says, you take the problem. Servants do what he says. Apparently Mary here is in charge of the servants at this wedding, and they weren’t slaves. It’s not that word doulos for slave, it’s actually the word for deacon there, diakonos, for servants. So you could call them waiters or servers.

So in response to this very mild rebuke from Jesus as to the whole situation, she turns it over to him. And so that’s the problem here. That’s the problem brought to Jesus here at this wedding. They are out of wine. And Jesus says his hour has not yet come. So it kind of leaves us with some tension here. Next we see the provision. The provision we find in verses six through 10. It says, there were six stone water jars set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing two or three measures each. And Jesus said to them, fill the water jars with water. So they filled them up to the brim.

And he said to them, draw some out now and take it to the head waiter. So they took it to him. Now when the head waiter tasted the water, which had become wine and did not know where it came from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew, the head waiter called the bridegroom. And he said to him, Every man serves the good wine first. And when the people have drunk freely, then the inferior wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.”

We see here in verse 6, John’s giving a little explanation for his Gentile readers as to what is in this setting where they are. He talks about these six stone water jars, and he says they were set there for the Jewish custom of purification. Why did he need to explain that? Why did he need to explain that these were jars that were used and it was a Jewish custom of purification? Well, because it’s not in the Bible. It’s not an Old Testament custom. It wasn’t something that God told his people to do.

As Mark explains to us in his gospel, Mark 7, verse 3, the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders. So this hand-washing purification, it was a man-made tradition that they did to make themselves clean. Now, washing your hands before you eat is a great idea. We shouldn’t reject it just because it was the Jewish elders that came up with it. But it doesn’t make you spiritually clean before God. And that’s the idea that was behind that for the Jews and the Pharisees. And Jesus would run into more trouble with this custom later on with the Pharisees.

But here, he repurposes what they used for their traditions for his own means. And it says there, there were two or three measures each. And the measure was about 10 gallons. So there were about 20 or 30 gallon jars. They were big jars. So there’s six of them, so you’re talking about 120 to 180 gallons total. That’s a lot of wine. And Jesus says, fill them up to the brim with water. And then he said to them, draw some out now, and take it to the head waiter. So they took it to him. So the waiters are doing exactly what he says. They bring this to the head waiter, and notice there’s no mention yet that it’s turned into wine.

The suspense is building in this story. If you don’t know, if you’ve never read this before, the suspense is building. It’s like, he’s just gonna give him water? So we don’t know exactly what moment it happens, whether it’s while it’s still in the pot, while they pour it into the cup, when it hits their lips, that it turns into wine. We don’t know. But that’s not the point of the miracle. Verse 9 says, now when the head waiter had tasted the water, which had become wine, he didn’t know where it came from, but the servants knew. And the head waiter called to the bridegroom. And he said to him, Every man serves the good wine first. And when the people have drunk freely, then the inferior wine. But you’ve kept the good wine till now. I mean, it was only common sense that they would serve the good wine first and the poorer wine later.

This word here for drunk freely is methusko, and it means to become drunk. It’s when the people had become lubricated when they’d had enough wine to dull their senses. These caterers would typically serve the good stuff first, and then they would bring out the cheap stuff and save a little money on the whole event. And again here, the Bible is not condemning drinking too much so that your senses are dulled and you don’t know good wine from bad. That is not what it’s condemning here. It’s just describing the situation and the custom of these weddings and these people. It does, though, prove that the wine that was served was alcoholic to the previous point. And not only does Jesus turn this water into wine to save this groom from embarrassment and possibly more, but it was good wine.

It was wine that impressed the head waiter. Somebody who knew what he was talking about. Somebody who had tasted wine before. And this waiter, he believes that this is the good wine that we should have served first. But he has no idea how this wine appeared. This wine did not come from the normal process of grapes and vineyards and the earth and the sun and the process of fermenting wine. The God of the universe brought this into existence out of nothing. Jesus shows his creative power in this miracle.

It’s not like he put some drink mix into these water pitchers. It wasn’t a big jug of Kool-Aid that tasted like wine. He turned water into real wine. And that’s the provision we see in this miracle, this sign. And that’s all a cool story. But it doesn’t reveal anything to us yet. That’s why we need verse 11, which is the purpose, the purpose for this miracle. Because again, John in telling this account saves the punchline or the meaningful statement in this story till the very end. And he says here in verse 11, Jesus did this in Cana of Galilee as the beginning of his signs. and he manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him. You can see in this statement Jesus did a few things at this wedding. He didn’t just keep the party going. He didn’t just perform a cool trick for people to see and appreciate. It wasn’t like dazzling the crowds.

First he manifested his glory. It wasn’t His full glory, it wasn’t the glory seen on the Mount of Transfiguration, or the glory seen after His resurrection, or the glory that we will see when we see Him again. But it was a glimpse of His glory. As John 1.14 says, as we read before, that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we, John and the other disciples, we beheld his glory. Glory is of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John had beheld his glory and he wants to tell us about it. And this was one of those times. This is one of the times that he was speaking of before.

We beheld his glory. And it was glory as of the only begotten from the Father. It had to be the Son of God. It had to be God in the flesh. Because as we beheld his glory, there was no mistaking who he was. He can do what only God can do. And while Jesus’ miracles always had a purpose, like meeting the needs here at this wedding. Jesus’s miracles do more than just meet felt needs. Jesus’s miracles were always done to point to who he was, to reveal to the crowds, to the disciples, who it is that he was. That’s why they’re called signs. They’re pointing to reality.

However, we also see that signs and miracles and wonders, they don’t necessarily convince people to believe in the Lord and the gospel. Because we don’t see anybody else at this wedding converted. We don’t see anybody else at this wedding that follows Jesus because of this. There are other things that he does that follow up with, and many followed him because of this. But here, with this miracle, not even the servants who knew what happened, not even they followed him, because it says, and his disciples believed in him.

In the next verse, verse 12, which we’ll start next week, after this, he went down to Capernaum, he and his mother and his brothers and his disciples. No crowds, no masses, nobody else. Jesus seems to have left Canaan with only the disciples who came there with him and then his family. And even though he performed a miracle, nobody else followed him. They saw the sign, but they missed what it pointed to.

This teaches us something about miracles, that while they do reveal who Jesus is, it reveals that only to those who have eyes to see it, only to those who God has opened their eyes, that God works first and prepares the heart of believers to be ready to see and believe who Jesus is. Often we can think and sometimes we even hear, oh, if only I could see the miracles. If only I could see God do something. If only he could prove it to me. If only he could do something that couldn’t be explained and I could see it with my own eyes. Then I’ll believe.

Remember the rich man in Lazarus? Even if someone rises from the dead, they still won’t believe. People can see miracles, but miracles are not what cause belief. God brings about belief in the hearts of those who believe in the miracles. So these others who saw the miracle happening and missed what it pointed to, Just like with all unbelievers, Satan had blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. That’s 2 Corinthians 4. That’s what happens.

Jesus revealed his glory to them, and their eyes were blinded from seeing it. It was the glory as of the only one, the only begotten from the Father. The one who is the image of God, they saw the glory of God in front of them. And they missed it. Many of these people knew who he was. They grew up in that area. They knew Jesus, the son of the carpenter. We’ll see later on interactions he has in Nazareth. They knew who he was. They knew the stories of his birth. They knew what Mary told them about her son. They still don’t believe.

But Jesus did something else there too. Yeah, some saw it and missed it. Some saw and didn’t believe. But his disciples did believe in him. They had heard the testimony of John the Baptist, that Jesus was the Messiah, the Lamb of God. And then they met with Jesus, and after hearing his own words, they believed in him and followed him. And now they see firsthand, miraculous confirmation of their faith, because they came to him believing. They saw this happen from a heart of faith. Many others reading the gospel of John would come to believe just like these disciples did. And again, that’s John’s purpose. There’s a reason why he included this story, but he left out a lot of others.

I read earlier from John 20:31, verse 30 says, therefore many other signs Jesus did also in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. There’s a lot of things John could tell us, things that he saw with his own eyes that confirmed his faith, but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you will have life in his name. That’s why this was written. That’s why this is in the Bible.

So in response to seeing and reading and hearing of this miracle of Christ, what response do you have? What is your response to the miracles, the signs of Christ? Do you see this and believe? Does this strengthen your faith? Does this assure you that, yes, I am following the right one? Or are you unbelieving? Are you skeptical? Are you thinking of different reasons why this could have happened? different explanations for the things that are written here? Or are you apathetic? Do you even care?

If you do not yet know Christ as your Savior, you need to come to Him today. Come to Him believing. It was not yet His hour at that time, but His hour has come. He was lifted up on the cross and he died for all those who would believe in him. He died so that sinners could be saved and have a relationship with him for eternity. That hour has come and it’s up to us to believe in him because there’s another hour coming. There’s another hour coming when he will return He will come back for His people and to judge those who are not His people, to bring destruction upon the unbelieving. If you have not yet believed, you need to believe in Him today.

Let’s stand and close in a word of prayer. Our God, we thank You. We thank you for this miracle, this sign that points us to who Jesus is. Yes, he was truly a man. He was just as human as we are. He felt all of the hurts and pains and struggles and infirmities that it is to be human. And yet, as we see here in this beautiful passage here today, that He was God in the flesh, that He is God in the flesh, that He came for a purpose. I pray, Lord, that if there are any here who are unbelieving, but that you are calling to yourself, that you would make that clear, and that they would come and they would put their trust in Christ. I pray for all those who are believing this morning, that this would strengthen and confirm our faith. that we would come to rely upon what your word has to say and that that would be the basis and the grounding for what we believe. Lord, we thank you. We thank you for all that you do. Thank you for all that you’re continuing to do and all that you will do in our lives. We pray that as we go from here, we would bring this message of who Jesus is to those around us who need to hear it. Lord, we pray as we go from here that you would be glorified. We pray this in Christ’s name. Amen.