Introduction
In my first appointment as a minister I followed a man who
would not drink tea or coffee – and yes, he was a Methodist, not a Mormon. In
my last appointment I worked alongside an Anglican minister who not only did
not drink either tea or coffee, he only drank cold water. Imagine my
astonishment once when he came to my manse and was willing to drink squash.
Robinson’s Fruits Of The Forest Barley Water, if I remember correctly.
Either to succeed the first minister or work in the same
church as the second minister meant that when people asked me what I would like
to drink, they had to broach the ‘tea or coffee’ question in hushed tones, much
like Methodists used to be asked whether they drank alcohol.
All of which leads to our Gospel account of Jesus turning
water into wine. I have heard it sincerely argued that Jesus must have turned
the water into non-alcoholic wine. That would be very convenient, but it has no
basis in fact. Having said that,
‘[W]ine in the ancient world was
diluted with water to between one-third and one-tenth of its fermented
strength, i.e. something less strong
than American beer. Undiluted wine, about the strength of wine today, was
viewed as ‘strong drink’, and earned much more disapprobation.’
[D A Carson, The Gospel According To John,
p 169.]
Against the fact of weaker wine should be set the fact that
it was a hot climate and you would not need such strong alcohol for there to be
an effect on the human body.
But we can’t just use this story to argue for or against
teetotalism. Just to deal with that quickly, it is often argued that because
alcohol is abused in our society all Christians should abstain from it.
However, not only did Jesus not abstain, there are other things that are
misused in our culture and we biblically would not expect all Christians to go
without. Often these are good aspects of God’s creation that are to be received
with thanksgiving. The obvious example is sex. It is reduced to an animal
passion and a commodity in our world, but it is also part of God’s design for
marriage. So I would conclude that the misuse of alcohol is a reason for some Christians to abstain as a witness
that you do not need it in order to live a happy and fulfilled life, but it is
not an argument for every Christian to do so.
At the same time, that is not an argument for licence. For
those of us whose conscience allows us to drink, then we need to remember that
the fruit of the Spirit includes self-control. When I was a young Christian in
my twenties I found nothing more embarrassing than having to drive drunken
Christians home from parties.
However, as I said, this story is not there to be the
grounds for a debate about Christian faith and alcohol. John has a specific
reason for including it. He says in verse 11 that this is the first of Jesus’ signs that revealed his glory. John has
seven ‘signs’.
Now if they are not just miracles but signs, then they point
somewhere. They point to Jesus. And so like any sign, we need to ask what they
mean. We also need to know their purpose. And we need to think about our
response. We do this with road signs. We see the number ‘30’ in a circle. We
know its meaning: do not exceed thirty miles per hour. We know its purpose: road
safety. And we know what our response should be: obey it. Perhaps at Broomfield are very
conscious of this, with the speed camera outside the church building!
We can apply the same three areas of exploration to the
miraculous signs of Jesus: what do they mean? What is their purpose? And how
should we respond?
1. Meaning
Why does Jesus turn the water into wine? Is it to help the
poor bridegroom out of a socially embarrassing corner? Is it to help the chief
steward? Is Jesus connected with one or other of the families (and hence the
invitation that includes him and his mother)? If so, perhaps this constitutes
his wedding present to the couple. It’s a very generous one if it is: between
one hundred and twenty and one hundred and eighty gallons of wine. One thing is
for sure, you’d be happy to have Jesus as a guest at your party on this
evidence!
But there has to be more. In John’s Gospel it usually pays
to get beyond the surface meaning. Not without cause has it been dubbed ‘the
spiritual Gospel’. And I believe the clue comes in the water jars that were
used. John tells us they were ‘for the Jewish rites of purification’ (verse 6).
They may have been on hand for the ritual washing of utensils and of guests’
hands [Carson,
p 173]. But the water of Jewish purification is transformed by Jesus into the
new wine. It is a sign of the Gospel.
In other words, this miracle points us away from the
observation of outwardly-observed rules to the inner transformation brought by
Christ through the Cross, Resurrection and gift of the Holy Spirit. And
although Jesus tells his mother that ‘[his] hour has not yet come’ (verse 4) –
that is, the hour of the Cross – the wine instead of water points to all that
he would accomplish at his appointed hour of redemptive suffering.
Or put it another way: one thing John omits from his Gospel
is the institution of the Lord’s Supper. There is no account of Jesus telling
his disciples that the Passover bread is his body and the wine is his blood.
But in this story, while the wine is not his blood, the wine of the miracle
foretells his blood. Here, so early in his Gospel John is dropping hints of the
Cross. He will give half his Gospel to Holy Week, the Cross and the
Resurrection. But here, near the beginning, this first sign has the meaning of
pointing to his ‘hour’ of destiny and the transformation it will bring.
This is the sense in which you want Jesus at your party. In
this miracle he gives advance notice of the great party of all time, the
messianic banquet, where the blood of the Cross leads to the wine of the
kingdom via the forgiveness of sins, the conquest of evil, the gift of new life
and the power of the Spirit.
Some years ago Tony
Campolo wrote a book whose title encapsulates this: The
Kingdom Of God Is A Party. You’d expect wine and a party. For the
Christian, without wishing to sound irreverent at all, the blood of the Cross,
which leads us to the new wine of the kingdom, is grounds for a party. The
Cross is not meant to turn Christians into miseries – we do a pretty good job
of that without any help, thank you – it is the reason for humble celebration.
2. Purpose
As a child I used to read weekly a magazine called ‘Tell Me
Why’. It satisfied my curiosity with the world and explained all sorts of
fascinating scientific facts to children. I am now the father of a not-yet
four-year-old daughter whose favourite question is ‘Why?’ She can ask ‘Why?’
with what seems like infinite regression in an argument. My brain hurts by the
end of the conversation and I resort to the usual parental ‘Because I say so’
answer more times than I care to admit.
Thankfully the ‘Why?’ question about this sign is answered
for us by John. It comes in his comment at the end of the story:
Jesus did this, the first of his signs,
in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
(verse 11)
‘The first of his signs’; he ‘revealed his glory’; ‘and his
disciples believed in him.’
The first of his signs – first not just in the sense of
chronological order, but perhaps even the primary sign, the one that shows God
is bringing about a new creation.
And a sign that reveals his glory. His glory would most
clearly be revealed on the Cross, but the glory of his grace and truth were
seeping out before then. Not everyone saw it that way. Just because he
performed a sign such as this that revealed his glory didn’t mean that everyone
received it that way. When he fed the five thousand (John 6) the crowd didn’t
take it as a reason to become his disciples; they were happy to have their
stomachs filled and think that he was the one who would do exactly what they
wanted as the hoped for political and military messiah. They saw the sign, but
not his glory.
And perhaps it was like this at the wedding. We do not read
of the bride and groom or any of their guests wanting to follow him as a result
of turning water into wine. They are happy to have their physical needs met,
too. It’s enough to take what Jesus gives.
But Jesus’ disciples see not only the sign, they glimpse his
glory too, and they believe in him. This is the purpose of the sign – that
people have the opportunity to perceive the glory of Jesus and believe in him.
In other words, Jesus didn’t simply do this to make the
party go with a swing and get the bridegroom out of social shame and
embarrassment, much as he clearly was one who enjoyed socialising to the point
that in contrast to John the Baptist his critics called him ‘a glutton and a
drunkard’. Whatever needs his signs met out of compassion, Jesus had a further
agenda. His glory was seeping out through the cracks of the sign for those who
had eyes to see, and if you caught even some squint of his blazing glory then
you would put your faith in him. You would entrust your life to him.
And that is the challenge for us and for others: where have
we seen Jesus do something wonderful? Do we just want whatever is in it for
ourselves or are we prepared to be dazzled by his glory? And if we are, will we
put our lives in his hands and follow him?
The sign asks us not just what we want from Jesus but challenges us
about what Jesus wants from us.
Which leads us to the third point:
3. Response
A few decades ago there was a South African Pentecostal
minister called David du Plessis who did a lot of costly ecumenical work to
bridge the gaps between his Christian traditions and others who had ostracised
the Pentecostals, and whom the Pentecostals equally had scorned.
On one occasion he was with a group of Roman Catholics. They
had found a lot in common, but then someone said there must be some things they
disagreed on. What did he think about the Virgin Mary?
“I obey her,” he replied.
That wasn’t quite the reply they were expecting, not from a
member of a hardline Protestant tradition.
“What do you mean, you obey her? How can you say that?”
asked the Catholics.
“John chapter two, the wedding at Cana,”
said du Plessis. Mary told the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ So I obey
Mary: I do whatever her Son tells me.”
And there is the response of believing faith to which we are
called: do whatever he tells you. When Jesus’ signs mean we can celebrate his
work and respond to what we see of his glory by putting our faith in him, what
that boils down to is obedient faith:
do whatever he tells you.
Do we know where specifically Jesus is challenging us to
that response to his work right now? I think I know where it is for me. A
couple of weeks ago I got a phone call from someone who is not a churchgoer
with a particular problem that needed a minister. Naturally I can’t talk
publicly about the nature of the person’s circumstances, but it is enough to
say that it was a situation that was way outside my fourteen years’ experience
as a minister, and it was something that I felt really uncomfortable about
getting involved with. I wanted to bail out. I certainly don’t believe in being
a hero who goes in out of his depth or beyond his gifting.
But rather than let me bail out God has rather directed me
to other ministers with experience in this area who are coming alongside me in
helping this person. Every phone call, every email and every visit are times
when I have to be dragged almost kicking and screaming still to play my part in
helping this person. All sorts of irrational fears come into my consciousness
from my warped imagination. When different friends give conflicting advice that
becomes another reason I want to say, ‘Enough!’ and hand this over to someone
else.
But Jesus keeps asking me to take one more step. And however
reluctantly, I keep doing so. Not so much giant strides as pigeon steps.
Somewhere in this I believe Jesus will do something beautiful for the person
who called me. I’d like to think something good will come out of it for me,
too. But that cannot be my primary concern. I am called to obedience because
Jesus has done wonderful things for me, and because he also does wonderful
things when we obey him. You know, water into wine or something similar.
So where has our experience of Christ led us? To the filling
of our stomachs or a woozy feeling in our heads, because we’ve taken what he’s
given us and no more? Or have our eyes seen his glory? And if so, have we
responded with obedient faith? And not only have
we responded, are we responding even
now and doing whatever he tells us?
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