Revealing Glory

Scripture:        Isaiah 62:1-5,    Psalm 36:5-10,   I Corinthians 12:1-11              John 2:1-11

A question for the married couples among us – what do you remember about your wedding day?  Of course it was a magical day, but were there any surprises?  Last minute hitches?  Any bloopers during the wedding?  I remember my parents telling me that their wedding took place during Hurricane Hazel in 1954 – and given the course of their marriage, it was an unfortunate but appropriate omen of things to come, as they had quite a stormy relationship during the 20+ years they were together until their divorce.  Hopefully you have happier wedding stories.

This morning’s Gospel reading takes us on a brief detour from Luke’s gospel to John’s gospel.  John’s gospel doesn’t contain nearly as many miracles as the other gospels do.  In fact, John includes just seven miracle stories – the number 7 signifies “perfection” or “completion” or “divinity”  - and he doesn’t call them “miracles”, but instead calls them “signs” – a sign, of course, is something that points away from itself to something else.  John readily acknowledges that he didn’t include all of Jesus’ miracles or signs, and he provides an explanation of why he included these signs and not others, writing at the end of chapter 20: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.  But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah,  the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

This morning, we read about the first of the seven miracles John includes in his gospel.  Now, since John included only seven miracles, you might think that all seven would be awesome, mind-blowing spectacles.  But, instead, we get……a story about Jesus miraculously providing wine for a wedding party.   This miracle story appears only in John’s gospel….although it may connect to a parable told in the other gospels, which we’ll hear about later.   It’s a great story …. but I think we might be tempted to pass over it as not that big a story, not that big a miracle, not having all that much to tell us, and go on to something else.  But I’d like us to spend some time with this small, very human-scale story.  After all, John included it because he felt it said something important about who Jesus is.

This story takes place just after Jesus had called his disciples.   John tells us about two days in which Jesus had gathered several of his disciples – Andrew, Peter, Philip, and Nathanael are named -  and then says that “on the third day, there was a wedding in Cana, and the mother of Jesus was there.  Jesus and these first few disciples had also been invited to the wedding.”  Cana was a small village - maybe a few hundred people at most - located nine miles north of Nazareth….about a three hours from Nazareth on foot.  And so this is a story about a country wedding.  Life was hard and the people were very poor – and a wedding in the village would have drawn not only the couples’ families, but many from the village and the surrounding area.  It wouldn’t have been just for a day, but would have gone on for a week.  For the wedding couple, this might have been the one time in their lives when they had plenty to eat and drink…..

….Except that while apparently they had enough food, they ran out of wine.  Why this happened, we don’t know.  Apparently the couple wasn’t completely impoverished; we later learn that they had six huge stone water jars, and at least for that day even had servants.  Maybe they hadn’t planned well for all the guests they had invited, or maybe some extra guests invited themselves and they had some thirsty wedding crashers on their hands.  But anyway, the wine ran out, and in that society in which hospitality wasn’t just a nice thing to do but could be a matter of survival, running out of wine would have been a major embarrassment, adding a note of shame to the beginning of this marriage.  “The mother of Jesus” – whom John for some reason doesn’t call by name – learned of the problem, and said to Jesus, “They have no wine.”  Now, Mary wasn’t just making a neutral observation….”oh, the sky is blue and the birds are singing and they have no wine.”   Unstated, but strongly implied, is an urgent request to Jesus – “They have no wine! Fix this!  Do something!” 

And Jesus’ response doesn’t sound very…..Jesusy.   “Woman, what is that to you and to me?”  While Jesus’ calling his mom “woman” may not have been as rude in Jesus’ day as it sounds to us, it still would have been cold and distant.  And his message is basically, “Hey, mom, not our problem.  And, oh by the way, get off my back!”   And then he says the mysterious words, “My hour has not yet come.”   In John’s gospel, the word “hour” can of course refer to time – but it also refers to the time when Jesus would give his life, which of course had not yet come.  But while it was not the time for Jesus to be crucified, it was a perfect good hour for Jesus to help this couple.  Mary persisted, telling the servants, “Do whatever he may tell you.”

The writer of John’s gospel felt it was very important to show that Jesus was in control at all times, that he would help the wedding party of his own volition, and not because of pressure from his mother.   For the parents in the house, it sounds a little like when you tell your child to do something and at first they stomp their feet and say no, but then they come around and cooperate.  But they did it because they wanted to, not because you ordered them.   In any case….we’re told that there were six large water jars for the Jewish rite of purification – essentially, holding water for washing hands before eating.  Apparently they were empty, because Jesus tells the servants to fill them.  They are each filled to the brim – some 150 to 180 gallons of water in all.  Then Jesus told the servants to draw some out, and bring it to the chief steward – and of course, what the steward receives is now wine, not water.  The steward went over to the bridegroom and said, “Most people serve the good wine first and the cheap stuff later, but you’ve saved the best wine for last.”  And so the wedding party was saved, with an extra 150 to 180 gallons of excellent wine, likely more than they would have known what to do with, courtesy of Jesus.  The story ends with the words, “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.”

Jesus did this, the first of his signs, and revealed his glory.  What glory did he reveal?  On a surface level, we can say that Jesus was not opposed to a good party.  From the other gospels we know that Jesus was accused of being “a glutton and a drunk, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”  Maybe this is where that reputation for enjoying himself got its start.

But -  even among the party animals in today’s gospel – the excellent wine may have reminded them of images of the kingdom of God in the Old Testament, in which God’s reign is compared to a banquet.  From Isaiah 25:6-8:  “On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples,
a banquet of aged wine—  the best of meats and the finest of wines.   On this mountain he will destroy
the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever.
The LORD God will wipe away the tears from all faces;  he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The Lord has spoken.”  Jesus gave those at the party a glimpse – just a glimpse – of what this would look like.  We may remember that in the other Gospels, Jesus uses this image in telling parables comparing the kingdom of God to a wedding feast.   Perhaps in telling those stories, Jesus was drawing on the text from Isaiah that I quoted, along with his memories of this wedding feast in Cana….so while the other Gospels tell, in John’s gospel Jesus shows what the reign of God will look like.

Remember that the steward told the bridegroom, “Most people serve the good wine first and the cheap wine later, but you’ve saved the best wine for last.”  John may have been telling his readers to see the coming of Jesus as God's "saving the best for last". In his Gospel, John also begins with this first, seemingly small sign, and describes Jesus’ last sign as the raising of Lazarus - again, the most powerful sign saved for last.  We may also consider that in John’s gospel, Jesus began his ministry by offering wine, later offered bread as he fed the five thousand, shared a last supper with his disciples in which he consecrated bread and wine as his body and blood, and ended his ministry by offering himself, body and blood, on the cross.

Jesus himself also used wine as a metaphor for wisdom and godly instruction, both the old wine of the wisdom of Moses that had guided his people for so long, and the new wine representing the new age of God’s reign that Jesus was bringing into being.  When disciples of John the Baptist and of the Pharisees complained that Jesus didn’t fast like they did, Jesus used the metaphor of wine to say that a new age had come, with new ways of living: “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth onto an old garment, for the patch will pull away, making the tear worse.  Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins; if they do, the wineskins will burst and the wine will be lost.  No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”  (Matthew 9:16-17)  Jesus also said that, “Every scribe who is trained for the Kingdom of heaven is like a householder bringing out of his storehouse what is new and what is old.”  But Jesus recognized that not everyone is ready for the new age that Jesus was bringing in, as he told his disciples:  “And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘the old wine is better.’” (Luke 5:39)

This story also offers us Mary as an example of what faithful discipleship looks like:  she saw a need, brought it to Jesus, and told others, “Do whatever he may tell you.”  As we see the needs of our world, we too can bring them to Jesus in prayer, and pray for guidance in how to respond. 

Beyond this, I think we can say that Jesus’ miracle demonstrates that our God is a God of joy and abundance, not a god of sadness and scarcity.  We may remember the line from Auntie Mame, “Life’s a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death.”  Church folk – especially protestant church folk – have a reputation of being buzzkills, of being scandalized at the thought that someone, somewhere, somehow is having a good time.  But that is not God’s way.  Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10), and later “These things I have spoken to you, that you may have my joy in you, and that your joy may be full.” (John 15:11)  Now, joy and abundance for us that comes at the price of sadness and starvation for others – this selfish kind of joy God will not bless. And I surely don’t want those in recovery to use this gospel reading as an excuse to pick up; in fact, your future joy and happiness depend on working your program faithfully.   But wine or no wine, there is enough for everyone of the joy and abundance that comes from God.

And that joy and abundance continues in the world to come. Though God provides for our lives here on earth, when we meet God in the world to come, we will find that the best earth has to offer will not compare to being in God’s presence.  Perhaps we’ll say, in the words of an old Vanessa Williams song.

Now we're standing face to face  /  Wasn’t the world a crazy place?
Just when I thought a chance had passed  /  You go and save the best for last     Amen.