When things run out, whether it’s wine, justice, or health or hope or bread or life itself, Jesus is the true source of abundance for life. In a world where there is never enough, Jesus is all-sufficient, He is more than enough. In Jesus there is the abundance of life, a new way, a new hope, a new gospel, a new freedom for all of life. You, too, may now believe and be invited to join in the joy of the party of life.
A link for an audio recording of the sermon is at the end of the manuscript.
You can watch a video recording of the entire service on the Christ Church YouTube Channel https://youtu.be/Ld5o9s2SMTc
Scripture:
John 2:1-11 NIV On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.” 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.
Text:
John 2:10 NLT “A host always serves the best wine first,” he said. “Then, when everyone has had a lot to drink, he brings out the less expensive wine. But you have kept the best until now!”
The key theme in the gospel of John is found at;
John 10:10 NIV The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
So what does this verse have to do with our text? Stick with me this morning and you will get it.
Throughout this gospel, written by John we are presented with signs that vividly illustrate the abundance Jesus brings to life.
The miracle that Jean read this morning is the first of those signs recorded for us by John.
Jesus, his mother, and his disciples were invited to a wedding feast. It could very well have been the wedding of a relative, since Mary seemed to have some influence on the servants, and took a personal interest in the embarrassment to the family when the wine ran out.
Everybody who works with nervous families at wedding celebrations knows how uneasy they can become if everything does not go well.
This wedding celebration was about to be a disaster. It appeared that the groom’s family had not made adequate preparation; they may have tried to skimp on the expenses. Their social embarrassment would be remembered in the community. It would be a long time before they would be able to live this down.
I. What Jesus did to solve their problem shows that in a world where things run out, Jesus is the abundance of life (John 2:3).
In his gospel John recorded the great signs Jesus did to demonstrate his power over the world.
He brought joy to this wedding party. Jean read about that joy in our Scripture this morning in John 2:1–11.
In John 2:13-16 John recorded the judgment Jesus brought to the temple officials.
John 2:13-16 NIV When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!”
He brought healing to a nobleman’s son;
John 4:46-52 NIV Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death. “Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.” The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” “Go,” Jesus replied, “your son will live.” The man took Jesus at his word and departed. While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, “Yesterday, at one in the afternoon, the fever left him.”
He gave a man sick for thirty-eight years a new chance at life
One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
John 5:5-10 NIV
He fed more than five thousand people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish.
John 6:8-13 NIV Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there). Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.
he walked on the water
John 6:16-21 NIV When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, where they got into a boat and set off across the lake for Capernaum. By now it was dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them. A strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were frightened. But he said to them, “It is I; don’t be afraid.” Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.
he gave sight to blind eyes (9:1–17);
John 9:1-7 NIV As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
and he showed his power to give life by raising Lazarus from the dead
John 11:38-44 NIV Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
What's the point of reading all these Scriptures? The connecting theme of these signs is that when things run out, whether it’s wine or justice or health or hope or bread or life itself, Jesus is the true source of abundance for life. In a world where there is never enough, Jesus is all-sufficient, He is more than enough.
II. In a world where people are just satisfied with just getting by, Jesus goes beyond just providing; he improves on life (John 2:10).
The steward of the wedding feast was obviously surprised because he called to the bridegroom and said
John 2:10 NIV… “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”
When the most important celebration in the lives of these two families was about to disintegrate because there was not enough wine, Jesus not only rescued the party, but he also improved upon it!
If this is not an accurate picture of how Jesus deals with life, there isn’t one in all the Gospels. Jesus comes to us when everything appears to be lost and turns what could have been disaster into a miracle of abundance.
Has this ever happened in your life? Perhaps it was the loss of a job, a failed test, a broken promise, a divorce, a financial disaster, or a death that left you feeling that life had caved in on you. I have personally experienced all of those. At these kinds of moments, Jesus brings to our lives not just rescue but grace sufficient to bring us finally to victory and joy again.
Romans 8:35-39 NIV Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
He does not simply “help us get through the night”; he improves on our situation.
Hebrews 13:5-6 MSG Don’t be obsessed with getting more material things. Be relaxed with what you have. Since God assured us, “I’ll never let you down, never walk off and leave you,” we can boldly quote, God is there, ready to help; I’m fearless no matter what. Who or what can get to me?
III. In a world living by ritual, or ceremony, or a prescribed order Jesus becomes the source of true life and joy (John 2:6).
John 2:6 NIV Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.
The six stone jars were there because of the Jewish ceremonial laws. They were there for the cleansing rites. The water from them was used to wash the feet and cleanse the hands of the guests. The number six is an incomplete number, being one less than the sacred and complete number seven. So you could say that Jesus is the One who completes what is lacking in the Jewish ritualistic ceremonies.
John 2:7-8 NIV Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” They did so,
B. F. Westcott, who was a British bishop, biblical scholar and theologian perhaps most known for co-editing The New Testament in the Original Greek in 1881, suggests that the water used to make wine did not come from the stone jars, but from the well. The Greek word for draw out, in verse 8, Westcott insists, is the word for taking water from a well, not dipping from a jar.
The symbolism according to Westcott is that after the ceremonial activities had been completed, what was needed was “a spring of water welling up to eternal life”
You remember the encounter and conversation that Jesus had with the Samaritan woman at a well when he asked her to give Him a drink. The full story is in John chapter 4 but I want to read just a few verses about what Jesus said about water welling up to eternal life.
John 4:11-14 NIV “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
So, Westcott says that from the well they drew the water that Jesus then transformed into the new wine, the best wine.
The gospel is new wine that requires new wineskins
Matthew 9:16-17 NIV “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
Mark 2:21-22 NIV “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.”
Luke 5:36-37 NIV He told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined.
The old Jewish legal system for righteousness was not able to hold the new wine of grace
Hebrews 10:1-7 NIV The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll— I have come to do your will, my God.’ ”
God’s grace is exemplified in Jesus Christ, the giver of abundant life.
John 15:1 NIV “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.
The implication is that He was the vine from which the true wine would come.
Jesus does away with all substitutes for the abundant life. He is the true vine giving the new wine that frees people from the wine that runs out. He is the water of life in the ceremonial jars that can cleanse but never satisfy by itself.
IV. In a world where there is little real joy, Jesus brings true joy to the party of life.
Jesus is no killjoy. He enjoys the celebration of life. Wine is a symbol of joy and of the blessings of God.
Psalms 104:13-15 NIV He waters the mountains from his upper chambers; the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work. He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for people to cultivate— bringing forth food from the earth: wine that gladdens human hearts, oil to make their faces shine, and bread that sustains their hearts.
Ecclesiastes 9:7 NIV Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do.
The Bible also points out the dangers of alcoholic beverages.
Proverbs 23:29-32 NIV Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes? Those who linger over wine, who go to sample bowls of mixed wine. Do not gaze at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly! In the end it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper.
Ephesians 5:18-20 NIV Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is in favor of joy, but he is opposed to everything that works against the people he loves. God is for everything that is good, but he is against everything that harms life and tears people apart. When God is against something, it is because he is for us.
John 2:11 NIV 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.
Conclusion
In Jesus there is the abundance of life, a new way, a new hope, a new gospel, a new freedom for all of life. You, too, may now believe and be invited to join in the joy of the party of life.
Sermon Audio
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