Things weren’t going so well at this wedding banquet in
Cana. It’s every host’s nightmare. They must have figured the numbers wrong.
They should have ordered more wine. Now what are they going to do? Offer people
a lukewarm glass of water? They don’t even have ice. Who goes to a wedding
banquet and gets served water? This was going to be embarrassing.
We are not told what the connection is between Mary, the
mother of Jesus, and the folks who were putting on the banquet. There must have
been some connection—perhaps Mary was a relative. I don’t know how else she
could have known this insider information. You don’t just tell anybody something
embarrassing, but Mary knew.
We also don’t know exactly why it is that Mary comes to
Jesus. What was Jesus supposed to do about it? His response seems to indicate
that he was somewhat bewildered too. He says, “Woman,” (I’ve never
called my mom “woman” by the way.) “Woman, what does that have to do with
you and me? My time has not yet come.” Seemingly she goes off to help with
whatever can be done. “Do whatever he tells you,” she says to the
servants.
There were six large stone water jars there. The Jews washed
quite a lot. They wanted to be clean. These were special jars—not the everyday
buckets that might be used for chores. They also were not pottery, formed out
of clay. They were hewn out of solid rock. Other materials are porous and
absorb things. They cannot be fully sanitized according to Jewish standards.
These stone jars didn’t allow anything to seep in or be absorbed like wood or
pottery might. They were special and expensive. They also were large and heavy.
Think of half a barrel here, for a full sized barrel holds 50 gallons. These
were 20-30 gallons.
Jesus tells the servants to fill the jars with water. They
filled them to the brim. Then he said, “Take some out and bring it to the
master of the banquet.” The master of the banquet seems to have not known
about the problems they were having in the kitchen. You can tell that by his
response to the bridegroom. After tasting the water, now made wine, he says to
the bridegroom that they’ve managed to pull out some new vintage that is even
better than what they had served before. He was not expecting to drink water.
He was expecting to drink wine. He was surprised by how good it was, since the
banquet had gone on for some time already.
This was the beginning of Jesus’s miracles. Compared with
other miracles that Jesus performed, this one is a little different. Jesus cast
out demons, healed leprosy, gave sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. He
raised the dead. All these miracles are practical answers to very pressing
needs. Perhaps the miracles that would be most similar to this first miracle
would be his feeding of the 5,000 and the 4,000. He provided food to hungry
people instead of wine to thirsty people.
But there is still a pretty big difference between the two.
With the feeding of the 5,000 Jesus was concerned that the people would faint
along the way if the disciples did not give them something to eat. There was no
danger of fainting at this wedding banquet—at least not from a lack of wine. The master of the feast
indicates that the people had already been drinking for some time before Jesus
added more. Drinking water wouldn’t have done any of them any harm. It just
wouldn’t have been as nice, and it would have been kind of embarrassing for the
hosts. This miracle can seem a little luxurious. His other miracles look more
practical.
But this way of looking at it says more about us, and the
natural thoughts that we have when it comes to God, than correctly
understanding what is going on. Take our prayers, for example. It is very
common for people to do a little horse-trading with God in their prayers. When
they want something very much they will try to be very practical with their
requests. “If only you will give me this, God, I’ll take care of everything
else. You needn’t trouble yourself more than this reasonable request.”
But suppose that little thing isn’t so little. Suppose you
want God to cure some dread disease in some little tyke. I can’t imagine a
heartache that would be worse than for a parent to go through something like
that with a child. Then this practical mindset can take on a hard edge. “I
don’t want no wine. I don’t want no luxuries. I want you to cure my child. Why
can’t you be more practical and reasonable, God? Why don’t you use your powers
for what is important?”
Here we see a deeply seated trait in sinful man. Although we
have no right to do it, we can’t help but judge God. And if we should find that
he doesn’t match up with our way of thinking we aren’t afraid to let anybody
know it. Right away in the Garden of Eden when God asked Adam what happened he
essentially said, “It wasn’t my fault. There was this fruit, and I ate it, but
only because she gave it to me. And you! You are the one who gave her to be
with me!” Ever since then everybody has their own ideas of how everybody and
everything else should be. If only everybody would do as each of us think, we
believe that the world would be a better place. Included in this everybody and
everything else is even God himself. What we deem practical and reasonable
miracles can be an indictment of the good things that God does otherwise.
Seeing the goodness in this miracle is the better way to
understand it. God’s goodness is such that it is superabundant, gladdening the
heart, making us joyful so that we can’t help but sing. He not only gives us
just enough to get by, he gives us even more. Paul says in Ephesians that he
does infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Indeed, He even gives us
himself so that we are filled with the fullness of God.
Understanding the greatness, the superabundance, of God’s
giving, is especially important when it comes to our justification before God.
When it comes to us being judged before God we are in a situation similar to
the folks in Cana with their supply of wine, but only worse. Who wouldn’t be deeply
embarrassed if what they had done and left undone were made public? We all
might try to give sufficient explanations for ourselves—why we did this and
didn’t do that, but if we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that
these rationalizations aren’t very satisfying. They’re about as satisfying as
lukewarm water at a banquet, where the occasion is calling for wine.
But don’t underestimate the lengths that we might go to in
order to justify ourselves. We will try to make use of everything we possibly
can so that we should not be found wanting. We’ll call upon the correctness of
our political opinions. We’ll call upon the correctness of our religious
opinions. It’s as though we’ve got 6 stone water jars of, expensive, the best
that we can possibly come up with as human beings. The Jews, being just as
human as the rest of mankind, wanted to be clean. They washed and washed.
Gallons and gallons of water might be used. If they were successful they might
fool themselves into thinking that they were pretty good people after all. But
how do you wash away stains from the soul? Although that water sat in fancy
pots, it was still just water. Although we might try to dress up our
justifications in fancy clothes, our excuses are all too human. They satisfy like
lukewarm water, when the occasion calls for wine.
But in Jesus there is a perfect justification before God.
Jesus is righteous just as God is righteous, for Jesus is God. Jesus is
perfectly justified before God, without wrinkle or blemish. This perfect justification
is given out freely to everyone who hears and believes, to everyone who
believes and is baptized. This is done without any merit or worthiness in us.
Just as the folks who were putting on the banquet contributed nothing to the
occasion, except being woefully unprepared and unjustified, but Jesus gave them
the best wine they’d ever tasted, so also Jesus freely justifies the world with
his perfect life and atoning death. This justification before God shows up out
of nowhere, and it is better than anything that we could possibly do on our own
even if we devoted everything we could to pursuing it.
It is important that all of you who believe in Jesus Christ
understand how good, how superabundant, the gift that God gives you in Jesus
Christ. It’s not like a little dab’ll do ya. It’s not that God gives you just
enough justification so that you barely scrape by. He gives you Jesus’s own
righteousness that completely swallows up and overcomes all that you otherwise
lack. When you believe in Jesus you are perfectly righteous because of him. The
Scriptures say, “Abraham believed, and it was accounted to him as
righteousness.” You are justified in the same way. God is perfectly pleased
with you when you are obedient to his Gospel. It’s not like you escape damnation
by the skin of your teeth. It is unthinkable, completely unthinkable, that you
should go to hell as a baptized believer. It’s simply impossible, for you
possess God’s own righteousness.
As a preacher I spend a lot of time and a lot of energy to
convince people that they are not righteous in themselves. All the things that
people love and trust in besides Jesus have to be knocked down mercilessly and
one after another. It is hard to make people understand that they are
hopelessly deficient, hopeless devoid of good.
But all of that is true only outside of Christ and faith.
When you believe in Christ all that lack is filled up completely and perfectly.
But since preachers spend so much time and energy on convincing people that
they are unrighteous in themselves, it can make Christians timid. Christians
might believe that their salvation is not at all certain, that they might not
be justified in God’s sight. That should not be.
There is a time and place for everything. There is a time
and a place for us to be humbled and brought low. It is good for us to know our
sins and God’s wrath for our sins. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom. But we are not meant to remain in this frame of mind forever. Once we
know our sin, then that talk has done all that it can do. It’s time for a
different talk to come and take its place.
It’s time to hear about the righteousness of God that God’s
Son, Jesus, has achieved and distributes freely throughout the whole world with
his Gospel and Sacraments. If you’ve heard the good news that Jesus is the
Savior of sinners, if you’ve been baptized, and if you believe that God isn’t a
fool or a liar, then you must know with absolute certainty that you are
perfectly righteous and justified. You are perfectly righteous and justified
for the sole reason that Jesus is perfectly righteous and justified, and he has
given this to you. According to the Law, according to you own thoughts, words,
and deeds, you are a damned sinner. According to the new covenant, the new
testament in Jesus’s blood, you are something else entirely. If you do not
believe that you are something else entirely, for Jesus’s sake, then you simply
aren’t a Christian. You are refusing his wine and left with only water.
And so this first miracle of Jesus’s is quite appropriate
for who he is and what he does. It is extravagant—after all he creates
somewhere between 120 and 180 gallons of wine! It is impractical so far as mere
survival is concerned. Our reason somewhat rebels against it. We think he could
do better things with his powers. But it is also superabundantly good,
rejoicing the heart. He gives us more than we can ask or even imagine. The wine
is the best yet.
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