A Wedding Filled with Wine and Wonder

Take your Bible, if you would, please, and turn to John chapter 2. John chapter 2.

As you're turning, I want you to think back, go down memory lane to the day that you were married. For some of you, that memory lane will be a lot longer than others, but just take a moment and go back in time, and just think about that day. So many of us have fond memories of our wedding day.

Others have fabulous memories of our wedding day. Some of us have funny memories about our wedding day. Others, unfortunately, have frightful memories of their wedding day.

Why is that? You know, the wedding never goes as planned. I mean, I've had the opportunity to preside over many marriages over 40 years, many weddings over 40 years of ministry and while you're little, you idolize marriage, you dramatize marriage, you even fantasize about marriage and all that it's going to be because it's a big day, it's a huge day.

And so you, in essence, gear up to cheer up, but you never know about the hiccups. You never know about the holdups or the mess ups or the mix ups. All the different things that could happen on that day.

Maybe it's the ring bearer. Maybe he forgets to show up with the rings. That's happened. Maybe it's the bride's dress that's ripped and torn because something happens while she's getting dressed.

Or maybe it's the fact that the caterer forgets to come, got the wrong date. Or maybe the photographer doesn't show up. That could be very frightful, especially if you paid for him to come, right? There are so many things that could go wrong on a wedding day.

A number of years ago, we had a couple getting married in our church and we had just had our rehearsal dinner, or just the rehearsal before the dinner. And the dinner was in our West Wing. And so when we were finished with that rehearsal for the wedding, the next day went down to the West Wing to partake of a dinner.

And the father of the groom had a heart attack and died. Needless to say, the very next day was a different kind of day. The wedding would go on. The bride and the groom both wanted the wedding to continue on without hesitation. So we did. But it was a different kind of day than most wedding days because the death of the groom's father would hang over the joyous celebration.

When you come to John chapter 2, you come to a wedding. You come to a little village in Galilee named Cana. It's not known for much.

Nathaniel was from Cana of Galilee. It's about 14 miles southwest of the Sea of Galilee, not too far from Nazareth. And on this day, at this wedding, planned for a long time, they came across a social disaster.

Something that shouldn't have happened, but did. The good thing about it is that Jesus is at this wedding. He was invited to the wedding.

Which is always a good question to ask yourself, would Jesus be invited to your wedding? Would Jesus be invited to your wedding reception? See, that's always a good question to ask. But Jesus was invited to this wedding. So he was there.

And so when a problem would arise, and Christ, of course, is the great problem solver, you go to the Son of God. The incident is nowhere else recorded in Scripture. John is the only one who records the wedding at Cana.

Why? Because this was the first of all the miracles that Jesus would do. He would do, in the Scriptures, 37 different miracles. John will only record eight of them, but this is the first one.

So no one has seen a miracle up to this point. No one has seen Jesus do anything miraculous up to this point. And you would think, from a human perspective, that if you're going to do your first miracle, if you're going to make a first impression, you're going to do it at the biggest place possible.

You do it in Jerusalem. If you're going to do your first miracle, do it in a place that's going to make the biggest impact so the most amount of people will see it. Do it in Jerusalem, not in some little village just outside of Nazareth that has very few people in it.

So you would think that Jesus missed an opportunity. But on the contrary, the Lord has a perfect plan. The Lord knows exactly what he was doing.

He is the one who was meek and lowly, right? So why wouldn't he perform his first miracle in a very lowly place? But our Lord has a plan, and the plan's going to run on course. And in eternity past, it was Cana of Galilee, and the people who lived there who would be the recipients of the very first miracle of our Lord. Our Lord has a perfect plan.

He chose this place for this particular miracle on this day. The Bible says in John the 20th chapter, the 30th verse, many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book. So there were many other signs that Jesus did.

In John 21, verse number 25 it says, and there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written. So the Lord did so many more miracles, so many more signs that are not recorded in the Scriptures, but what he wants to be recorded is there. What he wants you to see is there. What he wants you to know is there.

So in John chapter 2, we have the wedding at Cana and all that the Lord did on this day. Let's read it.

John 2, verse number 1, 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. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. And Jesus said to her, woman, what does that have to do with us? 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 pots set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing 20 or 30 gallons each. Jesus said to them, fill the water pots with water.

So they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, draw some out now and take it to the head waiter. So they took it to him.

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 said to him, every man serves the good wine first. And when the people have drunk freely, then he serves the poorer wine, but you have kept the good wine until now. This beginning of his signs, Jesus did in Cana of Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him.

I want you to notice seven words, just seven. We won't cover them all this morning. We want you to notice, first of all, the moment and then the marriage. Then the mother. Then the Messiah. Then the miracle. Then the meaning. And then the men. That's our outline for these 11 verses.

And I promise you they will be very enlightening to you this morning. They will open your eyes to things maybe you have never ever heard or never have ever known. And so we're going to see that this morning in the text.

Notice, first of all, in verse number 1. On the third day. I'm going to stop right there.

Camp out right there just for a moment. On the third day. Why is that important? Why does John tell us that? Well, there are several reasons.

I'll let you pick which reason you want to believe. For they are all, to some degree, very, very true. What is this? They were in Judea in chapter 1.

They were down in the Jordan. Baptizing where John the Baptist was. And there our Lord met Andrew, John, Peter, Nathaniel and Philip.

And we've gone through their conversations with one another. They would leave that area and make their way to King of Galilee. It is at least a two-day’s journey.

So on the third day, they attend the wedding at Cana. That's very possible. So John is telling us that.

It would take them that long to get from where they were to Nathaniel's hometown. Another reason is simply this. That it could be the third day of the week.

That would be Tuesday. Sunday being day one, Monday being day two, and Tuesday being day number three. So on the third day.

Tradition tells us that in later years, earlier years, excuse me. Sought after day of the week to hold the wedding. So John could be saying that on the third day, which normal weddings take place, this happens in King of Galilee.

But I think it goes way beyond that. I think there's a deeper meaning here. I think you need to understand what John is trying to convey.

John writes some 30 to 40 years after the events of the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. 30 to 40 years later, he is the latest gospel writer. And as John is writing, he is thinking about not just the day, but the events surrounding the third day.

Because on the third day, our Lord would be raised from the dead. On the third day, he proved himself the victor over that which is death through life. On this day, the miracle at Cana would be taking that which is dirty and dead and making it alive.

On top of that, note this. This is the very first mention of the hour. It says down in verse number 4, my hour has not yet come.

John is combining all this together by telling us that on the third day, because on the third day encompasses the hour of our Lord, and John has a great emphasis on the hour. Unlike the other gospel writers, he has a great emphasis on understanding what this hour entails. Here, he tells us that it characterizes his ministry.

This hour characterizes the ministry of our Lord, what he came to do to bring life out of death, to transform that which is dirty into that which can be cleansed and clean. This is his ministry. He came to seek and to save that which is lost.

This is what the first mention of the hour characterizes his ministry. The second mention of the hour is over in chapter 7, verse number 30. It says, so they were seeking to seize him and no man laid hands on him because his hour had not come.

That is the second mention of the hour, along with chapter 8, verse number 20, where it says, these words he spoke in the treasury as he taught in the temple, and no one seized him because his hour had not come. So while the first mention of the hour characterizes his ministry, the second and third mention of the hour conveyed his sovereignty. His hour had not yet come.

They wanted to kill him, but they could not. Why? Because he's sovereign. He rules.

He's in charge. So it makes it very clear that they couldn't seize him because his hour, the hour of his death had not yet come. And then, of course, as you move on to John chapter 12, you have the fourth and fifth mention of the hour.

In verse 23, it says, and Jesus answered them saying, the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. And then in verse 27, now my soul has become troubled. And what shall I say, Father, save me from this hour? But for this purpose, I came to this hour.

Father, glorify your name. The mention of this hour certified his destiny. This is my hour.

The hour has now come. I want you to understand that this is my destiny. And it's all under control of the sovereign will of the almighty God.

And then in chapter 13, verse number 1, you had the sixth mention of the hour. And it says now, before the feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that his hour had come into the world. This hour clarifies his identity two ways, by explaining his deity and his humility, his humanity.

In other words, because he knew that his hour had come, it clarifies his deity. He knows all things, he's God. But because he washes the disciples' feet, it then clarifies his humility as the Son of Man.

And that's the sixth mention of the hour. And then the seventh mention is in chapter 17. Chapter 17, verse number 1, Jesus spoke these things and lifting up his eyes to heaven. He said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you. The mention of this hour celebrates his glory. Oh Lord, glorify your Son that he may glorify you.

Those seven instances help us to understand the ministry, the identity, the sovereignty of our Lord and how he functions. And John's whole gospel is centered around the hour.

Seven times he mentions the hour. The first one is in John 2. And so this moment is very significant in the mind of John as he wants to help us understand who our God is. The theme, behold your God.

This is your God. This is his hour. This is his time.

His hour had not yet come. He knows that. But when his hour comes in three days, he'll rise again and prove himself once again to be the Lord of glory.

That's the moment. From the moment I want you to notice the marriage. It says this, on the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee.

This is the marriage. The uniting together of two people. Christ being here is very significant.

Christ being here honors the public testimony of a wedding. Christ being here signifies the importance of what the Bible calls the grace of life. Peter calls it that in 1 Peter 3. Marriage is the grace of life.

It's one of the common graces that God gives to people. You're taking a breath, right? Your breath is a common grace. The sun shining today on the just and the unjust is a common grace.

When the rain falls on the just and the unjust, it's called a common grace. It's one of the things that God does for everybody. It's like love.

Love is a common grace. Your breath is a common grace. Your life is a common grace because you're alive.

Marriage is the highest of all the common graces that God gives to man. Because it's that highest of human relationships that God had instituted way back in the book of Genesis. And this is one of the graces of life that we have.

And on this day, these two people were being united together. Notice that the name of the bride and bridegroom are not mentioned. The name of the parents are not mentioned.

Just Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Jesus. Oh, by the way, John doesn't call her Mary. He calls her the mother of Jesus. In fact, John never calls her Mary. He only calls her the mother of Jesus.

Now, I want you to know something, that these weddings are not like our weddings. These weddings would last an entire week. This was the grandest celebration in ancient times. There was no better celebration than this.

And the bridegroom was the center of attention, not the bride. Big difference between now and then. The bridegroom was the focal point of attention.

He was the one who would pay for the wedding. Today, the bride and her family pays for the wedding. But in those days, it was the bridegroom.

And he had to make sure that all the attendants at the wedding were taken care of for the entire week that they were there. He had to provide housing, food, wine, everything for seven days. So it's unlike a wedding like you and I would have that would last maybe five hours, counting the reception and the wedding ceremony itself. This lasted an entire week, a long time.

And so, on this day, in Cana of Galilee, there was a wedding. But I want you to notice something.

John chapter 2 is the chapter why the Roman Catholic Church calls marriage a sacrament. It is all rooted in John chapter 2 because Jesus was there. And Jesus being there signified the importance of it.

The Roman Catholic Church has made marriage one of the seven sacraments along with tenants. Anointing the sick, communion, confirmation, holy orders, baptism, and marriage. So what is a sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church? A sacrament is a sacred rite in which God grants inward spiritual grace through Jesus Christ. Christ dispenses efficacious grace. Not common grace, but efficacious grace for the purpose of justification and the promise of eternal life in marriage. That just is not true.

God does not grant you efficacious grace because you're married. God does not grant you to be justified in his presence because of marriage. That goes against everything the Bible teaches.

And yet the Roman Catholic Church has set up marriage as one of the seven key sacraments that help you understand how you can be justified before Christ because of his efficacious grace and have the promise of eternal life. Eternal life does not come because you're married. Eternal life comes because of the eternal God who grants it by grace to faith.

Which leads us to point number three, which is very, very important. So you go from the moment to the marriage to the mother. Look what it says.

And both Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding. Verse 3, when the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. The mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine.

So in John chapter 2, you have the foundation of the Roman Catholic Church saying that marriage is a sacrament before God. You also have the foundation for which the Roman Catholic Church devised meritology. And Mary is to be worshipped.

It all stems from John chapter 2 because Mary goes to her son, Jesus, requests of him because they have no wine, the problem that's there, and because Jesus responds, now you have access to Jesus through his mother Mary. That's all rooted in John chapter 2, right here. This is how they come up with the whole realm of praying to Mary.

Because Mary will beseech her God, and therefore he will answer because the son cannot refuse his mother. Again, this is heresy. This is not true.

The Roman Catholic Church doesn't call her the mother of Jesus. He calls her the mother of God. Theotokas, the God-bearer. Mary is called the God-bearer in the Roman Catholic theology.

Now you need to understand this because the catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 509, reads this way. Mary is truly mother of God, theotokas. Since she is the mother of the eternal son of God made man who is God himself.

Now I want you to notice something. My time is fleeting. If Mary is the mother of God, and Jesus is included in the Godhead, then Mary is the mother of the Godhead. Therefore we conclude that Mary had to be in existence before the Godhead. This is Roman Catholic theology. Now, the average Roman Catholic Church attender doesn't necessarily know that, but you must understand the doctrine of which they believe.

In fact, in 1854, Pope Pius IX established a dogma. It was called Ineffableus Deus, or the unspeakable God. And what he said stands as dogma today in the Catholic Church.

Listen carefully. And I quote, let all the children of the Catholic Church who are so very dear to us hear these words of ours, with a still, more ardent zeal for piety, religion, and love. Let them continue to venerate, invoke, and pray to the most blessed virgin Mary, mother of God, conceived without original sin.

Let them fly with utter confidence to this most sweet mother of mercy, and grace in all dangers, difficulties, needs, doubts, and fears, under her guidance, under her patronage, under her kindness and protection. Nothing is to be feared. Nothing is hopeless, because while bearing toward us a truly motherly affection, in having in her care the work of our salvation, she is concerned about the whole human race.

And since she has been appointed by God to be the queen of heaven and earth, and is exalted above all the choirs of angels and saints, and even stands at the right hand of her only begotten son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, she presents our petitions in a most efficacious manner. What she asks, she obtains, her pleas can never be unheard. That is Roman Catholic doctrine.

That's what they believe about Mary. It all comes from John chapter 2. It all stems from this chapter, because Mary would ask of her son. She's never, listen, ever in the Catholic Bible, she is never called the mother of God.

Not once. She's never called the mother of God in your Bible, because she's not. She's the mother of Jesus.

And John makes that very clear. So when you read that, and you just pass over it with a cursory reading, you don't understand the implications that are there. Because the Roman Catholic Church is based on tradition. And when it's passed down from the popes, from their seating ex cathedra, it comes across as dogma, which needs to be obeyed and needs to be heard. And so church tradition takes precedence over the authority of Scripture. One author states it this way.

Tradition dictates that Mary is part of the monarchy of heaven, soliciting grace and mercy from the Lord on behalf of sinners and covering sin with the overabundant merit of her life. She became co-redeemer with Christ in his suffering on the cross and is now co-mediated alongside of him in heaven. Essentially, an alternative avenue of access to God, negating 1 Timothy 2, verse 5, where Christ is clearly and exclusively the one mediator between God and man.

She replaces the Holy Spirit in bestowing aid and comfort in believers, and in effect, she becomes an additional member of the Godhead. So there's no longer a trinity, there's a quartet, because Mary is alongside of the Godhead, as the mother of God.

My friends, you need to know this, because we have many Catholic friends who need to know the truth, that Mary cannot save them.

You can pray to Mary all you want, but she doesn't hear. Why? Because... Your Catholic friends will be shocked to know that the Bible says very, very little about Mary, the mother of Jesus. In the dogma of the Catholic Church, they say so much about her, about her miracles, about her assumption into heaven, about all the things that God did through her, but that's not true because it's not in the Bible.

But that's what they want you to believe about her, so that you will venerate her, so that you will bow before her, so that you will pray to her. My friends, we only pray to the Lord Jesus Christ, to our Father in heaven. We don't pray to Mary, the mother of Jesus, because Christ is the only Savior.

There is no other Savior. There's one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, He's the only way to get to the Father. There is no other way.

And we need to be able to preach this loud and clear. We need to be able to tell people where they are wrong, and their error, and what they believe. Help them understand what the Bible says about salvation and the eternal souls of man.

If we don't do that, who is? We need to be able to explain it in the truth of the Gospel. I beg of you, for those of you who have members of your family that are Catholic, friends of yours that are Catholic, to sit down with them and to explain to them the truth of their dogma, and who Mary really is, that she claimed to be a sinner, that she wasn't sinless, only Christ is sinless. Mary was sinful, that's why she needed a Savior, and she's not the way to the Father, through the Son, through her, because she's in glory worshiping the Son of God, the King of Glory.

So I would pray that you would know the truth, that in this little narrative in John Chapter 2, in a small little village in Cana of Galilee, that there was this moment, as brief as it was, there was this moment that signified the hour of our Lord.

There was a marriage, a marriage that was designed, an eternity passed by God, to exemplify His glory and His majesty. Yet the Catholic Church has taken that marriage and made it a sacrament, which nowhere in the Bible does it say that. While it's a common grace, it is not efficacious grace. It is grace that works for eternal salvation.

And then there was a mother, the mother of Jesus. She goes to her son and requests of him, knowing that there is no wine. Every rabbi said that without wine, there is no joy. It was a disaster, because it would last the entire week, but there was no wine to last that long.

So she goes to Jesus. She doesn't go to the bridegroom. She doesn't go to the bridegroom's parents. She goes to her son. And even though he rebukes her, woman, it's not my hour, right? Even though he rebukes her in the process, he will still use this moment to magnify his name and to put his glory on display. Because in John chapter 1, remember what it says, and we beheld his glory, glory full of grace and truth.

How does John end this narrative? He says these words, the beginning of his signs Jesus did in King of Galilee, manifesting his glory. He was put on display for all to see, to know that there is a God who reigns supreme. And the question for us is that, do we know that? Do we know there's a God who reigns supreme? There's a God who forgives, who's a redeemer and the deliverer and the savior of the world.

There’s only one God who does that. And that's Jesus Christ our Lord, the Lord of armies, the God of our eternal salvation.

Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for today.

The chance you'd give us to spend time in your word. Our prayer, Lord, is that we would understand the implications of your word, that we need to stick to the truth and not add to the truth. Nor take away from it, but know exactly what you have said and why you say it the way you do, that we might behold your glory.

Magnify your name until you come again, as you most surely will. In Jesus' name, Amen.