AtomThe Wedding at Cana…the Laughing Jesus!!
Pastor Dave Peterson
First Lutheran Church
January 10, 2010
John 2:1-11
Today we’re telling wedding stories…and know that preachers LOVE to tell wedding stories because we all have them!!! So let’s have a little fun today….
Larry Davies in his book, Sowing Seeds of Faith in a World Gone Bonkers, tells about a wedding he performed once on a wooden boat dock over a pond in Virginia. To his surprise, on the night before the wedding the bride (we’ll call her Pamela) called to ask him to read a special set of marriage vows to her new husband after the formal ceremony was through. She would give him a copy of the vows just before the service started. And then, sure enough, the next morning, the groom (we’ll call him Paul) also pulled Davies aside and handed him a set of vows to be read to his new wife. This was going to be interesting.
The people were in place and the simple ceremony began without a hitch. Then, after the formal ceremony was over and as he was instructed, Pastor Davies pulled out the additional set of vows written by the bride for her new husband. “Paul,” the vows began,
“. . . do you agree to cook steak and potatoes on Friday?
“. . . do you agree to cut the grass and take out the trash?
“. . . do you agree to have my coffee ready when I awake?
“. . . do you agree to take me shopping once a week without complaining?”
Davies’ next instructions were to have the bride take the groom by the hand, look into his eyes and repeat the vows the groom had written for her:
“I, Pamela, agree to lovingly serve you breakfast in bed every Saturday morning and to learn how to bake homemade pies and cobblers. I will also never insist that you make me go shopping with you for more than one hour at a time.”
Afterwards, Davies commented: “They didn’t need a minister. They needed a lawyer to work out this agreement.” And, a proper ending, he decided would have been for him to push them both into the pond and declare them insane, but he resisted the impulse.
But later, as he had a chance to reflect on this unusual wedding, he decided he admired a couple who could laugh in the midst of such a seri-ous commitment. “If they can hold on to this ability to joke and poke fun at each other, there is hope for the survival of their marriage,” he wrote. “Maybe this same lesson can apply to each of us.”
Of course, reading these vows reminds me of the three men bragging about how they had given duties to their new wives.
The first man had married a Baptist woman and had told her that she was going to do the dishes AND keep the house cleaned. He said, while it took a couple days, but by the third day when he came home he saw a clean house and the dishes washed and put away.
The second man had married a Catholic woman. He had given his wife orders that she was to do the dishes, all the house cleaning AND do the cooking. He also reported that on the first day he didn’t see any results, but the next day he saw it was better. By the third day, he saw his house was clean, the dishes were done, and there was a huge dinner on the table.
The third man had married a Lutheran lady. He told her that her duties were to keep the house cleaned, dishes washed, hot meals on the table for every meal, AND mow the lawn each week!! He too reported that on the first day he didn’t see anything, the second day he didn’t see anything, but by the third day, some of the swelling in his left eye had gone down enough to see so he could fix himself a bite to eat and load the dishwasher.
Weddings!! John tells us a wedding story today…You heard the story:
A wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother Mary was there, as well as Jesus and his disciples. But something happened that cast a pall on things. They ran out of wine. This was socially unacceptable and deeply embarrassing for the family hosting the wedding (a later Coptic gospel suggests the mother-of-the-bride was Mary’s sister: another ancient writing suggests the bride was none other than John…the Gospel writer himself – we don’t know for sure)!!
Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”
“Woman” (which was a term of endearment) Jesus says, “Why do you involve me? My time 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 purification, 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.”
This is the story…at it’s surface…but…let’s remember… this is the Gospel of John…a Gospel that has levels and levels of meaning…levels that go deeper and deeper the more you reflect and ponder them. Levels we peal off…layered like an onion….
And today, let’s enter into a couple of those levels as we reflect on this miracle wedding story.
First of all, this story could be telling us of a side of Jesus we oftentimes forget…the side that reminds us that while we are to take our faith and our faith journey seriously…this is different from living our faith somberly!! This is what I sense Pastor Davies, in our opening story meant when he said… he decided he admired a couple who could laugh in the midst of such a seri¬ous commitment.
Jewish weddings were filled with laugher and joy and celebration…and I’m sure Jesus was just as much a part of this as everyone else. Yet…consider..
What images of Jesus do most of have in our homes and in our hearts?? What image of Jesus do many of us carry with us when we come to receive communion, God’s gift of life?
Most have images of a stern Jesus…a serious Jesus…
This one is the most popular that I’ve seen…is what I grew up with…
And, we have the impression that religion and faith are to be taken seriously and somber!!
How about hanging an image of Jesus in your house that looks like this…
How does this image make you feel??
I so appreciate the need to be serious about our faith faith…yet let’s remember that being serious is not the same as being somber…and remember to not take ourselves so seriously we forget that laughter and humor is a gift from God!!
William Barclay, in his commentary on John said it this way…
Jesus was perfectly at home at such a joyous occasion. He was no severe, austere killjoy. He loved to share in the happy rejoicing of a wedding feast. There are certain religious people who shed a bloom wherever they go. They are suspicious of all joy and happiness. To them religion is a thing of black clothes, the lowered voice, the expulsion of social fellowship. Jesus never counted it a crime to be happy. Why should his followers do so?
Proverbs 17:22 tells it this way (several different versions):
Being cheerful keeps you healthy. It is slow death to be gloomy all the time.
A merry heart is a good medicine, but a downcast and crushed spirit dries up the bones.
A cheerful disposition is good for your health; gloom and doom leave you bone-tired.
Now…let’s go deeper…into another layer of the Gospel of John.
John, from the beginning of the gospel wants us to know…JESUS is the ONE!! In the language of the Gospel today,
While the law and the prophets, and all the other ways people tried to know what God was all about were good wine…JESUS is the best wine. God saved the best for last. In Jesus, God has given the best Grace, the true wine that satisfies…and lasts forever!!
I sense William Barclay tells it best. In his commentary on John he writes:
There were six stone water pots; and at the command of Jesus the water in them turned to wine. According to the Jews SEVEN is the number which is complete and perfect; and SIX is the number which is unfinished and imperfect. Thus, the six stone jars stand for all the imperfections of the Jewish law…(and all the imperfections that people use to try to bring life to people today). But Jesus came to do away with the imperfections of the law and to put in their place the new wine of the Gospel of Jesus Grace. Jesus turned the imperfection of the law into the perfection of Grace.
Let’s remember…John is writing this Gospel dozens of years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. For all these years he had been meditating, remembering and re-discovering meanings and significance to all that Jesus did…remembering that “Wherever Jesus went and whenever he came into life it was like water turning into wine.”
To say it in another way:
while all that came before Jesus was adequate (it was OK wine): Jesus is the new wine…the best there is…the one saved for last…the one who gives salvation, grace, mercy, to all!!!
This is the message of John today…Real life, Abundant Life comes to us now in Jesus, the one sent for the salvation of the world, the one who died on the cross and rose again to lead us in grace and faithfulness to joyful and abundant life with God forever.
And John is inviting us…”are you tired of that which does not satisfy? If you are tired of trying to find life in the old vessels that can only purify the outside skin, but not the inside soul, the answer for you is the Grace of Jesus…the Abundant Grace of Jesus!!!”
All of us remember the story of the former alcoholic who, when asked about Jesus’ miracle of turning the water into wine replied, “I don’t know about that, but I do know that in my house he changed whiskey into furniture.”
And, John reminds us, there is MORE than enough!! Let’s do the math!!!
6 vessels….30 gallons each…that’s 180 gallons of the best wine given that day by Jesus. And anyone reading John’s Gospel, then and today, would simply be amazed.
180 gallons?? No wedding party on earth could drink 180 gallons!!!
And this is the point!! Nothing on earth can exhaust the Grace of Jesus: there is a glorious superabundance of it…enough for all and even then, lots left over!!
One final wedding story to close…
While many weddings have candles or sand, or other symbols, this wedding also had two glasses poured…one filled with water and the other filled with wine.
And, after the reading of this Gospel, when the bride and groom tasted the glass of water they each used descriptive words like “plain”, “ordinary”, “common.” Then, in the words of the pastor leading this worship:
I then handed the 80-year-old bride the glass of wine. She tasted it and then handed the glass to her 84-year-old sweetheart. She described the wine using words like, “robust”, “fruity”, “uncommon”, “extraordinary.” The groom took the glass, put it to his lips and tasted it. With a twinkle in his eye, he looked at me, he looked at his beloved and then he looked back at me. He then took another deep swallow of the wine in the glass. So I asked him, “Before it’s all gone, how would you describe the taste of this wine?” With a twinkle in his eyes, he took one more sip and then simply said, “Zippy!”
And people of God, this is the depth of the Gospel today:
While there is lots of plain water that satisfies, Jesus wants to do the miracle of turning the water in our lives to wine. It is his deepest desire to fill us with HIS “zip”…with the overflowing taste of HIS grace and mercy…that lasts forever.
This means, the last line in this great story is perhaps the most important of all…
“Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”
May it be so among us today! Amen!!
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