Sermon Tone Analysis

I want to look at the first miracle that's recorded in the earthly ministry of Christ…that miracle which occurred at a wedding in Cana where water was turned into wine.

Weddings are festive occasions.

Our Lord really shows God's support of the wedding ceremony by His attendance at the wedding in Cana.

The actual ceremony itself was something God honors and God attends.

My understanding is that often weddings in the Jewish culture were held on Wednesdays, of all things, in the middle of the week.

It was a day given over to celebration of the wedding of a young couple.

Back in this day Cana was a much smaller village than it is even today.

And perhaps even the entire village turns out for the wedding between a bride and a groom, both of whom are either related or certainly befriended by the residents.

It seems as though the mother of Jesus also is acquainted with this family, or she is attending the wedding.

And we learn Jesus and His disciples, who are from Galilee at this point, have also been invited to this wedding.

So it's an exciting and festive occasion, and an occasion where (if you know the story) the wine that is served at the celebration of the wedding runs out, and Jesus is asked by his mother to take care of it, to do something about it…an embarrassment actually to the bridegroom.

As you read the story you come to understand there is a host of the wedding, a master of the reception, if you will.

But we discover the bridegroom is the one in charge of the celebration or the reception and the one who is really in charge of the elements such as the wine being handed out.

It is a crisis, therefore, certainly an embarrassment potentially because they have run out of the wine too soon.

More guests or just not enough provisions to begin with.

On the great scale of things a very trivial, small thing, but the Bible is a very small book, so it doesn't waste time with trivial things.

We just have to discover what appears maybe to be a minor thing is there for a very important purpose, and we are to discover some things as we look at the miracle, this first miracle, of the water being turned into wine…what it is we learn about Jesus.

There are some great principles here as we look at this today.

I want to invite you to read with me as we look at John, chapter 2, beginning in the first verse, it says, /"On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.

Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding.

And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, 'They have no wine.'

Jesus said to her, 'Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.'"/

Now I want to just stop right there because Jesus' response to his mother in our western ear certainly sounds that it's rude.

It sounds abrupt.

We know that culturally it was accepted to call your mother by the name mother.

But here He doesn't call her mother.

He calls her woman.

Now in and of itself that's not rude, and we know Christ lived His entire life without sin, so we know it is not sinful what He has done.

But it is very interesting, isn't it?

He doesn't address her as mother, but what I guess in the western culture would be the equivalent of ma'am.

Woman in the western culture in our ear sounds very rude and very dismissive, but in that culture it's the equivalent of us saying, "Yes ma'am and no ma'am."

But it is important that he doesn't address her by the family title, and that's there for a very important reason.

We see throughout the ministry of Christ that whenever He is approached in a family context He always broadens it.

There is a time when He is ministering in a home and they come to Him and say, "Your mother and brothers are outside waiting on you."

Now in a normal family context that might mean you need to stop what you're doing and you need to go to your family.

But if you'll remember if you've studied that, Jesus says, "Here is my mother and brothers right in front of me."

Right here what Jesus is showing in John, the first four verses, is He is showing He is an obedient son…an obedient son.

Now you might say, "Well, that's not very obedient being so abrupt and so brusque with his mother."

But He is being obedient, it's just He's showing His obedience to His Father.

Notice what He says.

He says, /"My hour has not yet come."/

In other words, even though a family has come and made a request of Me, I'm not going to do anything at all outside of the will of My Father.

I'm not going to allow a flesh-and-blood connection to overrule the spiritual connection and spiritual provisions the Father has made for Me.

He would tell us all throughout the gospels, "I have come to do the will of My Father; I and My Father are one, and nothing is going to stand in the way of that."

You know you and I especially in this room ought to be very thankful for that because that means that He did not allow His Jewish-ness to overrule His reaching out to the Gentile world.

He did not just bring salvation only to the Sons of Abraham, but He brought it to all of those the Father desired to be saved.

So we see here He is letting us know, and John the apostle when he wrote this, he knows how that's going to sound when it's read.

The Lord knows how it's going to sound when He said that.

He wants us to know above everything else, obeying the will of the Father was His priority.

He's not going to pull a rabbit out of a hat, He's not going to just do a little trick He might have the power to do just because a mother, just because someone who had an earthly connection with Him came to Him.

Boy what a powerful lesson that is for us.

Our top priority really is above even our own family, above even our own friends, above our job, above our career.

Our top priority is to be to the Father, to our Heavenly Father.

What He tells us to do should be the motivating and driving factor of our life.

Now Mary hears this, and she doesn't get mad.

It's as though she is in tune with the Savior because in verse 5 she makes a statement to the servants.

She says in verse 5, /"His mother said to the servants, 'Whatever He says to you, do it.'"/

Now the 'it' has been added for our English, but literally it says, "Whatever He says to you, do…do."

In other words, this is the Savior.

This is the Messiah.

I trust Him.

I trust He's going to take care of this situation.

He's just indicated to me that He's only going to do what's in the Father's will and I know that the Father's will is the best in this situation.

So whatever He says to you, you just simply do that.

Isn't it interesting that after Jesus saying, /"What does this concern Me?"/

You know, /"My hour has not come."/

He turns around and He turns the water into wine.

You know He could have just said, "You know listen, Mom, I know.

I'll take care of it."

Jesus is teaching.

He's showing His Messiah-ship.

He's showing He's about the will of His Father, and He's about to show that in the performance of this first miracle.

There are some important lessons for us to learn as we read through the text here this morning, some important principles we can take with us as we consider this matter of water to wine.

You know in the graphic that's before you, some things you'll notice, of course you have the clear water pouring and turning into the red wine, but if you're clever and cynical like me you're wondering, "Well, I don't think they had a glass goblet in the first century."

Well that's true, but unless you're an artist how are you going to show it turning into wine if it goes into a clay jar?

And the second thing, we do have clear goblets today, and Jesus still metaphorically turns the water into wine.

That's what I want to show you today.

The first principle, even as we go forward, is that commands as a rule precede blessings.

Commands precede blessings.

We have a command here.

Verse 6, /"Now there were set there six water pots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing twenty or thirty gallons apiece.

Jesus said to them, 'Fill the water pots with water.'"/

This is the command He gives.

A seemly strange command, but in order for the blessing to come, simple obedience needs to take place.

You think about it, often Jesus would give commands before the blessing.

There is a command to follow and a blessing that followed after that command.

For instance, the blind man…Jesus applies that mudpack to his eyes.

And what does he say, /"Go wash in the pool of Siloam."/

He didn't say, "Okay, that's good enough.

Here's your eyesight."

He gives him a seemly disconnected command which Jesus follows.

The man with the limp arm, Jesus says, /"Stretch out your hand."/

Rather than just healing his hand He first gives him a command, and it's when he obeys the command that the blessing follows.

You remember that young girl, Tabitha who is dead and lying on the bed, and Jesus says, /"Tabitha,"/ literally little girl, /"Arise."/

And her blessing of life comes in obeying the simple command.

To Lazarus, Jesus says, /"Lazarus, come forth."/

And the blessing to Lazarus' life follows the simple obedience to the command.

And so it's true with the lost, it's true with those who have not found Christ in a personal relationship.

The command is very simple, and the command is followed by a blessing.

The Bible tells us the command is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.