Vital Signs: Party Time!

I have to start out this morning by acknowledging that many of you made significant decisions last week as we decided together that “We will serve the LORD our God and obey him.” This is important as we enter into this time of our Christian calendar – if you’re not familiar with the Christian year, we started Lent this week, a 40 day period where we focus on holiness, repentance, fasting, prayer, and preparation for Jesus’ death, resurrection, and return.

This year during Lent I will be leading a series called Vital Signs. we will be looking at the signs and miracles Jesus performed as recorded in the Gospel according to John.  Understand as we go into this that these aren’t Jesus’ only miracles.  John himself reported that Jesus did many other things as well.  If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. (John 21:25).  But the signs that John reported are important for us for this reason: it was through these signs that Jesus revealed his glory and his disciples put their faith in him. (John 2:11)

When we’re reading John 2, it can be easy in our culture to really wonder about this miracle.  Why would Jesus do this? Let’s look at a little background before we go to how this applies to us. To understand a wedding feast in Jesus’ day is to know how to party.  The feast would be scheduled to go on for days.  Literally days.  And the host would be expected to provide for all of the guests; to not do so would be to risk humiliation and even lawsuit!  Can you imagine that – if you ran out of wine at your party, you could get sued!  Commentators have surmised that the hosts of this particular party were poor and that they “made the minimum provision, hoping for the best” (The Gospel According to John: NICNT: Leon Morris, p. 158). So when they ran out of wine, it wasn’t the case that they could just head out to the Wine Guy and buy some more.  They ran out, and they were humiliated.  

So Jesus provides for them in a very real way.  Though they only provided the minimum and hoped it would last, Jesus not only multiplied it for them, but he gave them the best.  God tends to do this.  He miraculously provides, and he does it in ways we wouldn’t have even imagined.

Now, it would be a mistake to not address the fact that this miracle runs face-to-face into one of our Christian cultural taboos; Jesus provided wine for this party.  I grew up in a very strong tradition in which all alcohol was completely prohibited, and sometimes I heard such explanations as “this wasn’t strong wine that people could get drunk on.” I appreciate what they’re trying to say, because the Bible is clear that drunkenness is sinful (Ephesians 5:18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.), but to assert that this wine was Welch’s is simply an unreasonable interpretation of the scripture. I’ve been in a fraternity; I know what it means to “bring out the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink” – it means that now that they’re drunk, they don’t really care what they’re drinking. This is a good time to make an observation: the Bible is clear that drunkenness is wrong. It does nothing to draw us closer to Jesus Christ. 

But the fact is, Jesus miraculously provided wine for this wedding party.  While I don’t intend to make this message all about alcohol, I will say this: alcohol itself isn’t demonic.  Even the Apostle Paul counseled Timothy to Stop drinking only water and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses. (1 Timothy 5:23). It is how we use alcohol that can be problematic.  It’s like food; food is good, but gluttony is bad.  It’s no different than money; money itself isn’t bad, but sometimes the way we use it is.

What it comes down to is this: how can we most glorify God through everyday experiences?  In this season of Lent, maybe you have chosen to fast from something, and you find that perhaps that food or drink or show has a hold over you.  You can no easily give up your caffeine, sweets, between-meal snacks, or extra portions than an alcoholic can give up his drink.  Is God being glorified by every aspect of your life, or has something else become a competing god?

There are many reasons why this passage is intriguing to me; certainly the alcohol issue is one of them, but also there is this: did you notice the interchange that Jesus has with his mother?  No, I’m not talking about him calling her “Woman” (the Greek doesn’t have the word “dear” – it’s the word gunae, which simply means “woman”; I think the NIV inserts “dear” so we don’t think he’s just yelling at his mom). Actually the word he uses is the same term he uses for her later, at the cross, when he entrusts her into the care of the disciple he loves. 

The problematic issue is the whole interchange between Mary and Jesus.  He asks her “why do you involve me? My time has not yet come.” (John 2:4).  For Jesus to recognize this and to talk about his “time” foreshadows the moment when his time will come.  In John 12:23, Jesus says, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” As he continues, he makes it clear that “the hour” is the hour of his sacrificial death, with which he will glorify God.  Jesus knows that he came to earth with a purpose, with a job to do.

And now isn’t the time to do it.

Yet, and this is amazing, Jesus goes ahead in obedience to his mother. Why?  I’m guessing it has something to do with Jesus being fully obedient to His Father.  Did you remember that “Honor your father and your mother” (Ex. 20:12) was one of the Ten Commandments?  Did you think that Jesus was somehow “above” following the Ten Commandments? If even Jesus was obedient to his parents, it makes it a whole lot more appropriate for all of us to be so as well.

Last week I mentioned that obedience doesn’t come naturally for us; if it did, God wouldn’t have had to include “honor your father and your mother” in the Ten Commandments.  As it happened, Jesus had to choose to be obedient to Mary.  If you’re like me, just thinking along these lines is hard; I tend to see Jesus as somehow automatically obedient already.  Yes, Jesus was God.  But he had to go through the same struggles as we do, which includes learning and choosing obedience.  And I believe this was an early test of his obedience.  Was he going to be obedient in small things? If not, how could God expect him to be obedient in big things?

A note to the teenagers out there: many of you have chosen obedience, and that’s awesome.  We’ve got some really awesome young people in our congregation.  But I wonder this: are you choosing obedience at home?  Are you choosing obedience in the small things?  Do you willfully keep your room clean just because your mom tells you to?  I realize and understand that your parents require you to do all sorts of little, really insignificant things that you don’t care about at all.  The job itself isn’t the issue.  Obedience is.  And when they know they can trust you with little things, they’ll begin to trust you with bigger things.

And Mary knew Jesus would be obedient, so she instructed the servants to do what he told them to do.

Then comes the miracle.  I’ve read this so many times that it sometimes loses its surprise: where there was water, now there is wine.  Jesus somehow changes the water into wine, really good wine at that.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised: we’re talking about the God who created the world out of nothing; why shouldn’t he be able to turn water into wine?  

Maybe because it’s not what we’re used to seeing?

But God is always doing new things, things that we’re not exactly used to.  Did you notice the response to the miracle?  The master of the banquet tasted the wine and complemented the bridegroom for the fantastic wine he’d saved.  No real mention was given to Jesus.  Excepting Jesus’ closest friends, nobody even knew that a miracle had happened.

This is frequently the case when a miracle happens even today.  Other people don’t realize what even happened.  To them, it’s just a little strange.  Like the one day when my brother, my sister, and I were all riding Big Wheels around the neighborhood – you wouldn’t think this was a miracle, that we had Big Wheels unless you knew our situation, that our family was too poor to afford them.  Or that I’d prayed, asking God for one for my fifth birthday.  Or that my dad had been riding his bike around to deliver flyers advertising the brand new preschool my mom was trying to open (yes, riding his bike; gas was too expensive).  And he found a little Big Wheel broken in someone’s garbage, and he thought he might be able to fix it up, so he strapped it to the back of his bike.  And then that guy with a truck asked him if he’d like more, because he had plenty of parts there in the back of his truck.  Enough parts for three Big Wheels.

My neighbor kids didn’t necessarily know that God had provided a miracle.  All they knew is that we had Big Wheels.  Likewise most of the guests at the wedding didn’t know anything about Jesus transforming water into wine. All they knew is that there was really good wine.

But Jesus’ closest friends knew, and they put their faith in him. (John 2:11).

They put their faith in him because they saw him in action.  They see a remarkable transformation.  Jesus takes water from the ceremonial washing jars and turns it into wine.  Remember that we’re not talking about a cooler filled with bottled water.  We’re not talking about Brita filtered water or probably even about fresh spring water.  People of this time and place often saved water in cisterns or caves.  When it rained, they filled the cisterns.  Then they drank the water.  No wonder their life expectancy was so low!  I just tell you this so you know we’re not even necessarily talking about really good water.

This is important because the Holy Spirit is still all about transformation, and He doesn’t merely transform inanimate objects like water into wine.  He is all about the transformation of lives.  Of your lives and mine.

He doesn’t simply take “already good” lives and transform them into “better” lives.  He takes rotten, stinky, smelly, dirty, sinful lives and transforms them into clean, pure, sinless lives.  And He does it all the time.  It is only through God’s grace that we are justified – which is when God, through Jesus’ gift on the Cross, takes away the guilt of all of our sins.

It is just as if we had never sinned.  Transformation. A change from sin to holiness.

Justification is the beginning of sanctification.  This is when God, by grace, removes our actual sin.  I want that to sink in for a moment. I know that some of you think of yourselves in terms of your sin.  Your past sin has no more hold over you because of God’s grace.  And If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (1 Corinthians 5:17). Did you get that? You are a new creation!  You aren’t the old sin-stained murky water from a cistern.  You are new.  You are new.  Have you ever had an experience where you caught up with someone you hadn’t seen in a long time, and they’re surprised at your transformation?  They remember the “old” you, but they see something different – something that can’t be denied.

But unfortunately sometimes the people around you don’t notice.  There are some who don’t accept that you are a new creation.  In fact, some of us right in this room fall into this trap.  If we started naming names of people you graduated with, you’d probably describe them based on who they were in high school.  This one was the football captain.  This one was stuck-up.  This one was a nerd.  This one was the homecoming queen.

Meanwhile, they, just like you, have lived five, ten, twenty, fifty years, and they are hardly the person you went to school with, for good or bad.  The question is: do you let them grow up?  Now, I want to bring this closer to home, into this room.  There are people in this room who you don’t like.  Don’t put on your shocked face; it’s true and you know it.  Some of you have good reasons, I know.  You’ve been hurt before by people right in this room.  And I understand that injuries caused by fellow Christians are some of the hardest injuries to suffer. Because these are the people who are supposed to be doing what’s right, and many of you remember the wrong they did.

As Christians, we’re called to forgive.  If we hold those grudges against one another, what we’re doing, honestly, is saying, “I don’t believe Jesus is powerful enough to transform that person.”  You look at that person and you still see the same old stone water jar.  But if you look inside, you’ll see something completely different.  Something transformed.  Someone transformed.  And if you’re unwilling to see it, that says more about you than about them. Imagine if the wedding guests behaved this way: everyone is talking about that wine, but I know we ran out about 10 minutes ago.  So I refuse to taste the “new” wine, because I “know” it’s just water.  You miss out on something fantastic because you refuse to believe.

How about starting today with a new attitude about those around you?  Start off with a clean slate, allowing Jesus to totally cleanse and transform you… and the people around you as well!