A sermon preached by Rev. Deana Dudley at Christos MCC and Holy Fellowship MCC 18 January 2004 Scripture:  John 2:1-11

When I grew up in the Baptist Sunday School, I remember occasionally hearing this account of Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana when I was a little kid. Now, mind you, the Baptists were a little suspicious of that wine thing. A couple of my Sunday School teachers assured us that, notwithstanding that they took everything else Jesus did absolutely literally, the Bible couldn’t POSSIBLY have meant that Jesus turned water into actual wine. They insisted that it must have really meant grape juice. Or it might have been wine, but it couldn’t have had alcohol in it. (Huh?) Folks, on this point you might as well take the bible literally. It was wine. It’s not even remotely realistic to suggest it was anything else. And now, thinking about it years later, I just think it’s sad that they missed the point, the joy, of this gospel lesson.

But having grown up with this story, I think it must have been kind of floating around in the back of my head when Anne and I were planning our own wedding last Fall. And I think that’s why, subconsciously, I had this horrible fear of running out of champagne at the wedding reception. So I went to my local LCBO and asked them how much champagne I should buy. And they said, three cases.

This is probably evidence, as if any were needed, that I just wasn’t thinking right in the weeks leading up to the wedding. In retrospect, I admit that it was poor planning to ask the person who profits on the champagne sales how MUCH to get! Anyhow, I told them the maximum number of people we might have, and I pointed out that they didn’t all drink, and that we’d also have punch and sparkling cider, and that there’d also be a good number of kids there.... and after all that, they still suggested that I get three cases of champagne. 36 bottles.

Now, it’s probably even FURTHER evidence, as if any more were needed, that I just wasn’t thinking right in the weeks leading up to the wedding, because it didn’t even occur to me that this was really quite a LOT of champagne. It never once occurred to me, right up until the afternoon of the wedding, as my poor brother-in-law Ray and I were hauling in champagne and sparkling cider, and he said, "Are you NUTS? What are you going to do with all this stuff?" And by then it was too late. Fortunately, as it turns out, you can return unopened bottles to the LCBO, and after the wedding, I did, in fact, return more than half of those three cases of champagne.

Years and years ago, when Johnny Carson was the host of The Tonight Show he interviewed a little boy, about eight years old, from West Virginia. And he was on the show because he’d rescued two of his little friends in a coalmine. And as Johnny talked to the boy, it became apparent to him and the audience that the young man was a Christian. So Johnny asked him if he attended Sunday school, and he said he did. So Johnny asked, "What are you learning in Sunday school?" (Always a dangerous question to ask a kid.) And the little boy said that last week their lesson was about when Jesus went to a wedding and turned water into wine." Well the audience loved that, they howled, but Johnny tried to keep a straight face, and asked, "And what did you learn from that story?" (An even more dangerous question.) Well, the little boy squirmed a bit, and it was apparent he hadn't actually given it much thought. But then he brightened up as the answer occurred to him, like an epiphany, and he said, "If you're going to have a wedding, make sure you invite Jesus!"

And you know, that little boy was on to something. Weddings are a time of Joy. And it sounds like the folks at this wedding in Cana were having a joyful time. It says that it was the third day, and there was a wedding.

Why does it say "the third day?" Why is it specific that way? Well, there was and still is today in Greek or Hebrew no other way of designating the day of the week. Moreover the third day was and is regarded in Jewish custom as particularly propitious for weddings - because the third day creation is the only one in which it is TWICE said that God saw what God had created and said it was very good (Gen.1:10,12). So it was a very good day, a day of joy.

But there’s a problem. The party’s just getting revved up, and they’ve run out of wine. And this is a BIG problem. It’s not just that they’re party poopers. Weddings are a big deal today, but they were even more so back in Bible times. In Israel millennia ago a wedding was the high point of the year. Everything would stop so that a wedding could take place. Even a rabbi was allowed to stop studying the torah to attend a wedding. The celebration would continue for days. And the usual practice was to serve your good wine the first day or two.

Then, after people had gotten their fill, and Uncle Henry and Aunt Maude were starting to dance on tables, you’d bring out the cheaper, lower quality wine.

And now there’s this disaster, and the hosts are going to be seriously shamed in front of everyone they know. Because this is a huge breach of the rules of hospitality that their society ran on. It’s a big deal. I think, subconsciously, that’s what I was trying to avoid with those three cases of champagne, and all the food.

But there’s an even bigger problem. See, wine isn’t just wine. Whenever we read about wine in the Bible, we need to remember that on the surface, it’s talking about wine. But below the surface, it’s talking about joy. Wine, in the bible, is often a euphemism for life’s joy, for the joy that we were created to have in our lives, in the abundant lives God wants for us. Wine is a symbol of celebration and excitement. You see this all through the Bible, wine is a symbol for joy, as in Psalm 104:15: "Wine gladdens the hearts of people." Or in my favourite book of the Bible, Isaiah 55:1: "Come, all you who are thirsty.... Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost." In Jesus’ day there was a popular saying, "Without wine there is no joy." So we could very well translate Mary’s words to Jesus "They have no wine,"as, "They have no joy." They didn’t need their wine, so much as they needed their joy.

And I think Jesus knew that. Jesus was there. He was part of the life and the vitality of their celebration. He was part of the fun. Dare I say that Jesus shared the wine? I think he did. Not to abuse it or himself, but just as a matter of course. He shared the music. He shared the laughter. My Baptist forbears would probably have a cow about this, but he probably shared in the dancing as well. Jesus was never a sanctimonious, party-pooping killjoy.

Now, you might think otherwise, to see some of his followers. A lot of folks who call themselves Christians are mighty suspicious of joy and happiness. They’re always moaning, groaning, and complaining. When they sing hymns, you’d think that you’d asked them for a kidney. And I’ve gotta ask, where’s the joy?

Now, you may ask, "But wasn’t Jesus a man of sorrows, familiar with suffering?" (Isaiah 53). Yeah, he was, but he was lots more complex than that. The secret of Jesus was his inner joy that came from the Spirit of God within him. It was that joyful, radiant, and loving personality that attracted people to him and set him apart from the deadly serious long-faced religious types he constantly encountered in his ministry.

In John 15, did Jesus promise, "I have told you this so that my grim, serious attitude may be in you, and that your grim, serious attitude may be complete." NO! Look it up. He didn’t promise that! THIS is what he promised: "I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete." And whenever Jesus breaks into a person’s life, there comes with him a new quality that is as dramatic as changing water into wine.

So, if wine is joy, what do we do when the wine runs out? What CAN we do, when the joy runs out of our lives? You know the expression "eat, drink and be merry?" Did you know that advice is from the Bible? Ecclesiastes 8:15. Well, I think being Mary is the answer. Not m-e-r-r-y. M-a-r-y. Look at what Mary, Jesus’ mother did. She saw the problem. And she embraced the solution. So she went to Jesus and simply said: "They’re out of wine."

Now, note that Mary didn’t try to micro-manage the miracle. She didn’t tell him what to do. What she did do, was try to prepare people for the transformation that was about to take place. She told the servants to get the water jars ready, to fill them with water, with plain, old, ordinary H2O. And as we serve God, we, like the servants at the wedding, begin to see the changes happening in our lives and in the lives of those around us. Suddenly we see miracles everywhere. Water becomes wine. Ordinary people become ministers. Boring worship services become life-giving celebrations. Broken down lives take on meaning.

We often think of transformation in terms of opposites. We think of the ugly turned beautiful as in Beauty and the Beast or the kind Dr. Jekyll transformed into the cruel Mr. Hyde. Or we think of change to something unrecognizable like the caterpillar transformed into a winged butterfly or, as my grandsons have taught me, those transformer toys where a robot becomes a boat or a plane or something.

And it’s true that God can and does transform people in those ways. God does take mean, barren, ugly lives and transforms them into beautiful angels of mercy. God does take us when we are crawling along on our bellies and gives us wings to fly. God does take us when we are broken and make us whole.

But there’s another type of transformation modelled at Cana. At Cana, the object of transformation is something that is already good and pure and necessary. There’s nothing that needs fixing in the water. Water’s fine. It’s good. The message of transformation at Cana isn’t about making the bad good, but about making the good even better. The jugs that Jesus had filled with water were the water jugs used for ritual purification and washing. And Jesus takes that ordinary ritual water – something good in and of itself – and transformed it.

Put the divine touch on it. Put a little love into it. A little joy.... and made it more than plain water...made it wine. Gave it texture, taste, something to warm you as the glow spreads through your veins, something to free you to love and to laugh and to dance. Jesus came to take the ordinary wholesome duty of the Law and make it extraordinary, giddy with joy.

Is there any indication in our lives that we serve a God who turns water into wine? And if you remember the story, it's not just cheap jug wine, it's the good stuff. Do people see our faith as something that turns water into wine or does it look more like turning wine into water? Or vinegar? Has the wine run out in your life? Jesus came to bring life both good and abundant. Has the joy of your faith gone away? Is your life like those jars, just sitting around full of nothing? Or does your life reflect the miracle at Cana? What would our lives look like... what would our church look like... what would our world look like, if we let Jesus turn our water into wine?

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