Let the Party Go On

[This message was delivered at John Calvin Presbyterian Church, Henrietta NY, on January 19, 2025, based on Isaiah 62:1-5 and John 2:1-11.]

Last Sunday I was to be in Los Angeles. With my older daughter I was going to spend a long weekend visiting cousins, other relatives, and friends. I am a native of LA. We had even purchased tickets to go to the Rams-Vikings NFL playoff game. Then wildfires started and spread like cancer. My wife, who was not making this trip with us, was raised in Pacific Palisades. Her entire childhood neighborhood is gone. We had to postpone the trip. The carefully planned party came to a grinding halt.

A wedding party running out of wine is hardly to be compared to wildfires destroying thousands of homes and businesses, taking several dozen lives, and charring untold acres of land. But if it is our wedding, it is big deal. If we have been planning for months for this wedding and reception, with a lot of guests planning on enjoying a good party, it is a big deal if the wine runs out. If all those guests have brought generous gifts, it is a big deal if the wine runs out early. If we are the hosts, if this is my daughter’s long anticipated wedding, the one she has been envisioning since childhood, and the wine runs our early, we are more than embarrassed.

We know very little about Cana. It was probably about a 90-minute walk north of Nazareth. Outside of this passage in John, it is only mentioned two other times in the Bible, both in John. Apparently only John knew about it. It doesn’t sound like a tourist site. But maybe someone turned an old barn into a wedding destination.

And why are Mary, Jesus, and his disciples invited? We have no record of them ever visiting Cana except this once. Surely no one expects them to bring lavish gifts. They are not the best dressed people there. Some of those disciples lack social graces. A couple of them are zealots, hotheads; you don’t want them to drink too much. They aren’t much interested in fancy little appetizers and sparkling beverages in fancy glasses. Just some hearty red wine will be sufficient. And then the wine runs out.

This leads to one of the most quirky conversations in the gospels, going something like this.

Mary to Jesus: “They are out of wine.”

Jesus to Mary: “So what; that’s not my problem. I’ve got bigger things to deal with.”

Mary to the servants: “Do whatever he tells you.”

This is like Bob Uecker talking to Yogi Berra about baseball. Or about anything. What did you say? What do you mean? Speak English, please.

Mary to Jesus: “They are out of wine.”

Jesus to Mary: “Thanks for pointing out the obvious. By the way, I’m going to be crucified before long, so this is just not that big a deal to me.”

Mary to servants: “Just in case my son, who happens to be the Messiah, comes up with a useful suggestion, be ready to do something.”

We know what happens next, but let’s pretend we don’t for a few minutes. Let’s see it as if for the first time. There is a row of six large stone jars, the kind you might put on your deck and plant some tomatoes in. Except these jars are used for Jewish ceremonial rites of purification. Each can hold up to 30 gallons of water. They are attractive and serve a religious purpose. Jesus tells the servants to fill them with water. Not wanting to incur Mary’s wrath, they fill them to the brim. Jesus then says to draw some of that water and bring it to the party host. That seems unusual, but why not? When the host looks at the water, it is deep red. He takes a sip. It is fine wine. He is astonished and bewildered. He tells the groom, “Everyone serves the good wine first and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” Forget the finger foods; this wine is delicious. Some of the guests decide on the spot to increase their wedding gifts. “Honey, please find our envelope and bring it back. We need to slip more money in it.” The band plays an extra hour for no extra charge. The dancing gets wilder. And the party goes on and on, till about 180 gallons of the finest wine are gone.

John concludes this narrative, and John is only gospel writer that even mentions it, in this way. “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.” Note that John did not use the word “miracle.” The word miracle does not occur in the four gospels. The word sign appears over 40 times. The distinction is important. Miracles tend to dazzle and impress us. Signs point us to something beyond the sign itself. Jesus never did miracles like a magician, to dazzle us. He did signs to point us to the inbreaking kingdom of God, the new way of believing and living. Everything he does is signaling God’s glory right here among us, even right here at a wedding party. The turning of water into wine just doesn’t seem like that big a deal. It’s not like giving a blind person sight or a crippled person mobility. It’s not like giving someone with cancer a long-term cure. It simply enables a party to go one a bit longer. But that party would end. The party goers would return to their everyday workaday lives. But they will never forget what happened at that wedding party.

Jesus took the ordinary—is anything more ordinary than water?—and made something extraordinary. Not lost on us is that Jesus uses some jars with religious purposes to do something religion can never do: to reveal God’s glory and help us to believe in him, to put our trust completely in him. At best religion can point us beyond itself to Jesus who is more than religion can ever be. At worst, religion can get in the way of God’s glory in Jesus and become another set of rigid rules.

A wedding party once stopped because the wine ran out. Then Jesus took some water and revived the party. The beginning of a marriage is cause for a party. Isaiah uses marriage imagery to describe how God loves us. “For the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married.  For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.” (Isaiah 62:4-5) God delights in us and God rejoices over us.

When the host first tasted that new wine, he wondered where it came from. John said, “The servants knew.” The helpers knew. Of course. The helpers saw Jesus up close. When Mr. Rogers was a child and saw scary things in the news, as we do now so often, his mother would say to him, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” Where there is need, Jesus is always helping. In the wildfires of Los Angeles, people are helping. Jesus is among them, helping with them.  In the ruins of Gaza and Ukraine, Jesus is helping with the helpers.

Let the new wine flow. Let the party begin and go on and on. The glory of God is on full display.