This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. John sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, August 6, 1978.
About this sermon
An overview of John 1 through 12 sets up a close look at the wedding at Cana, where the significance of the wine itself gets careful attention rather than passing mention. Christ’s own words to his mother in 2:4 receive real exegetical care, along with what she represents in the scene more broadly. Believing the signs, John’s own stated purpose, is what the whole episode is finally asking of its readers.
Sermon transcript
As for nothing in my name, ask that you will receive, that your joy may be made whole. Our Father, we ask that all pretense may be removed from us, your people. All that attitude of religiosity, that they believe that we People want to join the success of the true heart of faith and come before you now and see what you have for us in your words. In this hour of God’s raising us in the great incantation, they which be evil want to come upon us and deliver us for your name’s sake.
John’s Gospel can be divided into two parts. The first, twelve chapters, dealing with the theme of the manifestation of the glory of Christ. The Book of Signs, if you would, signs of His Christ manifesting His glory, and calling upon those who behold the signs of His Second, as far as I’m concerned, is the Book of John, whose Gospels, 13 through the 21st chapter, being the Book of Love, demonstration of Christ’s love for his own, the MCAO himself, and his sacrifice on the cross on their behalf. We are in that first portion of the Gospel this morning, the first twelve chapters, the story of a woman, or of the wedding at Cana of Galilee. appeared on the east side of the River Jordan, and there they encountered John.
John had pointed him out to some of his disciples and described Jesus as the Lamb of God who comes taking away the sins of the world. Jesus had moved north from the Jordan into the area of Galilee, and there he has encountered others who are now following him. Added to his band has become Peter, Andrew’s brother. Also, Philip has pointed out to Nathanael that this Jesus is the one about whom the prophets spoke. But that he was impressed with his interview with Jesus and amazed at the things that Jesus has been able to speak to him, Jesus has told him that he is even going to see greater things than this.
In fact, he’s going to see the heavens open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. Jesus Christ portrays Himself to be, then, the very gate of heaven, bringing to earth the revelation of those things which are above. Heaven, then, seems to play a very important role in the perspective that we are given of Jesus’ ministry here in John’s Gospel. Heaven, if you will, in Christ Himself, has descended, has come and made itself manifest in the experience and in circumstances of the sinful world. The glory of heaven is even now being revealed in the person and the work of Jesus Christ. What a wonderful message this is, that in this world, yes, the very same world in which you live, it is indeed possible, and yes, it is indeed true, that heaven itself has made its appearance. The manifestation of that revelation of heaven in our midst means not merely glory, if we could speak about mere glory, but in terms of these opening chapters of John’s Gospel, it means life.
Jesus speaks about that life immediately throughout these portions of this Gospel, and how He builds up to that wonderful declaration in the tenth chapter about how all those who preceded Him came to lay waste, but He had come that they might have life and have that life more abundantly. The abundant life of which Jesus speaks there is part and parcel of that which He shall reveal in Bethany when He raises Lazarus from the dead in the eleventh chapter of this Gospel, but also has been part and parcel of that wonderful, magnificent life that He has been displaying all along. to a loyal official’s son at the end of the fourth chapter, healing of a man who is crippled, unable to make it down to the pool that was served by the angel, reportedly according to a tradition believed by many Jews. Christ multiplies the loaves and the figs and feeds the five thousand in John chapter 6. life given in abundance as Jesus comes, informing people to judge the righteous judgment, not the judgment that is according to appearances and according to the flesh, in John chapter 7 and chapter 8. And John chapter 9 is a story that has probably lost its place in your hearts as it has in the story of the man and woman’s life.
Life comes as part of life’s existence. The power of life now is made manifest. What kind of life is there? What kind of life is spoken of by Jesus to Nicodemus in the third chapter of his gospel? Not just life again. As if we were going to start all over once more, but life from above. That’s the science of life even in the process. You must be born from above. That kind of life lasts forever. It is eternal life.
Well, into these circumstances, in this second sense, comes Jesus in the town of Cana, about four miles north of his hometown of Nazareth, west of the city of Galilee, in Galilee itself. It appears there, it says, on the third day, very interestingly, on the third day. That reference to the third day is going to play a role in our understanding of the story as we come to feel the significance of the description given by John here and then. I’m not saying that more particularly in Hena. Hena, which the name itself may be, means The significance of that name may be, in order to direct the attention of the reader, knowing the significance of the name, condensed in the Old Testament.
And again, we may want to spell that out more in detail. of heaven, it’s life in its fullness and its completeness that he comes to give, not life that even would be on the par of that granted by the ministration of Moses. So that, in effect, what Jesus comes to give, contrasts that which was imparted through Moses.
And that contrast is referred to, spoken of, in the Old Testament, in the beginning of the first chapter of John’s Gospel, the 18th, the 17th verse. You read there, “…for the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, setting up a contrast between what was given to Moses and what is given now to Jesus Christ. A contrast, showing a contrast between the grace of Moses and the wrath of Jesus. The Count of Greece, then, they had a reference to events that surrounded That Old Testament story of the released sea, or the sea of release, or, as we come to understand it, the Red Sea, the events of Moses’ life and the experience of the Exodus. But what a wonderful display is given here by Jesus in contrast to those events that surround the ministry of Moses.
Those that come at the administration seem to be accompanied with death. He has a miracle that involves water. In fact, he’s involved in a miracle in which there is the transformation of water. That transformation is of water to blood. The water in the Nile becomes blood in the registration of death. Registration, which Paul refers to as the proclamation of the covenant of death, which is death of our creator.
But also, there is another story from a later period, a chapter on God. There was a certain royal official who signed the fifth tax of craniums. The royal official is a gentile. And again, Moses, in his ministry, was involved with sons of loyal officials, sons of Gentiles.
And remember, the result of his ministration, it brought death. The death of the firstborn of Egypt. And here he describes dealing with this from the Gentiles, and here he imparts life. Cana, therefore, in John’s Gospel, is brought very closely into proximity to the ministration of Moses, although it is a Mosaic wall. So you might have noticed, verse 6 here in chapter 2, that there were six stone water pots set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing 20 or 30 gallons each, the custom of washing before and after one’s sleep. So Moses is certainly here, but yet being portrayed for us is the fact that Jesus, the greater than Moses, was in ministry, that far exceeds Moses’ ministry for him as a body. That ministry is greater through the graciousness of God, being sent as now even to the Gentiles.
Well, a wedding has taken place here at Hades, and the guests have assembled, among them Jesus’ mother and Jesus himself, the disciple of our President. Now, this isn’t a wedding right unto what we are accomplished. These were real occasions. In fact, the wedding went on for weeks. And if you didn’t get rid of your guests, they would easily sort of come around. The event was filled with all kinds of activities.
Contracts had been entered into by both of the parents, by the parents of the groom and the parents of the bride. Contracts were bindings. I might mention here a passage that part of the contracts were bindings upon the families of the group whose providers were all menial, the man making sure that there was enough wine, making sure that it wouldn’t run out.
But the custom of the Jewish people with regard to marriage was that All the bridegroom’s friends would gather at his house and make this trek through town over to the waiting bride’s home, making a lot of noise on the way. And there they make their presence known, and, of course, the bride would be there in her home. She’d have all of her friends with her, and then there’d be the opening of the door. All the brides would come out with their families, their friends, and then together they would go back through the streets of the town to the home of the bridegroom.
And then the festivities would begin, the feasts. And as I said, the feasts, the festival ages of wax, long and sweet. So it wasn’t just something that you went for a couple of hours and then were able to leave. You were there for duration, and it was a real celebration.
Now, we notice that the water was set there for the Jewish custom of purification, that at meal it was required of the Jew that they wash before and after meal. And you can find reference to this custom on the custom of theirs in Mark chapter 7. So the King is set for the miracle at King.
The occasion has come, the guests have assembled, there’s a festive atmosphere, everybody is enjoying themselves, and the wine runs out. Now, you have to understand the significance of the wine. This was not raised This was the real stuff, and the significance of the real stuff is that it was the wine which was dependent upon the final draw. Now, let’s not be too poignant. The customs of the Jewish culture were such that, yes, in that culture, the wine ran freely. And I don’t think that there is any way that you can read, for instance, the tenth verse of this chapter and think that what is in view here in the remarks of the ten waiters is simply racism.
It is wine. The significance of the wine at the marketing was the wine sustained the joy. It made people happy. And this, in keeping with some of the passages in the Old Testament, is to speak of the ability of wine to make the heartland glad. Well, the wine is gone, and that means that the door is gone.
I’m just not saying that the activity and the atmosphere of the agitated and dissipated brain So now, here comes the mother of Jesus, and she tells Jesus of the circumstances, and for him to do something about it. Jesus says to her, Woman, what have I to do with you?
My hour has not yet come. Well, the hour is very important. In John’s Gospel, it is this hour that Jesus is always referring to as He speaks to people. You remember what He said to the woman at the well. The hour is coming, and yet it’s already here when the true worshipers of God shall worship Him in spirit and in truth, for such the Father seems to worship Him. of this hour repeatedly. Remember, on one occasion, when his brothers and his family are going down to Jerusalem for a feast at the opening of the seventh chapter of his Gospel, he tells them that his hour, his time, has not yet arrived, and therefore he’s not going to Jerusalem, at least for them or for their purposes. The hour is very important in This Gospel, and then in the 12th chapter you have the reference to the fact that the Gentiles come seeking Jesus, and when those Gentiles come seeking Jesus, it’s almost as if that’s Christ’s cue, and he says, My hour has arrived.
And in this hour, the Son of Man will be glorified. And in this hour, the ruler of this world will be cast out. The hour, then, to which Jesus is referring is that hour, that hour of glory, the glorification of the sun, the hour of crucifixion. The hour of his death and burial, his resurrection, his ascension, yes, all of that is seen to be the hour, and in that hour, you see, Jesus is saying that the sign of my wedding will have arrived, when I and my father will be responsible to fulfill all the contracts that have been made.
That’s why He’s coming. Now, we do tend to get confused about the role of Mary in the story. And we’re accustomed to hearing possibly our Roman Catholic friends tell us about how exalted Mary is in this passage, that even though Jesus doesn’t want to do this because of His mother, He does do it because of her personage and importance of her. Well, Jesus does a very interesting thing here. This is how I want to draw the message, the point, the conclusion. He treats his mother in a very special way, because he sees in his mother more than his mother. His mother Not in her person by herself, as if she had some sort of holy, sacred faith.
His mother is also seen to be, by Jesus at this point, the people of God, the Church. And it’s as if now the Church is coming to her floor. And before the hour has arrived, making request of the Lord, that the Lord resolve the problem, the situation, the fact that the joy at one mile of the festivities of this marriage. And Jesus, in responding to her, treats her as if she is the Church, making request before the time has arrived.
What do I have to do with you, woman? My hour has not yet come, but instead of supplying her, then, with the reality which is the that shall be realized in the fullness of the hour when Christ is crucified, when he’s buried, when he arises when he ascends and dispenses his Spirit, instead of giving to her and to the festival and to the wedding feast the reality that he intends to give only as the fulfillment of the spilling of his own blood, he gives to her and to the Church and to his disciples a crime. Instead of the reality, he gives a sign, and that sign points forward to the fullness that shall be imparted when indeed the hour comes. In the fullness of the hour, in the keeping of all the contracts, the powers made, implemented, and carried out by the Son, in the hour of the marriage of the Son, then the fullness, the fullness of the request of the Church shall be met.
He shall give to his church the abundance that she desires. And what abundance? Water. That’s why God tells us that we want a pot that holds twenty to thirty gallons. There’s six of them there, and multiply that by six and you end up somewhere around a hundred and eighty gallons worth of water. Now that certainly is a bundle of water.
And the point is, with regard to God, that Christ Himself in the fullness of the hour of power shall supply such things that shall never come out. Now you begin to see the significance of the abundant life that Christ comes to impart, and the fullness that He comes to bestow. Such abundance and fullness means the end of anxiety, and the trial and the nurturing of faith. The Father’s resources and productivity as people of the Church in the realization of the hour are infinite, inexhaustible. They can’t be depleted and will never run out.
Jesus says to the woman at the well, if you knew who and what you were talking to, you would ask him to give you water. And he would give you such water that if you drank it, you would never drink it again. In discussions with the Jews, we’re questioning him about his multiple days of loaves and fishes. He tells them about an inexhaustible source of bread, namely himself. If you feast on him, you will never conquer.
At that tomb outside of Bethany, where Mary and Martha are weeping because their brother has died, and tells those women that he has such life is that if they believe in him, they will never die. This is the character of the gospel in which we believe. The kind of gospel that is able to put to rest our fears, which prompts our Lord to say in our passages, what is not your time?
You believe in me. You believe in God, believe also in me. Such a demeanor, such a gait in our walk, such a countenance leads to reality. Recognizing that Jesus Christ comes in the hour, done to bestow the fullness of all the Father and the Son. Are you a stranger to this fullness of joy in which the abundance of wine poured pointed forward? Our response must be the response of the disciple speaking there in the 11th verse. He manifested his glory and the disciple believed.
Our belief means the fullness of joy, the abundance of life before our death. Our Father has the attitude that you might strengthen us in times when we are weak, deserves as well as the disciples, that they stumble and fall, yet we recognize that we are in that power, that power of fulfilling and accomplishing, that power of those things which are necessary for the experiencing of the true joy of death are behind us, and we live in a day when those things are available. Well, now may we live through our faith. How does that pulse of joy manage to us?
For surely, up to one point, the Church has made no request of Christ. Now may we request their promise that they will be free in order that their joy may be full. All of this affords the Word of God. We pray Our Lord to be by the benefit of His greatness and power by the partaking of this power which has come through Christ, magnifying Him because He is the Lamb that was worthy, that was slain on our behalf, magnifying His name because out of the abundant treasure of His everlasting kingdom is granted us a provision that shall never be dissipated.
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