The Wedding Signer

The Wedding Signer
The First Sign of Jesus
John 2:1-11

Introduction:

How fitting for us the day before the Federal election God's providence has brought us to a section of scripture that deals with a topic which has great bearing on tomorrow's election: marriage!

You've probably heard me complain already that this past week has been a busy week for Gerda and I. It has been a 'perfect storm' in terms of busy-ness. Last week I bought a used car, I started teaching my Systematic Theology class at the Bible College, we also began our Christianity Explored study on Tuesday nights, Thursday was our Annual General Meeting at the church, the kids had the dentist on Wednesday, Friday was registration for ESL and on top of everything we're moving.

I am sure that I am not the only one in our church who has been busy the last couple of weeks. Busy-ness is an epidemic. Any way, I am not complaining- all that was to say that I was unable to spend as much time doing the kind of exegetical work that I would have liked to have done for this text.

Fortunately this text is rich in topics and themes and it readily lends itself to being preached. The context, both ours and the gospels, also gives me opportunity to editorialize just a little in advance of tomorrow's election..

(Explain the context) Read 2:1-11

In order to fully understand and appreciate the many layers of meaning here we to look at it from different angles... the same way that a jeweler examines the cut of a diamond by looking at it the reflection of light through various angles. There are at least three ways that this event can and should be read: 1) the typical, or metaphorical reading; 2) Prophetical reading; and 3) practical reading. Let's look at these:

I. Typical
Verse 11 calls this event the “beginning of signs”. The fact that this event is a sign implies that there is something being signified. Let's look at the way that the Holy Spirit inspired John to choose his words:

1. He introduces the narrative with the phrase, “on the third day.” likely being the third day after Jesus' promised Nathaniel that he would see “heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (1:51). That promise so quickly to be fulfilled.

The “third day” is an obvious reference to the third day of creation when the earth emerged from the watery abyss and was that same day covered by God with vegetation. That's a picture of birth or rebirth that calls to mind the resurrection of Christ from his own descention into the abyss of death after having suffered and been humiliated at Calvary.

Not only did John begin this narrative with creation language, he also ends it with creation language calling it the “beginning of signs”- seven signs to be exact, one for each day of the week.

Marriage is like that. It is a reminder of creation. That on the sixth day God made one man and one woman for the purpose that they could reflect the image of God by their life giving union that would birth offspring who also reflect that image, now marred by sin. Marriage between a man and a woman affirms life and displays the creativity of God..

2. That leads us to the next typological theme: the fact that this event takes place at a wedding feast. A picture perhaps of the wedding feast of the Lamb when Christ the King shall return at the end of the ages to take for himself a royal wife, the bride of Christ, his church.

That too will be a day of new creation, when the dead in Christ shall be resurrected imperishable and we who are alive shall be caught up together with him in the air.

Jesus taught in one of his parables about the wedding feast of the Son (Matthew 22), about a King who invited the noble people of his kingdom to a wedding feast. When they refused, he rejected them, and instead called the ignoble of his kingdom, the “not many wise, not many noble” to eat at the wedding feast of his son.

3. Then there is the wine and the water. Wine represents gladness in the Psalm, and also wrath in the book of Revelations. Here is may signify both. For on the one hand, this good wine brought joy to the attendees of the wedding. But it also signifies the blood of his new covenant which would be ratified at Calvary where the wrath of God and the mercy of God would converge on the only begotten of God for the sake of those who have been invited to the wedding.

The water was used for ceremonial cleansing, a picture of the Old Covenant and the failure of the Law. But note, that Jesus does not simply cast out the water and the earthen vessels that contain it. Instead, he transforms them into something that has power.

Likewise, in the new covenant, we find traces of the old: the ten commandments remain, there is still a priesthood, just a better one because Jesus is our high priest. The sacrifice remains, but it has been offered once on the cross and it accomplished what those old covenant sacrifices were unable to do. There is still a people of God too, the Church, the Israel of God, Abraham's true heirs.

Perhaps this is a set up for the next chapter where Jesus would tell Nichodemus, “unless one is born of water and of Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God [because] that which is born of flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit” (3:5-6). Later he would tell the Samaritan woman, “whoever drinks of the water in this well shall thirst again, but whoever drinks the water that I give shall never thirst again” it will spring up into everlasting life (4:13-14).

Once, when the chief priests sent officials to interrogate Jesus, he said to them “'If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me as the scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.' But he was talking about the Holy Spirit, whom believers would receive” (7:37-38).

Notice that there were six jars, not seven. Seven is the number of perfection; the number of God, because God created everything in six days and on the seventh day he rested. Six, on the other hand is the number of man, because God created man on the sixth day.

So the picture of those earthen vessels having dead water transformed into the best wine of gladness is a picture of God giving new birth to our dead spirits as a deposit guaranteeing our hope of the resurrection. We have this treasure in earthen vessels.

II. Prophetical
There is also an immediate and a prophetical reading of this text which we have already discussed. The immediate prophetical reference is the use of the phrase “third day” which refers to Jesus' resurrection on the third day.

The remote prophetical reading comes from the Wedding feast terminology which is a picture of the banquet that he has prepared for us in eternity when we will eat with Abraham and the patriarchs and the heroes of the faith.

III. Practical
So let's move on to the practical or literal reading of this text; the plain interpretation.

When Mary came to Jesus and presented him with the problem, his response to her appears sharp, he says, “women, my hour has not yet come” (v. 4).

This is often read as a sharp rebuke to his mother and then a capitulation to her. But I do not think it is necessary to read negatively or harshly Jesus' referring to Mary as 'woman' rather then as 'mother' as some people might argue.

For instance, in 4:21, Jesus refers to the Samaritan woman in like manner saying, “woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father... true worshippers will worship in Spirit and in truth” (4:21-23).

When the Jews brought the adulteress to him, and Jesus turned their trap back on them, he asked the adulteress, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours?” (8:10). In both these cases we imagine Jesus speaking in a gentile manner, not in terms of a sharp rebuke.

Perhaps my strongest argument comes from one of Jesus' last sayings from the cross in 19:26, “when Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing by her, he said to His mother, 'Woman, behold your son.” Again, we can only read this in the tone of a loving son taking care for the welfare of his mother.

So let's read it that way, “woman... my hour has not yet come.”

And what does he mean by “my hour has not yet come”? Is he speaking in terms of 1 John 2:18, where John writes, “Little children, it is the last hour... even now many anti-Christs have come, by which we know it is the last hour”? John is speaking in eschatological terms in that passage speaking of the age before Christ's return which extends from the first century to this very hour. It is not a literal hour.

However, I do not think Jesus was talking about that hour. He was in fact talking about the hour of his glorification. Turn to John 12:23-28.

That hour, in which Jesus suffered so brutally, is what made it difficult for Israel to believe in Jesus. And as we draw closer and closer to that hour in the gospel, fewer and fewer people believe- even some who were once said to have believed, like his disciples, have their moment of doubt.

It would be easy to believe in an Arnold Schwartzeneggar type commando Messiah who rides in on a white horse and rids the Earth of evil and gets the girl. But for Jesus to be glorified meant he would have to suffer and appear to be defeated- and he did it for us- those who believe, those who are invited to his wedding feast.

Conclusion:
So let me close with my editorial. Tomorrow is the election. Whoever wins will shape the direction of our country. But for Christians, we have a greater hope and a greater Kingdom. This one will pass, but that one will last forever and the King is our saviour.

Nevertheless, we have a responsibility to let our voice be heard, and our voice must be shaped by what is pure and good and true and right. So please vote tomorrow and maybe Jesus can (metaphorically speaking) turn the old water of our nation into good wine.