John 2:1-11 on January 11th, 2026
Above is audio of the sermon pulled from the video and amplified.
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Many of us have been there before. We are at a nice restaurant and we think it would be lovely to have a glass of wine. So we pull out the wine list and we start to peruse. In the Lee House our eyes typically drift toward the Cabernet section. And when the waiter comes he asks, do you see anything you like? Yes, I will have your second cheapest bottle of wine please. Because you know you can't order the cheapest wine, right? And even in Jesus' time the only thing worse than the cheapest wine was no wine. And as you may know already at ancient weddings the party would last for days maybe even a week. And each day there was wine. The wine would start out at the top tier and then slowly descend in quality to the second cheapest wine. Maybe even the cheapest wine by the end of the week because at that point who could tell?
But before we get there we should set the scene again for what Jesus is doing here. The first thing that Jesus really does in the Gospel of John is go to this wedding. He has shown up briefly in chapter 1 but chapter 2 is where he becomes the main character of the story. And again the first thing that he does is go to a wedding. And at this wedding they begin to run out of wine. I don't know if it was poor planning or if the guests were really in a partying mood but the fact of the matter is they are out of wine. And so the mother of Jesus goes to him to explain the dilemma. And Jesus' response might make some of us recoil especially if we think of talking to our own mothers that way. The woman he says and then proceeds to kind of scold her. Two things about this. First I wonder how Mary knows. How does she know to go to Jesus with this problem? What did Jesus do when he was younger to show her that he would be the one to go to in this situation? Somehow she knows that when you listen to what Jesus says good things follow. Second mom doesn't seem to mind that Jesus responds this way. Despite what feels a little bit like a reprimand she carries on telling the servants to do whatever Jesus says. It's almost as if Jesus had agreed with her. Perhaps like many moms she knows her son better than he knows himself.
So at Jesus' direction the servants fill up the water jars to the brim. Take some to the wedding planner and low and behold it is wine. And not the second cheapest either. Not wine from a box. This is the best wine. Exceptional fine wine. Wine that most people don't save until the end. They saved the best for last. So the first thing that Jesus does in his public ministry is go to a wedding. But he doesn't just merely attend Jesus saves the day. Turning water into wine when the wine had run out. And the question here for me is why? Why is this the first thing that Jesus does? Why not heal our teacher cast out a demon or why go to a wedding? For starters maybe it shows that Jesus truly is entering our day today. He goes to a regular celebration something that we all have done. We aren't any temples or on a mountain top not yet. Jesus establishes his humanity, his personhood which might make even more sense in light of the first chapter of John's Gospel. If you remember chapter one is this poetic introduction to Jesus' story. And verse 16 in that prologue might help explain the why a bit more. John writes from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. It is an abundance of grace grace that overflows grace that is the best. And that I think is what we see at this wedding.
See wine isn't just a beverage. It was a sign of blessing, of joy, of goodness. And to run out of wine even cheap wine would have been not only shameful but like you were running out of blessing. No wine meant lasting embarrassment, humiliation, a disruption of joy. It's almost like a curse. Do you remember that wedding when they ran out of wine? I mean that's a bit tongue and cheap but running out really does have its consequences. And I wonder if that's true for us too. In our life in our world we start out with good, with energy, with hope, with plans, expectations and over time life takes its toll. Things aren't as good as they used to be. We start to run out, run out of energy, run out of health, run out of life. And that leads us to assume that abundance is temporary. So so often we hedge our bets and we settle for the second cheapest option. Just to keep things together a little bit longer. We adjust because that's how parties go. That's how life goes. Because eventually everything runs out on us.
But Jesus doesn't accept that as the final word. Jesus comes along with more wine. But not just enough wine to get you through. Jesus turns six huge jars of water into wine providing more wine and more blessing than could possibly be consumed. And again it's not just wine but the best wine. Jesus creates abundance. Wine upon wine, blessing upon blessing grace upon grace. That is the why. But also notice that when John describes Jesus' act of turning water to wine he doesn't describe it as a miracle. We usually do talking about Jesus' miraculous activities. But it said this is a sign. The last verse of our lesson says that this is the first of his signs that revealed his glory. And I think John uses this word because the point for him isn't that Jesus turns water to wine or does whatever surprising thing. John isn't at all interested in whether Jesus can defy the laws of physics or nature. Instead he is very much interested in whether or not we sense God's presence in those events. Do these signs point to and show us Jesus' unique role as God on earth? Do we see the invisible God in the visible Christ? Does Jesus make the unknowable God knowable? In Jesus do we see the abundance of a God who is all about grace upon grace? That is ultimately why Jesus does this. It's not about miracles or supernatural powers or even saving the day. It's because this reveals something about who God is for us. And today we see that God is one of abundance. The one who brings blessing out of curse, joy out of sorrow, and ultimately life out of death. It's the first thing he does. This sign tells us what kind of God we are dealing with. And therefore what kind of community that we are being shaped into. And trusting in God's abundance we don't accept the second cheapest faith or our scarcity thinking. We practice in an inclusive welcome grounded in the belief that God's grace does not run out even when we do. Jesus turning water into wine reminds us that God's grace upon grace does not run out even when all we're looking for is the second cheapest. Instead God meets us not with barely enough but with abundance and bread and wine and water and word and in the promise that God's blessing will never run out. And as we see we know that God saves the best for last.
Amen.