Do you mind if I start today with a terrible joke? Did you hear about the two TV antennas that got married? I understand that the wedding was terrible, but the reception was excellent!
I’ll let you think about that for a moment. Our lesson today from the Gospel of John is about a wedding reception that went from a near disaster to a roaring success. And it became a roaring success, of course, because Jesus was there.
You know the story well. “On the third day,” says John in his Gospel, a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. The third day John refers to is the third day after Jesus had left Judea. It was a two-day walk to Galilee, and so he and his disciples would have arrived on the morning of the third day.
Cana was a very small village, about 3.5 miles from Jesus’ home in Nazareth. It would not be surprising if Jesus’ family had some close friends in Cana, maybe even some family members. This is borne out by the fact that Mary, Jesus’ mother, was at the wedding, as were Jesus and his disciples.
Unfortunately, something somewhat calamitous happened at the reception. The hosts ran out of wine.
Now you have to understand what a big deal weddings were for Jewish families in that day. The festivities lasted for as long as a week. We’re told that the newly married couple often kept open house for this occasion. They wore crowns and dressed in their bridal robes. They were treated like a king and queen. Sometimes they were actually addressed as king and queen, and their word was treated as law. (1)
It was customary to have so much food and wine at the wedding that there would be leftovers. Running out of food or wine was considered a cardinal sin. In some instances, the offending family could even be fined. I understand that there are actual records from Jesus’ day of families being sued for running out of wine at a wedding. So, if you ran out of wine, it was more than an embarrassment. It was a serious problem.
But that’s what happened at this wedding. Mary, the mother of Jesus, brought it to his attention. “They have no more wine,” she said.
Jesus’ response was somewhat surprising. “Woman, why do you involve me?” he answered. Then he added, “My hour has not yet come.”
Scholars tell us that Jesus’ answer to his mother was not nearly as harsh in the Aramaic as it sounds to us. It was actually quite civil. It’s obvious that Mary was not offended. She said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” That’s always good advice, isn’t it? Do whatever Jesus tells you. That way you’ll never go wrong.
Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing. These were large containers each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.
Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” So the servants filled the jars to the brim.
Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”
And again, they did as he instructed, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where this wine had come from, John tells us, though the servants who had drawn the water knew.
Then the master of the banquet called the bridegroom aside and gave him an enormous compliment. “Everyone brings out the choice wine first,” he said, “and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink. But you have saved the best till now.”
Then John adds, “What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”
We’re all familiar with this interesting story: Jesus turned water into wine. But there are some lessons in this simple story, lessons we can profit from. Here is the first one: This is the purpose of miracles in the New Testament--they are signs that Jesus is who he says he is. Miracles don’t happen just because Jesus has compassion on someone. Jesus has compassion for everyone. If that were the only qualification, we would all experience miraculous occurrences all the time in our lives. Nobody would be sick or poor or lack anything essential to life. We would simply ask God for a miracle and He would grant it. But obviously life doesn’t happen that easily.
There’s a reason actual miracles are rare in this world. Albert Einstein was right when he said, “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.” That is, God created the natural order and He pronounced that it is good. Indeed it is perfect. Think about it. As far as we know to this point, earth is still the only planet in the universe that supports intelligent life.
What a magnificent planet God has given us. It is perfectly balanced--just enough light, just enough darkness, just enough moisture, just enough dry land, just enough heat, just enough cold to sustain the lives of billions of people. [This is why issues like climate change are so important. Human beings are the only creatures in the universe who seem to be capable of destroying this very delicate balance. Wouldn’t it be tragic if we were to take this world that God has so lovingly created and make it uninhabitable?]
Even God seems to be reluctant to interfere with the wonderful mechanisms of the natural order. That may be why genuine miracles seem to be so rare. I’m talking about miracles that completely defy the laws of nature.
It’s interesting, even the miracles that Jesus performed conformed to God’s natural laws. A perfect example is the turning of water into wine.
Pastor Ray Stedman notes that “water is being changed into wine in every vineyard in Northern California right now!” Think about that for a moment. Water is being changed to wine all over the world, in grapevines and then through the process of fermentation. It is a natural process in perfect harmony with the laws of nature.
Pastor Stedman cites C. S. Lewis’ helpful book titled Miracles. Lewis points out that in every one of Christ’s miracles Jesus remained true to the laws of nature. He simply short-circuited the natural process. For example, it takes a long time to produce wine from water using grape vines and fermentation tanks. Jesus simply did instantly what Mother Nature does over a longer period of time. (2) But Jesus did it all within God’s natural order. In no instance did he break God’s natural law.
As I said, even God seems reluctant to interfere with the wonderful mechanisms of the natural order. This universe in which we live is itself a miracle. God created it to be wondrous, bountiful, producing everything we need for life. But it is bound by certain laws.
For example, if you step out in front of a speeding car and pray that the laws of gravity and momentum will be suspended momentarily so that you will not be crushed, you will probably be disappointed. Can you imagine the chaos that would reign if the law of gravity were suspended even for one second? Airliners would be flung far into space. All the dishes would fly out of our cabinets.
Even God does not play havoc with the wondrous laws of nature. If you wonder why God does not perform more miracles in our lives, this may be part of the answer.
This is not to say, however, that extraordinary miracles do not happen. The testimony of Scripture is that they do. But they are rare, they are within the boundaries of God’s law and their purpose is to remind us of God’s presence in our lives. People of faith will always have beautiful things happen in their lives that they cannot explain. After all, God is at work in our lives and He is in control of the natural order. He does not break His laws, but He can certainly work through His laws.
One of my favorite miracle stories appears in one of The Chicken Soup for the Soul books. Patricia S. Laye tells of visiting a businessman’s office, and while they talked, she noticed that he constantly twirled a small paperweight with a dime in it. Curious, she asked him about it. And he told her a story of a miracle.
He said that when he was in college he and his roommate were down to their last dime. His roommate was on a scholarship, while he had earned his tuition by working in a cotton field and a grocery store. They were the first two members of their families to ever attend college, and their parents were extremely proud of them. Each month their families sent them a small allowance to buy food. That month, however, their checks hadn’t arrived. It was a Sunday, the fifth of the month, and between them they had one dime left.
They used the solitary dime to place a collect call to the businessman’s home five hundred miles away. Obviously this was many years ago when you could make a call for a dime. When his mother answered he could tell from her voice that something was wrong. She said that his father had been ill and out of work, so there was simply no way they could send any money that month. He asked his mother if his roommate’s check was in the mail. She said that she had talked with his mother. They also couldn’t raise the extra money that month either. They were sorry, but it looked like the two boys would have to come home. They had put off telling them, hoping for some solution.
“Were you disappointed?” Patricia Laye asked.
“Devastated,” the businessman said. They both were. They had one month remaining to finish the year, then they could work all summer to earn their expenses. He said his grades were excellent, so he had been guaranteed a scholarship for the next term.
“What did you do?” Laye asked.
This is when the miracle occurred. The businessman said that when he hung up the telephone, they heard a noise . . . and dimes started pouring out of the pay phone. It was crazy. They were laughing and holding out their hands to catch the money. Students walking down the hall thought they were out of their minds. They discussed taking the money and using it for their expenses. Nobody would know. But then they realized they couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t be honest.
He said they tried to return the money. He called the operator back and told her what had happened. She said that the money belonged to the telephone company, so to replace it in the machine. They did, over and over again, he said, but the machine wouldn’t accept the dimes.
He finally told the operator that the dimes kept falling back out. She said that she didn’t know what else to do, but she’d talk to her supervisor. When she returned she said that the boys would have to keep the money, because the company wasn’t going to send a man all the way out to the school just to collect a few dollars.
The businessman looked over at Patricia Laye and chuckled, but there was emotion in his voice. He said they laughed all the way back to their dorm room. After counting the money, they had $7.20. They decided to use the money to buy food from a nearby grocery store and to go job hunting after class.
When they told the manager of the grocery store what had happened as they paid for their purchases with their dimes he offered them both jobs beginning the next day. Their money bought enough supplies to last until their first paycheck.
To make a long story short, the businessman and his friend were able to finish college--the first in their families to do so. And they traced their accomplishment back to that miracle in a phone booth which this man believed was an act of God. (3)
Was it an act of God? I’m not wise enough to know. All I can say is that many of us have had experiences that seem to have no other explanation. My own experience is that people of faith are particularly prone to these kinds of experience.
Nevertheless, we are not to depend on miracles. We are to focus on living like Jesus and to trust that God will provide us with what we need. Meanwhile, if we should witness a miracle or experience a miracle, we are to count it as a sign of God’s presence and give thanks.
Dr. John Killinger tells a wonderful story about a friend of his named Millard Reed. Millard, a college president, was on a speaking trip in South Carolina when he suddenly fell ill and was rushed to the hospital. His liver had stopped functioning. His system was shutting down. The doctors said he would die. But a lot of people prayed for Millard, and when the doctors found a new liver for him and implanted it, he began to recover.
“One day, when Millard was back in Nashville at home, he was feeling a little depressed and he decided to go for a walk around his neighborhood. It was springtime and there were flowers growing in a neighbor’s yard. Millard stopped to look at them. A bumblebee was buzzing from one blossom to another. Millard knew about bumblebees and how aerodynamically challenged they are, with those heavy, cumbersome bodies and the tiny, insubstantial little wings. But suddenly this bumblebee did something truly amazing. It headed straight at Millard. And then before it got to him, it suddenly did a perfect loop‑de‑loop, like a stunt plane, and went back to the flower where it had started!
“This took Millard totally by surprise. He remembered the Book of Job, and how God at one point had asked Job if he could make a horse or if he could make a whale or any of the other magnificent creatures that God had put in the world. Millard said he could almost hear God saying aloud to him, ‘Millard, if I could make that crazy bumblebee do that, I could give you a new liver.’ And Millard began to cry. He was still crying when he went back to his house a few minutes later. His wife was alarmed. She thought something was wrong. ‘Oh no, honey,’ Millard said, ‘these aren’t tears of sadness, these are tears of joy. I am so happy to be alive in God’s beautiful world!’” (4)
Millard Reed had seen God in a bumblebee doing loop-de-loops. He had seen God in his physicians finding and implanting a new liver into his body. He had seen God in all those people who had prayed for him. He knew that each of these were miraculous signs of the presence of God.
Have you seen miracles? I hope so, for that means that you are attuned to the presence of God in your life. Most miracles occur within the events of everyday life within the confines of God’s natural order. That is the way God has chosen to work, but He does work. Keep your eyes open and, my guess is, you will see miracles galore.
1. Christopher Burkett http://www.preacherrhetorica.com/epiphany-2.html.
2. Ray C. Stedman, https://www.raystedman.org/new-testament/john/water-to-wine.
3. Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Nancy Mitchell-Autio and Patty Aubery, Chicken Soup for the Christian Family Soul: Stories to Open the Heart and Rekindle the Spirit (HCI; Unabridged Version edition, 2000).
4. “Extravagant Joy!” John Killinger, 30 Good Minutes, Chicago Sunday Evening Club, 2007. http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/killinger_5008.htm.