08/20/2024
Poverty and Hope - Jesus’ First Sign
John 2
On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”
“Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”
His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.
Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.
Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”
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. (John 2:1-11 NIV11)
This is the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory.
John’s gospel is all about the coming new creation which is begun on the first day of the week when Jesus comes back to life as the new Adam.
As we make our way toward this new creation John gives us hints of what this new creation world will look like—we’ve come to call them the seven signs; seven signs of what this will be.
The first sign is a wedding at Cana, where wine flows down on the third day — all of which echo the words of Amos (we can’t understand the New Creation without seeing the hopes and pictures in the Old Testament)
“The days are coming,” declares the LORD,
“when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills,
and I will bring my people Israel back from exile. “They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.
I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,” says the LORD your God.
(Amos 9:13-15 NIV11-GK)
As Jesus performs this first sign there is another wonder to it, a declaration of who this new wine world is for.
Let’s dig in…
Jesus is at a wedding in Cana. It’s a wedding for a poor couple, but poor or not they want to celebrate and they want to join others to celebrate with them.
Jesus and his mom are invited to be a part of the celebration, but poverty does impose its limits and part of the way through the celebration they run out of wine.
In Jesus’ day to run out of wine at the wedding celebration is a disaster of epic proportions, this will be talked about for years to come in the village; it is a time of deep shame.
But what can a poor couple do, you can’t run off to the local grocery store and pick up and a bunch more wine whether by carton or bottle, when the budget is blown.
Jesus’ mom apparently knows what it’s like to be poor, she certainly knows what it’s like to be embarrassed before your friends—after all, when you belly starts to swell before the wedding, even if you say it was the Holy Spirit who did it, tongues will wag—she knows what it’s like to be poor and to be embarrassed and so she goes to her son, to the one who swelled her belly some 30 years before and she says—they’re out of wine, she goes to him because she knows her son’s heart, she knows that it breaks over such things and she knows that he will do something, so sure is she that she tells those who are serving at the wedding—do whatever he tells you.
Jesus sees the bride, the groom, he sees their poverty, he sees their embarrassment, and he responds in a huge way, he makes 120 gallons of wine out of water and he makes the best wine imaginable.
He makes it because he came to serve and perhaps most surprisingly to many people, his first act of service, his first miraculous sign as John says, is to help the poor and to help in human gladness.
And as you see Jesus do this, as you see him serve in this way, you can feel a connection with something that Jesus will say later,
“When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. 13But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” Luke 14.12-14 NIV
The first sign of the coming new creation: the shame of poverty of a young couple over come, a people rescued, human gladness affirmed — the wonder of a new creation moment.
