John 2:1-12

John 2:1-12 The wedding feast at Cana

What happens in this incident?

We don’t know how many disciples Jesus brought with him to the wedding – even the wedding host might not have known how many were coming.  But those disciples got to see how Jesus addressed the shortage of wine, and John tells us in verse 11 that this strengthened their faith.  Let’s look at the whole story.

First, look at the interaction between Jesus and his mother.  Does Mary actually ask Jesus to do something?  How is she both deferring and pushing?

Does Jesus say yes or no, or does he leave the conversation unsettled?

Jesus calls his mother “Woman.”  Although that may not have been rude in his time, it was also not a normal way to address one’s mother.  Scholars think that Jesus is signaling that whatever he does will not be based on his family connection to Mary.  What guides Jesus’s decisions throughout his ministry?  On what does he base his decisions?

Jesus does what is the will of his Father.

In verse 4, Jesus says, “My hour has not yet come.”  Throughout John’s Gospel, Jesus’s “hour” is the time of his suffering (his “Passion”) and death, and sometimes also includes his resurrection and ascension (for example, John 13:1).  What does his “hour” have to do with whether he does something here?

Although this miracle may have important symbolic meaning, it also shows in a small and practical way that Jesus cares about the little things – the everyday things in life that matter to us humans.  How have you seen ways that Jesus cares about the little things in our lives?

How does this encourage you to trust Jesus in every part of your life, not just in the “big” decisions?

In the other Gospels, Jesus says, “This is my body....  This is my blood” at the Last Supper.  John does not include that in his account of the Last Supper.  Instead, he presents Jesus as the Bread of Life in chapter 6 after the multiplication of the loaves.  In the Old Testament, there are poetic passages that refer to wine as the “blood” of grapes (Gen. 49:11; Deut. 32:14).  Is John similarly replacing the Last Supper cup of wine with this provision of wine at Cana?  How is this miraculous sign of providing wine for all like his gift of himself to us in what Christians commemorate in “communion” or the “Eucharist”?

Mary tells the servant, “Do whatever he tells you” (verse 5).  How is that an appropriate guide to everything we do in our lives?

Jesus gives the servant some instructions, and they do what he tells them to do, even though he doesn’t explain why.  Have you ever had a situation where you felt that God was asking you to do something that was perplexing but that turned out to be the right thing to do?  What happened?

Is there a particular challenge you are facing right now, or a difficult part of your life, where God might be asking you to “Do whatever he tells you”?  What might he be asking you to do?

In verse 11, John calls what happened here the beginning of Jesus’s “signs.”  A sign is something that points to something bigger than itself; it tells or proclaims something about the thing it is pointing to.  John will show us 7 of Jesus’s signs – actions that are more than just physical miracles, actions that point to something bigger.  In what way is this miracle a “sign”?  Beyond just the physical miracle, what does it tell us or show us?

It demonstrates the power of Jesus in such a way that his actions glorify God.

John makes connections between Jesus and Moses in a variety of places in this Gospel.  He has already suggested in chapter 1 that Jesus is greater than Moses (1:17).  Moses’s first “plague” in Egypt was to turn water (the Nile River) into blood (Ex. 7:14-19).  Jesus’s first sign is to turn water into wine.  What might be the connection?  What was the point or “sign” in Moses’s action and how was that similar to Jesus’s “sign”?

Both signs called people to respond to God, who was speaking through the person standing in front of them.  Through Moses, God was saying, “Let my people go.”  Jesus is communicating the love of the Father.

In verse 11, John tells us that this first sign revealed Jesus’s glory, “and his disciples believed in him.”  John is suggesting that for some of the disciples, this was a turning point.  Why might this have been a decisive factor that brought them to believe in him?

How important are Jesus’s miracles or “signs” to your faith?  What do they tell you or how do they support your faith?

If you were at the wedding feast at Cana, through whose eyes would you have seen what Jesus did?  (The disciples?  The servers?  The chief steward/headwaiter?  The bridegroom?)  And how might this miracle have affected you?

John not only tells us about the surface level – what physically, literally happened – he also helps us see the deeper spiritual implications.  Besides what we have already discussed here, what other spiritual insights do you see?

What can you bring from this story into your everyday life?

Take a step back and consider this:

Imagine you were the water in the story of the wedding feast at Cana.  You were poured into the jars used for purification, so you expect that you will be used to help a human who needs to be purified (besides ritual washings before meals, Jews went through purification rituals after having been defiled by contact with a dead animal, a grave, or something else that conferred ritual impurity).

The humans are having a party, so you don’t really expect to be needed right now.  It’s not the time for purification rituals.

Suddenly, voices are talking near you, someone draws a ladleful of you out of the jar, and you realize that something has changed.  You’re no longer just water for purification.  You have been transformed into something more!  Jesus has changed you into wine – something that will bring joy to others and glory to God.

(That’s what Jesus does.  He transforms us into something more than we were.)

You, the water-turned-into-wine, catch a glimpse of the one who has done this.  They call him Jesus, and he is smiling.  He clearly loves being with other people.  And you have made him happy by fulfilling the purpose he assigned to you.

Jesus does this with us, too.  He does it with everyone who follows him.  Opportunities appear that may bring joy to others and glory to God.  They may be big or small.  It might be the chance to offer a smile or a cheery greeting to someone in need, which might bring them more joy than a glass of wine ever could.  It might be a simple act of service; a fully engaged, eye-to-eye conversation; an effort to speak out for justice for those whose voices are not heard.  In ways too numerous to count, God seeks to transform the situations we are in.  He gives us the opportunity – the privilege! – of letting him first transform us into more than we were, so that we can do more than we were doing to convey the love of God to those around us.

God is always finding opportunities for us to bring joy to others and make them more aware of the presence of God in their midst.  How can we be ready and flexible, so that when Jesus calls us to do something different, we can fulfill his purposes even though we might not see the full picture of what God is doing?