The Lord of the Feast

This past week, I had the privilege of preaching in our Friday night RUF meeting on passage from the Gospel of John where Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding feast at the wedding in Cana where he and his disciples and his mother had been present.

I opened with a reference about Murphy's Law and its somewhat humorous if not sarcastic view of the world like, "If it's too good to be true, then it probably is," or, "If something can go wrong, it will go wrong," or, "Things always go from bad to worse.

This wedding was definitely a case of something that could go wrong (running out of wine) actually going wrong (bringing shame upon the host) and things rapidly deteriorating. We might add another law to Murphy's catalog: "The wine always runs out" (with special thanks to Fred Harrell).

Mary tells Jesus that the wine has run out and he responds by saying, "Woman, what does that have to do with me. My *hour* has not yet come." I think Jesus was thinking about his own coming wedding day (Rev. 19) and what it will take for him to secure the wine that will never run out. The Bible speaks of the coming day when the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all people's, a banquet of aged wine (Isaiah 25), and of the coming day when the mountains will drip new wine and the hills will flow with it (Amos 9). Jesus speaks about his kingdom as a feast (Mt. 8, et. al).

Why do I think Jesus was thinking about this day? Well, he says somewhat abruptly that his hour had not yet come. In the Gospel of John, "hour" always signifies the coming death of Jesus. Jesus was thinking about what it would take to secure the wine that never runs out for His people on the Great Day of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

At any rate, I enjoyed teaching this passage to an audience of around 60 folks (including some of our SALI interns). I 'm still developing my thinking on the significance of Jesus having the jars filled with water that were used for jewish ceremonial washings. At the very least, Jesus is saying that the old ways of cleansing are being replaced by his way of cleansing. He secured the purity that sinful people need to stand in the presence of a holy God. What I'm still thinking through is the connection this has, if any, to wine being symbolic of his blood. Remember his words at the Last Supper: This cup is the new covenant in my blood.