The Wedding in Cana — Dennis Kinlaw

Here the Word of God is found in the Gospel according to John, Chapter 2, reading from the beginning of that chapter. 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. Dear woman, why do you involve me? Jesus replied, My time has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, Do whatever he tells you.

Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used with 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, but you have saved the best till now. This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee.

Jesus Revealed Through Witness and Miracles

He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him. After this, he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days. Now, Father, as we come to you, we would remind you of the promise that your son gave to us, that if two of us came together to talk about him before we finished, there'd be three.

And if there are a thousand that come together to talk about him before we finish, your promise is there'll be the extra one. We wait for him. We wait to hear him speak, and we thank you that he never breaks that promise.

And so we wait in Jesus' name. Amen. Last night we said that when Jesus came, the one thing that he wanted, he himself had no power to produce. That was in spite of the fact that John is correct when he says, About all that exists, all things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

As the Creator, he obviously is sovereign Lord over all. But when he came, though he could turn water to wine, and he could cleanse the lepers and raise the dead, the one thing he wanted out of men's hearts and minds, he himself could not produce.

Because what he wanted was a personal relationship reflected in a knowledge, a personal knowledge of him. He wanted then as now, men and women to know who he was, that it was safe to trust him, and that it was right to love him.

We said that when he came, he couldn't tell them who he was, because that would have ruined everything. So the question was, how could he make himself known? We said that he first of all looked for someone who would witness for him, and he turned to John the Baptist.

I think I know why he went to John, because a man's witness is no greater than his own moral character and his own knowledge of the one of whom he speaks. And Jesus and everyone else knew that John would not lie about anything.

He'd lose his head before he would. And so Jesus knew that people would trust him when he spoke about him. And so he had John put in a good word for him. And out of that good word, some of John's own disciples turned and began to follow Jesus.

But we said that was not enough, that there came the moment when Jesus had to act on his own, to where people would believe not because of someone's else word, but would believe because of what Christ had done himself.

So we said that Jesus turned to men in need, and that it was not so much what he said that caused men to believe, as it was what he did. It was as he found people in personal need, and he met that need.

And in the meeting of that need, he reflected that he was not just a man, but he did what only God could do. And as he did what only God could do, people began to trust him. The ministry of which we spoke last night took place in Capernaum.

John the Baptist Identifies the Lamb of God

Tonight, I'd like to, instead of using the synoptics and Mark as we used last night, I would like to turn to the gospel of John, and turn to those few days before his ministry in Capernaum, which John tells us about.

If you know the order of the gospel of John, you will remember that John tells us how Jesus appeared in the Baptist crowd. But when he came, something had happened the day before that was very significant.

The temple had sent a delegation down from Jerusalem to the banks of the Jordan where John was baptizing, and that delegation of priests and of Levites, of Pharisees, came to John the Baptist and said, who are you?

It is very obvious that the whole countryside felt that the time was right for the appearance of the Christ. The one that they had waited 1800 years for, they now, many of them, felt that the time was right for his appearing.

And the word was spreading that John the Baptist was he. And so the temple took that seriously enough that they sent a delegation down to John and said, who are you? And John said, oh, I'm not the Christ.

I'm not the one you're looking for. They said, well, are you the prophet of whom Moses spoke when Moses said a greater than he would come? And John said, oh no, I'm not the prophet of whom Moses spoke.

They said, are you Elijah? And he said, oh no, I'm not Elijah. They said, then who are you? He said, I'm the voice of one preparing the way for the one that you seek. Now, it was the next day that John looked and saw Jesus coming in the crowd and he knew that Jesus was coming to him.

And he said, it isn't appropriate that I should baptize you. And Jesus said, yes, let's fulfill all righteousness. And John the Baptist turned to his crowd and said, I'm not the one you seek, this is he.

This is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. He is the one that can baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. I baptize you with water. I give you the symbol. This is the one that can give you the reality.

Now, the next day, Jesus was in his crowd again and he turned to his disciples that were about him and said, I'm not the one that you need. This is the one that you need. So that day, two of John's own disciples turned and began to follow Jesus.

They came and said, master, where are you dwelling? And so those two went home with Jesus that day. One of those was Andrew, who then went in God, his brother, Simon. And the other was evidently one of the sons of Zebedee, either James or John, who got his brother.

Now, the next day, we know that Jesus passed Philip and he turned to Philip and said, follow me. Philip said, where are you going? Well, he said, right now I'm headed for Capernaum. I'm headed for Galilee.

I'm going north. And with James and John and Andrew and Peter, Philip joined the crowd. But before he did, he went to get his friend, whose name was Nathanael. And Nathanael came and joined the other five.

And so these six disciples that now were following Jesus went with Jesus north, and they stopped by Cana of Galilee. It was a three days journey. And so the next thing that we find is the beginning of chapter two, and they're in Cana of Galilee.

Cana as the Beginning of Jesus’ Public Ministry

Now, I have a friend who says that this story about the wedding at Cana of Galilee is biblical proof of the rightness, the correctness of short courtships. Because the first line in this story reads, and on the third day, there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee.

My friend obviously sees a young man walking down one side of the street in Cana and a girl coming up the other. And the young man looks across the street and likes what he sees. And the girl looks and likes what she sees.

The boy turns to take a second look and finds the girl has turned to take a second look. And three days later, there's a wedding in Cana of Galilee. Now, you know enough, and I know enough to know that my friend is wrong.

Because the time reference here is not about the courtship of the couple that was getting married. But the time reference is an indication of how early in the ministry of Jesus this miracle at the wedding at Cana occurred.

It is the seventh day recorded by John. From that first day when the delegation came from the temple to John the Baptist to say, Who are you? It was seven days later that that wedding occurred and the miracle.

Now here is where Jesus began his public ministry. This is the first of the seven signs recorded in the gospel of John, and John says it is his first miracle. You know, I stayed away from this passage for the most of my ministry and refused to preach on it.

I didn't know what to do with it. One of the things I didn't understand was why he began here. Why would he begin in an out-of-the-way place with some unknown people? There's not a one whose name we know, except the ones he brought with him and his mother.

In a dirty, insignificant, out-of-the-way place, Jesus began his messianic ministry and for the most inconsequential of reasons. Because if he weren't interested in anonymous, unknown, insignificant people in out-of-the-way places, he'd have never found me.

And there's some of you he would have never found if he weren't interested in little people and unimportant people and the people that think the world has passed them by. Do you know that person who considers himself the least significant of all human mortals is the kind of person that Jesus wants to begin his ministry with?

I like that. He cares about you. Now it's interesting why he performed his miracle. You read the Gospels and you will find that his miracles always were to meet a human need. He didn't show his power just so he could demonstrate his power.

Jesus Meets Human Need and Protects Human Dignity

He met needs. But what an insignificant need. The refreshments had run out. Now I know that there are great theologians like Chrysostom who said this is an illustration of his creative power, that he is showing what John said in the first chapter, that all things were made by him.

Without him was not anything made that was made. He was demonstrating that he doesn't have to take the water, let the water come out of the atmosphere, the moisture down in rain into the ground, up in the plant, out into the grape, but he can just take it and shortcut the whole process and speak and water becomes wine.

Now I'm glad that that's true, but that's showing his power. I find that he usually performs his miracles to meet a need. And there was a couple getting ready to be socially embarrassed. Now I don't know about you, but I don't like to be embarrassed.

I think I can almost endure physical pain easier than I can endure social embarrassment, humiliation. How would you like to live in a town as small as Cana and all the rest of your life, every time anybody said, who's that?

You knew how your neighbor answered. Oh, that's the couple where the refreshments ran out at their wedding reception. And you know, I dare to believe that the first of Jesus' miracles was performed. One of his reasons being to keep a shadow from being cast across what should have been the most beautiful day that either of those young, two young people had ever experienced up to then.

You know, one of the things that gave me difficulty in coming to a place of total surrender to Christ, where I took my hands off my life and said, Lord, it's yours and you can do what you please with it.

One of my problems was the devil told me he would embarrass me, that if I was an all out Christian, he would demand the embarrassing. The first miracle Jesus performed was to demonstrate that he's the enemy of our embarrassments, not the cause of them.

Now you and I may blush about things we ought to boast about, and we may boast about things we ought to blush about, but ultimately no man will ever be embarrassed by any obedience. The proudest moments we will ever have are those when we are obedient to him.

Now I'm glad that he's not only interested in little people, but he's interested in little problems. Because you know, it's the little problems that make life difficult, isn't it? It's interesting how when the great tragedies come, we rise.

It's the little things that so often times are burdensome. I'm glad to know that the sovereign God of the universe is interested in little people with little problems. I'm glad for something else. It's interesting that his first miracle was performed at a festival occasion.

You see, that puts to rest one of the other lies about Jesus. Because you see, when I first began to hear the gospel, the devil told me that if I surrendered to Christ, that'd be the end of any fun. That the one thing I knew I should know was that the devil was the one who would give us pleasure, and God was the one who gave you the rough and rugged and painful, miserable way.

That Jesus was the enemy of human joy. It's interesting he didn't take his disciples the first place he took them. He didn't take them to a fast prayer meeting. You see, if I had been running his ministry, I would have done it very differently.

I would have started with some dramatic act in the middle of Jerusalem so everybody could know we were on our way. And I certainly would not have started at a festival. I would have said, boys, it's going to end up on a cross outside Jerusalem.

It's going to be rough. We better have a fast prayer meeting. Now, there's a place in the Christian life for fasting, and Jesus made that clear later. But Jesus' ministry began with one, an occasion of natural joy.

Because you see, the devil never created a pleasure. Every pleasure that is found in life was designed by Jesus and his Father. Even the pleasures of sin for a season were not designed by the devil or produced by him.

They were designed by Jesus and his Father for our joy and for our enrichment. And the only thing the devil can do is persuade you and me to take legitimate pleasures and use them illegitimately. The very things that ought to enrich our lives, he can persuade us and does to take them and use them to corrupt and blight our lives.

But Jesus is not the enemy of our joys. He intended his children to know joy and know far more than any whirling can ever conceive. But now, it may be that there are other reasons that he began here. I think one of the reasons is that he probably is just interested in weddings.

Marriage, Creation, and the Image of God

He ought to be if he's interested in people like you and me. Most of the people I know are either members of one or by-products of one, or ought to have been. It's a rather universal experience, so universal that if he's interested in us, he ought to be interested in weddings.

And you know, one day as I was working through this, I began to realize there's a whale of a lot in scripture about God and weddings. Suddenly dawned on me that's the way human history began. I'd never thought about that before.

You will remember that the climax of the creative process was not a church service, wasn't a prayer meeting, or a sacrifice. The climax of the creative process was a wedding, and God was the father of the bride.

That's an interesting way for human history to begin, isn't it? Now you know, I've often wondered what that did to breakfast table conversations at Adam's house. God came down and looked at Adam and said, before he created Eve, he said, I've put you here in this world, it's for you to enjoy.

Look it all over and see if you have any further needs. I wonder if that's where pets began, and if there is a biblical, a theology for pets. He must, he named them all, you will remember, which means he came to know their nature.

And God came back and said, do you need anything more? And he said, to be honest, I do. I love them, they're beautiful, they're lovely, but he said, you know, there's not a one that seems to really fully understand me.

Know who I am and where I am, with whom I can fully communicate. You know, I think God looked at Adam and said, that's right. I'm glad you caught on, because if I'd given her to you beforehand, you'd have blamed me all the rest of your life for palming her off on me.

But you're right. There are dimensions in you that nothing else in the creation can understand, because you see, you are made in my image, and you'll have to have a creature also made in my image to understand you.

And so he made he. Men, you might as well reconcile yourself to the fact that the climax of the creative process was not a male, it was a female. It's a rather magnificent story of how he sort of delivered her up to him, and gave them to each other, and said, here you are, for each other's enjoyment and fulfillment.

I think it's very significant that Eve was a wife before she was a mother, and I think there's theology in that, that children should not be the center of the home and of the center of the parents' lives.

God intended a husband's life to center in his wife, and then the children out of that and around it. And he intended a woman's life to center in her husband, and then the children out of that and around that, enriching.

But you see, the woman was made for the man, and the man for the woman. I'm sure it affected those breakfast table conversations. I've often thought before Eve learned to cook, when the coffee was cold, and eggs were too runny, and the toast was burned, and the grits were lumpy because they had to be southerners, and Adam started to expostulate, and Eve said, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Don't blame me if you got any problem. Don't blame me. Blame the management. He tailor-made me just for you. I'm just what you need. You know, it's a magnificent story to me, to show the way Christians must treat each other.

You see, we're God's gift to each other, and you can learn something about how you feel about the giver by how you regard and treat his giver. And the man who does not treat his wife with great tenderness and profound respect has missed the biblical message.

We are to honor each other because of the one from whose hands we came. It's interesting, that's the way history began. It began with a wedding. Then it dawned on me, history biblically ends with a wedding.

The Wedding as a Sign of Christ and the Church

That came as a surprise to me. What a strange philosophy of history. I'm sure the University of Missouri hasn't learned about that yet in its philosophy department. But you see, the Christian does not head for atomic disaster.

We are a people who are headed for a joyous event. And it's interesting, the first miracle of Jesus was a preview of the end. You know, Elsie and I lived and worked for 13 years in a college context. I used to find it fun to walk across the campus in the morning, especially in the spring.

Early morning, one of the girls at Asbury would catch me and shyly look at me eight o 'clock in the morning and say, Mr. Kenlaw, look what I got last night. I'd look down and wonder how any boy could pay tuition at Asbury and still buy a diamond ring.

I'd say, who is he if I didn't know? Extend my congratulations and then say, when's the great day? Watch the gleam in her eye. The interesting thing is, I never had one look back at me and say, quizzically, what great day?

You see, the right guy asked the right question and the life totally reoriented. Totally reoriented. All life pointing to one thing. That's the reason that Christians go through life with a gleam in their eyes.

That's the reason that Christians go through life at its worst with a lilt in their steps. We're headed for a wedding. We're headed for an occasion of joy and fulfillment. And so it began with one and it's going to end with one.

Now, you know, when I got to that point, I had a question. You see, the first of these weddings is a physical, literal wedding between a physical man and a physical woman. The last of these is a spiritual wedding between Christ and his church.

The question suddenly came to me, now which one of those is the reality and which one is the symbol? You see, you and I tend to take the material physical as the real. But if we'll think, that's not the ultimate reality.

It's the spiritual and eternal that is the ultimate reality. Now have come to believe that the reason marriage is such a universal part of human experience is because God wanted to build into your life and mine a symbol of what our ultimate state is supposed to be.

In the same way that I find my life fulfilled in my love relationship with Elsie and she does with me, that is a symbol of the great and perfect fulfillment that will come in the immediate communion with Jesus Christ in that day at the end of human history.

That has changed my thinking about weddings. I never stand in a wedding anymore or attend one anymore, but that I get an eschatological feeling, if you'll let me use that big theological word. You know, eschatology is the end.

You see, every wedding is a preview of what is to come. The most beautiful wedding I ever attended had no flowers in it and no show. It was in the Second World War. It was a young man just getting ready to go overseas.

He had been granted his last leave before going over to join Patton's outfit in Europe to fight. He was deeply in love and he wanted to marry his fiancée before he went. Problems were difficult enough that there was no way the family could come from that remote distance to Louisville, Kentucky for the wedding.

And so his fiancée and a friend got a train ticket, train tickets, and came to Louisville. And the pastor of that church came to some of us and he said, there's a young couple here getting ready to get married and they have no family.

They need a family. Will you be their family tonight? And so we came and joined in a wedding of a couple that we had never seen before. The pastor, a very impressive person, stood and he knew the wedding ceremony by heart.

That was obvious because I knew it well enough to recognize it as he started down through it. He began, Dearly Beloved, we're gathered here in the sight of God and in the presence of these witnesses to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony, which is an honorable estate instituted of God and signifying unto us the mystical union which exists between Christ and his church, which holy estate Christ beautified and adorned with his presence at Cana of Galilee.

Christian Marriage as a Witness to the Gospel

And I listened as he ran through it. He turned to the best man and asked for the ring and lifted it up and suddenly I was aware that he broke from the ritual. He said, This ring is an outward visible sign of an inward spiritual grace signifying the union of this man and this woman.

But then he said, You know, this ring is a symbol of eternity. It has no beginning and no end. Now he said, Your love has had a beginning because you're preachers and God has given you to each other. But you see, if you will build a Christian marriage, your love will be like this ring.

It will be as endless as the love of God and as endless as eternity. Now he said that ring is also a symbol of oneness. It has no moving parts, just the ring, one piece. Now he said, That's the kind of oneness God wants the two of you to have.

Now he said, We as Christians know that the Great One is God, Hero Israel, the Lord our God is one. Yet as Christians we know he's three, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And if your love is to be pure and whole and one, they're going to have to be three in your love relationship.

So sir, as you take her to be your wife and take her into your life and as you give yourself to her. And young lady, as you take him to be your husband and take him into your life and as you give yourself to him.

If you're to know perfect oneness, you must go a step farther and you must take Jesus Christ in as a third person in your home, in your marriage. And then your love will be perfect and your unity will be unbreakable.

You'll know the oneness God intended. You know, it was as close to a Billy Graham gospel invitation as about anything I ever attended, but it was very beautiful. It was a number of years after that I was in a pastorate and I found myself counseling young couples about marriage who were planning on marriage.

I found a tract that impressed me very much. It was a Roman Catholic piece of literature published by a Roman Catholic organization. The name of the pamphlet was If I Had It to Do Over Again. Each page had two columns.

One column was written by the husband, one column was written by the wife. He was a Roman Catholic, she was a Lutheran. They had five children. After they'd been married a number of years, five children, one day one of them looked at the other one and said, If you had it to do over again, would you marry me?

Things got very still. And the one who had been asked looked back and said, No. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't marry you. And then the one who was asked turned to the asker and said, If you had it to do over again, would you marry me?

And the one who'd started it all shook her head and said, No. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't marry you. Then the first one said, Is it because you're not happy? And the one asked said, Well, no, we've got a pretty good marriage.

It's obviously better than the marriages of many of our friends. Are you unhappy? The other one said, No, it's not that I'm really unhappy. So they said, Well, why? They finally drew their conclusion.

They agreed together that after having lived together for several years in a relatively happy and a stable marriage, they had come so close to what they knew marriage could be that they said if we had it to do over again, we wouldn't settle for anything less than what it's supposed to be.

They said, You know, we've had everything in common except one thing. We've never really worshipped together. Now, I'm not sure it's because one was Roman Catholic and one was a Lutheran, because the throne of God has people with greater divisions than that separating them, bringing them into oneness.

But you see, together they had never come to the place where Christ was the bond that bound them together. The marriage had never really been what God intended it to be. Now, you know, I think we've got a lot of marriages like that.

And you know, I think that's one of the reasons that our society is coming apart. And I think that's one of the reasons that our society doesn't take the witness of the Church of Christ seriously. Because you see, God said, I'll put a husband and wife together in such a way that the whole world can see a human example of the way I love the world and the way the Church loves me.

You see, if your home and your marriage is what it's supposed to be, nobody will ever have to explain to your children what the love of God is like. They'll say, Oh, I've seen the love of God. I've seen it in my mother's love for my father.

And I've seen it in my father's love for my mother. You know, nobody's ever influenced ultimately by words. We are only influenced by words when there is a reality to match those words. I'd like to ask you, if your relationships as husbands and wives represent the reality of the love of Christ for us, can you imagine how much easier it would be to explain to our pagan, godless world how much God loves us if we husbands and wives loved each other the way Christ loves the Church?

Do you know what I've become convinced is the greatest gift that any mother can ever give her child? It isn't life. It isn't food and health and clothing and shelter. The greatest gift that any mother can ever give a child is a passionate love for that child's father.

The kind of love where the mother enjoys. Do you know the greatest gift any father can ever give a son or a daughter? It's not financial security or education or vocational options. The greatest gift any father can ever give a child is a passionate delight in that child's mother.

I want to ask you a question. Do your kids really believe that you enjoy each other? You see, love means enjoying if it is reciprocal. I notice that God even enjoys us if the love is reciprocal. And certainly, we enjoy God when the love is reciprocal.

God said, I want to build into human life a symbol. It will be the kind of sermon that gets out of the church, down the street, into the neighborhood and into the community and into the marketplace and into the office.

And you know, I think we'd have trouble taking care of the new converts if we loved each other as husbands and wives, the way Christ loves the church. The world would say, that's what I'm looking for.

His first miracle was at a wedding because that is his prime symbol to a world. Now, you know, I think the story, two things and I'm through, is here to let us know what he wants to do. You know, I read this story for years and never realized what the water was.

The Water of Ceremonial Washing and Christ’s Transforming Touch

I thought the water was there to drink and he just upgraded the taste of it a bit. But if you read the story, you'll find like I find that the water wasn't there for drinking. The water was there to wash your feet, your face and your hand.

Now, you know, the end result is that one of my heroes in scripture suddenly has appeared. Through the years of my life, it's been interesting who my heroes have been. When I was young, it was Daniel, you know, facing the lions and the three Hebrew children and Elijah facing the prophets of.

Now, I love that head waiter. When Jesus said to him, take some of that foot washing water and put it in the cup and carry it to the governor. And he put it in the cup and carried it to the governor and the governor said, go get the groom.

I enjoyed what we had before, but man, everybody gives the best first and then the poor later. This is best of all. Do you know what Jesus was saying? I can take foot washing water or hold it. I can take life at its most ordinary and at its most tasteless.

I can take life when it is as insipid as dishwater. And if you'll let me touch it, I can make it a thing of joy and sweetness and richness, invigorating, strengthening. You see, if you'll let me touch your life, it'll be different.

You know, I'm convinced there are worlds of us that are living off foot washing water when God's got something better for us. And our children look at our life, our Christian lives and say, yeah, it is foot washing water.

Who'd ever want it? His first miracle was to say to us, I make a difference when you let me join the crowd. Now, the last thing, the story now has become a parable to me. Now, I think it actually occurred, so don't get fouled upon that, but I think it's a parable of the way God works.

Obedient Faith and the Miracle of Transformation

How'd that foot washing water become wine? There's where I love that head waver. Jesus looked at him and said, take some of that foot washing water, put it in a cup and carry it to the governor. Now, I suspect he was remarkably like some of the rest of them.

Said, now, wait a minute, Lord, you know what that is. That's foot washing water. Jesus said, yeah, put it in a cup and carry it to the governor. And he says, you mean if I do, it'll be different when it gets there?

How will I know? I'll lose my job. If it isn't, I wonder if his knees beat together a little bit as he held up that cup. And his heart sort of came up in his throat as he held it up. And I suspect when the governor said, where's the groom?

He knew he was done. That's usually the way I feel. You know, my tendency is when he says, take some of that foot washing water and put it in the cup and carry it to the governor. You know, I gingerly take it and turn my back and I like to check it out to see if it's wine yet.

And the interesting thing is every time I've ever checked it out, it's been foot washing water. But every time I've ever put it in the cup and carried it to the governor, the other guy said, man, and the miracle has occurred.

You know, if he'd never carried it, it would have never become wine. It's when you and I begin to obey that the miracle occurs. Don't ask me to explain it, but when he speaks and you begin to respond, the change begins to take place.

Christ’s Invitation to Transform the Tasteless Places of Life