Jesus Does Good for Life
John 2:1-11
January 19, 2020 anno Domini – Redeemer
This sermon “borrows” many of its thoughts on life from Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller’s sermon for Life Sunday 2020.
“Wow! This wine is good. This wine is very good.” That is what the wine steward at Cana would have said if he was from central Minnesota. If he was a wine sommelier (som-mall-yay) from West Side Liquor he might have said, “Oh this wine has firm tannins, a full and rich taste with hints of black currents. It’s woodsy from mature oak, full-bodied, fruit forward and dry.”
It was the best wine ever in the history of the world because it was made by the Creator of the world. The Son of God, The Word, according to the Apostle John, was with God from the beginning and was God. “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (1:1-3)
So this is what the 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany reveals. Jesus is the Word by whom and through whom God created all things. That is how He could create wine out of water in an instant. As it was in the Garden of Eden so it was at the Wedding at Cana. God created and it was good.
There are no coincidences in Scripture. It is not coincidence that Jesus performed His first miracle at a wedding. It is not a coincidence that there were six stone water jars at the wedding or that the bridal couple ran out of wine or that Jesus was a guest at the wedding. It was on the sixth day that God performed the first wedding. It was shortly after that first wedding that sin entered the world. Jesus now comes to a wedding in trouble with His creative power to do something “very good” for the bridal couple and ultimately for you.
On the sixth day God saw Adam standing all alone and said “This isn’t good.” God created the world and everything in it for life. If you want to judge whether something is good ask this, “Does it support and favor life?” That’s why Adam alone isn’t good. A man by himself cannot create life. He can have no children, no family. It is not good until Eve is created for Adam and then it is very good.
Marriage between a man and a woman is good because it produces life and cares for that life in the very best place possible. Being a man or being a woman is good because each is given certain bodily gifts from God that together make for life. Government is good because its God given purpose is to protect life. Getting married is good because it gives you a wife or husband to love and with that spouse you can create another life. Having children is good because it goes along with being male or female and holy marriage. It is also good because God uses it to get you off yourself and gives you another to love. Jesus is at a wedding, performing His first miracle because He is God and He is for life and that is good.
There was a problem at the wedding in Cana, as there are problems in your life whether you’re married or not. They ran out of wine. It isn’t a sin to run out of wine. It is a problem, an embarrassing problem, a problem that would drastically affect your good name in Cana of Galilee. All problems are not sin, but all problems come because of sin. Anytime something bad happens – you run out of red wine right before a blizzard hits, your rope on the snow blower breaks on the first pull, your back goes out shoveling snow; it is the result of sin.
Adam and Eve had no problems in their marriage because they had no sin, but then Satan came along – He who hates God and therefore hates life and what is good. Adam and Eve disobeyed God and tried to find the good life under Satan’s deceptive direction. They sinned and then came the problems. Adam no longer loved his wife as himself. Eve didn’t obey Adam, but lived for her own desires. Now instead of living under God and loving each other they were dying under the Devil and slaving away for themselves. God’s good word is the word of life. The Devil’s lies are the word of sin and death.
The death of marriage didn’t begin in the 1960’s with the sexual revolution or in the 90’s with the explosion of pornography. The death of the unborn didn’t start in 1973 with Roe v. Wade. Your marriage problems didn’t begin because you married the wrong person or fell out of love. Assisted suicide isn’t some new phenomena touching our generation. All of this death goes back a long time – to our first parents and from them it passed to you at your conception. Death, trouble, and unhappiness are your fault, not God’s or your parents or your spouse or your gender or your desires.
There was trouble in Cana of Galilee and Mary teaches us what faith does when there is trouble. Faith goes to Jesus. Mary had been pondering all sorts of things about her son for 30 years. The visit of Gabriel, the miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit, the visits of the shepherds and wise men, Jesus in the temple. When she was informed of the trouble Mary went to Jesus, “They have no wine.”
Mary believes not only that Jesus is the Creator but that He is good. If Jesus is only the Almighty God then you really wouldn’t want to go to Him with your problems. You couldn’t count on Him to hear you and be good to you. He might say, “Well, you miser. You wanted to save a few bucks and you hoped people wouldn’t come to celebrate your marriage. I could care less about your problems. They are your problems not mine. Sure I could make you some wine, but why should I? This is your fault.”
At first it sounds like Jesus says exactly that, “Woman, what does this have to do with me?” But Mary’s faith, her trust in everything she has seen of Jesus, knows better. She leaves her trouble with Jesus, trusts Him to do good, and says to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.”
When Jesus makes water into wine He proves that He is God, He is good, and He is for life. Is it a stretch to make so much out of one miracle at little wedding in Cana? Not when we know who did it.
Jesus came into the world to separate you from your sin. The only way out of your marriage to the Devil and death was for Christ to provide you what you were lacking. He gives you His death for your life and His life for your death, His forgiveness for your sin, His crucifixion for your disobedience. He stood on earth and hung on the cross to object to your death long union to the father of all lies. He married Himself to human flesh and then carried the load of His bride’s sin to the cross. Satan will use you. Jesus dies for you.
Jesus is the Word by whose Word water is made wine. He is the Word who forgives our sins, who pulls us out the grave, who gives us contentment in being male or female, who helps us remain chaste when we are single, who brings joy and forgiveness and love to our marriages, who enables us to have children so we love others more than ourselves, who gives us company when we are widowed, who gives us strength to answer suffering or the inconvenience of a child, or the burdens of old age not with death, but with faith – faith that God is good and has created us for life. Faith that the Father sent His Son that we may have life by having His forgiveness. Mary teaches us, at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, to have faith in God’s goodness for life in the name of Jesus. Amen.