The Way to Happiness: Jesus’ First Sign in John 2 (Mark E. Moore) 

The text below is a modified transcript of the sermon audio by Mark E. Moore.

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We have just started this series called The Way of Jesus. It kicked off last week with Pastor Ashley talking about the beginning of Jesus’ ministry when he was baptized and then immediately what happened?

He’s tempted, and some of you can relate to that. Like you got baptized, you thought, Oh, great. Now I’m a Christian; life will be awesome, and Satan is going, No, no, I don’t like the decision you made.

And so he attacks. That’s normal right after you give your life to Jesus to have opposition from the evil one. I want to talk about the other side of that coin this week.

It’s also one of the very early stories about Jesus’ ministry. And this story is actually told by one of Jesus’ best friends, John the Apostle, in his book of John. If you have a Bible, I would encourage you to look in the index.

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Find the Gospel of John. We’ll be in chapter two, and I want to introduce the topic with a question: When you think about church, not necessarily this church, but maybe the church you grew up in, or maybe you didn’t grow up in church, the church you saw on television, or somebody invited you to church and you went—when you think about church, being in church, stand up, sit down, hear a sermon, sing a song—do you think about, is it closer to a funeral or a wedding? Is it a place that’s kind of somber and quiet and people wear dark clothes and like it’s very serious, or is it like people dancing and singing and eating and family?

You need to know around here, we tend to lean more toward the wedding side. That’s why we have the music we do. That’s why we have the food that we do.

We want to be a family place of celebration. Listen, that’s not the church I grew up in. No, I’m not being critical of the church that I grew up in.

They taught me to love the Bible.

They taught me to love my enemy. They taught me to love global missions.

But what my church did not teach me to love is the church. It was kind of a dark place. It honored judgment and don’t do this and don’t do that and don’t have any fun.

And it wasn’t a place of celebration for me. So imagine my surprise when I run into this passage at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. You know how it begins?

Not with a funeral. Now he went to funerals; he did miracles at funerals, but it begins at a wedding. And the very first sentence there is kind of a phrase you might consider maybe irrelevant.

It begins like this: On the third day, a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Third day, what, third day after what? Well, in the first chapter of John, Jesus is down in the southern part of Israel.

He’s in the area of Jerusalem. And if you look on a map, you can see Jerusalem, southern part of Israel. Jesus is gonna travel north 80 miles through the hills to get up to Galilee and land in Cana of Galilee.

Now, if you’re in really good shape, you can walk 80 miles in about three days. Do you think Jesus or John is telling you the itinerary of their travel? Look, John is when he writes the book about AD 90, he’s had decades to think about the church.

All the other apostles have been killed for preaching Jesus. They’ve had their funerals, and John wants to remind us that it didn’t begin with funerals. It began at a wedding.

So they’re in Cana at a wedding. I gotta confess something to you. Don’t judge me.

I don’t like weddings.

My wife loves weddings, so you don’t need to judge me. She can for you.

It’s just the dressing up and the smooth and I just, I just don’t like it. The cake is OK. Butter mints are good, but the wet like the interview, I’m not even gonna ask you to raise your hand because I know you’ll lie because you don’t wanna be judged like I’m being judged right now for not liking weddings because who doesn’t like a wedding?

This guy. If you agree with me secretly, you need to know that Jewish weddings did not last for three hours like our weddings do; they lasted for three to seven days. Oy.

And the reason is it was this whole thing is not about a young couple falling in love because the young couple, these are arranged marriages, they may not have even met each other yet. So it’s not about their love. It’s actually about two families being united together.

And so the, the idea of the wedding for them was this allegiance of families, and the groom had to prove his ability to provide for the families and not just for one day, but for three to seven days. And if he fails, that is actually a litigated offense. He could be sued by the bride’s family for failing to provide for hers.

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Well, this particular wedding took place in Cana. Now, Cana is a small village nestled in the hills of Galilee. It’s a beautiful place, and I had driven by Cana several times, but I’ve never been in Cana because the bus tours can’t get into the narrow streets of Cana.

But one year I took a hike with some guys, and we hiked into Cana and landed in this lovely church. It’s a little chapel that celebrates the wedding. Their chapel is just a little larger than our New Maryvale Auditorium or a little smaller than our Maryvale Auditorium.

And it’s, uh, it’s, it’s what surprised me is it sits on top of an archaeological site, and you could actually walk down under the church to a first-century home. You see where they lived and how they lived. And the first time I was there, I was up on the second floor looking down in the archaeological site, and I’m, I’m seeing this home and thinking, you know, the smaller a village, the longer their memory.

And the locals say, yep, this is the place going back to the fourth century. This is the place where Jesus turned water to wine. As I’m, I’m staring down into the ancient home, all the guys are wanting to ask me questions like, is this the place?

And I’m realizing, I think this is actually the place, and we have a, a rule on, on our, our hike that Jesus always speaks to people. I don’t know how to explain it other than just say, Jesus speaks to you personally. You don’t know when it’s gonna be or where it’s gonna be.

And if we’re, if Jesus is speaking to you and I say, hey, it’s time to go because we have a schedule to keep, you know, if Jesus is speaking to you just raise your hand and we’ll wait for Jesus to be done with you and then we’ll go. So all the guys are asking me questions and I just raised my hand and they backed off because I was having a moment and what was happening is I began to hear voices and the best way I can explain it is if you’ve been in a hotel and you hear people on the other side of the wall, you can’t know what they’re saying. But you feel whether it’s anger or sadness or joy, you just hear the tone.

I was hearing not through a wall, but through time. And people are pleading with Jesus, help my family, bring us healing, bring us celebration in life. I was just, I was speechless.

We went on with a hike. I still couldn’t talk. In fact, it was 30 minutes later, I came up beside my best friend.

I said, Larry, something happened to me back there and he goes, I know and he pulled out his iPhone and he showed me this picture. Jesus met me there. It reminded me that the church isn’t about a funeral, it’s about a wedding.

And the reason that this story is so important to me is not just for the moment that he spoke to me in Ka is for the life of the church where Jesus can speak to all of us. To remind you, if you thought of the church as a funeral, could you think of it as a wedding, as an invitation to celebration and family and future and hope? There was this wedding at Ka and here’s what happened: 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. Now, Mary is in a special position at this wedding. She is the matron of honor.

There was a male counterpart who was the master of ceremonies. Now, he was to make sure that all of the events took place on time and kind of order the celebration. Mary’s job, and it was an honor, was to make sure the wine and the food were all up to par and lasted the entire time.

Now, as near as I can tell, Mary is a widow because we haven’t heard from Joseph since the birth narratives. And if she’s a widow, she has scarce opportunity to actually raise in honor or status. Her social security is supposed to be her oldest son, Jesus.

But for the last nine months, he’s been 80 miles away, making a name for himself, not a home for her. And so now that he comes back home, she has every right to ask him to help according to the Jewish culture. And this problem was not just a problem for the young man who could be sued if they ran out of wine.

There is a problem for Mary. And does Mary actually ask Jesus to do anything? She just states they have no more wine.

Now, listen, some of you have mothers and others have mamas and there’s a difference. When mama says to you, your room is a mess, it’s not a statement of the fact of the affairs of your abode. It is a threat to your existence on planet Earth.

She expects you to do something, and Mary expected Jesus to do something about this, and she had every cultural right to have that expectation. Now, I don’t think she’s asking Jesus for a miracle because Jesus hasn’t so far done any public miracles. No, she just notices you got 12 guys following you right now and when you have 12 guys in your entourage, you have funds that pay for housing and food and lodging.

And for the past seven days, you haven’t had to pay for housing, food, and lodging because they’ve been at the wedding. And part of the reason they ran out of wine is because these guys are thirsty, and Peter, he didn’t just catch fish, he drank like a fish. Now, I can’t prove that, but you can’t prove it wrong either.

So, we’re just gonna go with that. I’m sure he was fine. Yeah.

So we’ve got these guys who have drunk all the wine, and now it’s gone, and she’s got a problem, and she expects Jesus to help solve the problem. And that puts a problem for Jesus because at the very time that God, his heavenly Father, is asking Jesus to go into the world, she’s trying to draw him back into village affairs. How does Jesus honor his heavenly Father and show respect to his earthly mother when their goals are at odds?

That’s the problem.

And you sense that in Jesus’ response to his mother, verse four: ‘Woman, you try that with your mama.’ It’s not disrespectful, but it’s not warm and cuddly either. He’s not putting her in her place.

He is putting this in perspective: ‘Woman, why do you involve me?’ Jesus replied, ‘My hour has not yet come.’ Honestly, I really don’t know what Jesus is talking about. This, I know, I don’t know exactly what it means, but this I know: Jesus talked about ‘my hour’ over a dozen times in the Gospel of John. ‘My hour has not yet come, my hour has not yet come, my hour has not yet come.’ And finally he says, ‘My hour has come,’ and he’s crucified.

His hour, the timing of his life, was about his sacrifice for the sins of the world. And we’re not there yet. But Jesus is reminding Mary, ‘I’m not on your timetable.’

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I’m no longer in village affairs. I’ve got a world to take care of here, and my timetable is different than yours.’ And he tells Mary flat out, ‘Why do you involve me? Why do you want to pull me into your problem?’ And some of you know exactly how Mary feels because Jesus has not met your expectations.

Your life right now is more like a funeral than a wedding. You go out to dinner with your spouse and go an hour, and you barely say a dozen words to each other. You go to work, and some of you are at work right now, and you’re kind of at the tail end of your career, and you’ve hit a lid and there’s nowhere else to go, and you just feel stuck.

There are no open doors. Some of you are being ghosted right now by a person you love dearly. We’re on a way of life and this path with Jesus.

And sometimes it does feel more like a funeral than a wedding. We’re saying, ‘Jesus, why don’t you help me?’ And it feels like he’s giving you the stiff arm and going, ‘Why are you trying to draw me into your petty problems?’ Listen, if Jesus is, it feels like he’s saying, ‘Why are you involving me?’ it’s not because he doesn’t want to meet your expectations; it’s because he wants to exceed your expectations. And trust me, even in the midst of your pain, Jesus is well aware and he’s not unconcerned.

He did show up at funerals.

One of them was a good friend of his, Lazarus, who died, and he’s about to raise Lazarus from the dead. He knows what he’s going to do.

But Mary, Lazarus’s sister, is crying, and you know what Jesus does? He weeps. And right now, if you’re in pain, Jesus is right there with you; he’s weeping.

And if he’s not meeting your expectation, it’s not because he doesn’t care. It’s because he has something bigger and better for you to be a part of. And Mary knew that.

I respect Mary so much. I mean, she is, after all, the woman that God chose to give birth to his Son. And even if Jesus didn’t meet her expectations, she didn’t give up on her faith.

And don’t you either. You need to listen to what Mary is about to say because this is the only command that Mary ever gave, this is the only sermon she ever preached, and it is a single sentence. Do you have ears to hear?

Mary said, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’

That’s good advice. When Jesus doesn’t meet your expectations, what do you do? You do whatever he tells you to do.

Some of you, you know, need to confess this sin. You have a secret that you’re keeping from the very people who could help you overcome your temptation. You need to confess your sin.

Others, you need to repent. You’ve already confessed it, but you keep making the same mistakes. Some of you, even last night, did what you swore to God you would not do.

And it’s time to change. For some of you, you need to move out because the person you’re living with right now, you’re not married to them, and you know they’re not going in the same direction that you want to go to God. It’s time to make a change and do what you know Jesus is calling you to do.

He told you to be baptized. It’s a command. It’s not a request.

He tells you, what are you waiting for? He tells you that tithing is what he expects. What are you waiting for?

If you will do whatever Jesus tells you to do, He will not meet your expectations. He will exceed them.

Verse six: Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from 20 to 30 gallons. You want to see one of those water jars? You want to see it?

They’ve actually found one in the archaeological site. They are huge, and they hold—there’s six of them, right? You do the math.

Six of them hold 20 to 30 gallons each. How much are we talking? It’s 120 to 180 gallons of wine.

That’s not a blessing you can imbibe. That’s a blessing you bathe in. It’s unbelievable.

So Jesus says, verse seven, fill the jars with water. So they fill 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 didn’t 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 until now.

Some of you know how this works better than others. After the third glass of wine, you can serve your guest wine from a box. Oh my God.

That’s fantastic. But what you’ll find is that Jesus saves the best for last, and what you’re going through right now is not the end of the story.

He has a bathtub of blessing waiting for you.

He wants to pour out on you what you could only imagine right now, and you get a sense that this story is bigger than an event that happened in Cana. And it is. John gives you a clue in his little postscript in verse eleven: 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.

Now, John has hidden in the story three Easter eggs, and if you find them, you will go, that is bigger than it first appeared. And I want to share the Easter eggs with you. Are you ready?

Maybe you’ve already found them. Easter egg number one: sign. He doesn’t call this a miracle.

He calls it a sign. What’s the difference? Well, a miracle makes you go, ‘Wow.’

A sign makes you go, ‘Whoa.’ A miracle points to the power of the person. A sign points to something in the future that’s bigger than what’s happening right now. And this wedding feast is not about a bride and a groom who had this great wedding gift.

It’s about you and it’s about me. It’s about your view of the church. It’s a sign that there’s something he’s calling us to: celebration, not to a funeral.

And in the book of John, there are seven signs. Now, if you’re a Jew, the number seven is significant. It represents the work of God in the midst of men.

And each of these seven signs is a next step. You take a step in your journey and then you have a next step. We talk about next steps around it and you take a next step, and, and, uh, the way of Jesus, you’re walking in the way of Jesus with each of the seven signs.

But it begins with an invitation to a celebration. And if you’ve never given your life to Jesus, we just want you to hear Jesus invite you. It’s not a funeral.

It’s a wedding and it doesn’t mean your life will always be easy. But it means that in the midst of the difficulties you can celebrate because the sign is pointing to something better that’s coming. There’s a second Easter egg.

I don’t know if you saw it: purification.

The water jars were for purification. And what’s that?

Well, the Jews believed in cooties. I’m not even kidding. You remember in the second grade when a girl touched you and she had cooties, you had to go wash.

The Jews believed that if somebody who wasn’t following God touched something, or maybe they were not a Jew and they touched something and you came along later and touched the same thing, their cooties rub off on you. That’s a problem. But it’s a simple solution.

All you gotta do is dip your hands in water and you wash off the cooties. You’re good. That’s why there were six stone water jars and people were coming in and, uh, washing themselves and cleaning themselves up.

What did Jesus do with purification? Some of the reasons, some of you, the reason you look at church as a funeral, not a wedding, is you hear preachers and I apologize. They’re telling you you gotta clean up and you gotta repent and don’t do this and don’t do that.

It feels so heavy and we think that we have to clean ourselves up for God to love us. What Jesus is showing is purification is not what you do for God; it’s what He’s done for you. And when He turned the water to wine, the water is what you do.

The wine is what God gives and it represents the blood of Jesus Christ. The wine of that wedding points forward to Communion. Where is the blood of Christ poured out for you?

If you’re thinking, I don’t know if I could be part of the church, like I don’t know if God would love me. You got it wrong. It’s not your job to clean up.

It’s your job to submit. And if you submit yourself to God, if you put your faith in Him, He will do all the work, the work through the blood of Jesus Christ. And you’re thinking, well, that sounds good.

But my life right now really is more like a funeral than a wedding. If this is supposed to be a celebration, I’m not getting it because I’m still desperately lonely. I’m still raising kids by myself.

I’m still being ghosted by the person I love. So how can you say that Jesus has invited me to a celebration because I don’t see the celebration. I like, I don’t, it’s not in my grasp, this celebration.

So how can you say he invites me to a celebration when I don’t have anything to celebrate? Hm. It’s the third Easter egg.

Three days. Go ahead and pull it out of your pocket and, and just look at it. Three days, three days in the Gospel of John, three days is not a travel log.

It is the resurrection of Jesus and you’re on your own journey toward your own resurrection. The reason you don’t have full celebration right now is because you haven’t gotten to the end of the three days. It’s still coming.

And John in his last book writes about the end of the third day in Revelation chapter 19. He describes when Jesus comes back again and the end is even better than the beginning. Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and the loud peals of thunder shouting, ‘Hallelujah!’

For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.

Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.’ (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.) Then the angel said to me, ‘Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb.’ And he added, ‘These are the true words of God.’ There was a wedding in Cana 2,000 years ago, but there’s one coming that will eclipse that by far. And in between the wedding of Cana and the marriage supper of the Lamb stands this Communion. If you got these emblems on your way in, go ahead and peel back the bread, just hold it in your hand for now.

We’ll take it together. Christians are a strange lot because we don’t just remember backwards. We remember forwards.

This little piece of bread reminds us of the night before Jesus died. He said, ‘Take, eat. This is my body, broken for you.’ But it also points forward, not to a little emblem but to a massive banquet.

Can you see it?

Every tongue and tribe and people on earth will gather together around the table of the Lamb. We are his bride and he is our groom.

And when he comes again, there will be a celebration. If in the midst of your funeral, you can celebrate because Jesus at your funeral weeps, but he knows what he’s gonna do in raising you from the dead. So every week we come to the table.

And we’re just reminded, not just to remember backward to what Jesus did, but forward to the marriage supper of the Lamb that is coming. Take, eat, the body of Christ, broken for you. Likewise, he took the cup and he said to his disciples the night before he died, ‘This is the new covenant in my blood, poured out for you.’ The water that Jesus turned to wine represented the blood that he shed.

It is the gift that makes the wedding possible. And when he returns, that wine will flow. Not a bottle or two of Mogen David, this is a bathtub of blessing.

And the little sip that we take now reminds us of the immensity of the grace of God in the blood of Jesus poured out for you. That’s why we celebrate even in the midst of the difficulties of life. That’s why we are a people called to celebration.

The blood of Christ, poured out for you. Holy Father, it is not lost on us that your first miraculous sign was at a wedding. It is a promise that we receive; it is an invitation that we celebrate.

And even when you don’t meet our expectations, we know that on the third day, you will exceed them. For that, we give you our loyalty, we give you our worship, we pledge to proclaim you broadly so that this entire valley could know the love of Jesus, that our entire world would know the hope of God. We pray in Jesus’ name.

Amen. Let’s go make Jesus famous.

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