January 20, 2019 “Lavish Love” – John 2:1-11

John 2:1-11
“Lavish Love”
January 20, 2019 – Second Sunday after Epiphany

Beth wore a beautiful white dress, dotted with pearls. She’s never worn it again. I wore a rented gray tuxedo with wide lapels. The church was decked with bouquets of stephanotis and other flowers. The organ played Bach and a soloist sang an opera aria by Saint-Saëns. The fellowship hall was festooned with streamers and held a table laden with fruit salad and mixed nuts and a huge cake. Six of our friends piled in a car and drove several hundred miles from South Bend to St. Louis, while others of my friends and family bought plane tickets and flew in from California. The place was filled with people who loved us, wishing us well.

We were poor, struggling graduate students who would soon be living together in a university apartment subsidized by public housing assistance. But our wedding and our honeymoon were everything we and our families could afford and more, stretching our resources as far as they could go. For us, it was an extravagant, lavish display of the love we were sharing with each other and committing to for the rest of our lives.

At the very beginning of His ministry, Jesus went to what may have been a wedding like ours in Cana of Galilee, near where Jesus grew up in Nazareth. Cana must have been a small village because we cannot even be quite sure today exactly where it was. It may have been four miles east of Nazareth toward the Sea of Galilee or it may have been ten miles north. The point is that it was a tiny, obscure place, not a location where a wealthy couple would have been married. That wedding feast Jesus and His disciples attended in Cana was celebrated in a small town on a shoestring budget, a little like our wedding.

Verse 1 told us that Mary was there. We know her name from the other Gospels, but John only calls her Jesus’ mother, both here and at the end of John, at the Cross. She may have been a friend of the couple’s family or F. F. Bruce suggests she may have had some responsibility for the catering of the feast. In any case, when the unthinkable happened and the wine ran out, Mary felt the desperation of their host and came with her concern to her Son in verse 3, “They have no wine.”

There was no wine at our wedding reception either. Neither Beth nor I drank alcohol. It happened in a Baptist church. Beth’s Catholic and Lutheran relatives were flabbergasted and annoyed because they were used to a bountiful outpouring of spirits at big weddings. But for that lack of alcohol was just a minor annoyance. While we drove off an our honeymoon, our friends went home to Beth’s parents’ house, sat around the kitchen table and toasted us as Beth’s father poured out some of his stash of chianti.

It was not a minor annoyance in Cana. The budget for that feast was too tight. It’s embarrassing for food or drink to run out at a wedding today. In those times and in that culture it would have been devastating, a major loss of face and terrible shame to the host and family putting on the event. The people of Cana and surrounding villages would have talked about it shaking their heads for years to come. Jesus, His mother and His disciples were about to witness a major social disaster.

So Mary came to Jesus and simply told Him the situation. What He said in reply in verse 4 has been somewhat mysterious ever since. His address to her, literally “Woman,” seems cold and rude to our ears. As most children learn, you don’t talk to your mother that way. Some translations try to ease it a bit, making it something more polite like “Madam” or “Lady,” but even those don’t sound like a loving son talking to his mother.

My own feeling is that it’s all about context and Jesus’ tone and facial expression, none of which we are told or know about that conversation. Jesus calling his mother “Woman,” in a stern tone with a frown is completely different from using that term in a light voice with a twinkle in His eye. Just this past two weeks I addressed my own wife as “Woman,” a time or two, but always with humor and love, “Woman, it’s time for your exercises,” “Woman, let’s get your socks on.” Beth smiled and we got the exercises done and the socks pulled up.

We know for a fact that Jesus was not dissing His mother by calling her “Woman” because that’s exactly what He called her in a much more sad and painful situation at the end of this Gospel. In John 19:26, hanging on the Cross, Jesus commended Mary to John’s care by saying, “Woman, behold your son,” and to John, “Here is your mother.” That was obviously meant with nothing but the most tender love and respect. We have to believe the same is happening here at the beginning of the Gospel.

The rest of what Jesus said to Mary is also difficult, “My hour has not yet come.” What does He mean? He has gathered disciples; His ministry is beginning. What hour is He waiting for? The timing of Jesus’ “hour” is one of the big themes of the Gospel of John. As it unfolds we learn that everything He says and does is pointing forward toward the last few chapters, to His death on the Cross and His resurrection. That grand finale is His “hour,” is His “glory,” another term John uses for it. It’s the hour when everyone around Him will see and know for sure who Jesus is and what He came to do.

This underfunded wedding feast in a humble village was not that hour, not the moment for Jesus to display His identity and power in all His glory. Mary, who knew the miracle of His birth and had seen angels and a star and foreign dignitaries kneeling before her little boy needed to understand that. Not everyone was at that time to know about Him what she knew about Him, that He was not just her son, but the Son of God.

Yet Mary still knew what she knew. Jesus’ reply to her sounds like a rude brush off to us, but Mary knew her Son. She knew not just the power and glory that was in and around Him, she knew His love and compassion. So with no argument, with no further discussion, Mary simply turned to the servants in verse 5 and said, “Do whatever he tells you.” Again, without the emotional nuances, without a window into Mary’s mind, we can’t really quite say how she understood Jesus was going to help, but she did understand it. She did know it.

Cana reminds us that a wedding is a time to be extravagant, to put on your best, to lay out heaps of good food and drink, to celebrate beautifully and lavishly. In verses 6 and 7 Jesus took note of a half dozen of the largest vessels to be found. As it says, “six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.” Think about a 5-gallon bucket and multiply it by 4 or by 6. Those jars held a lot of water. No one was going to easily pick one up, even empty. When Jesus said, “Fill the jars with water,” it meant those poor servants were going to have to find smaller water jars and make many trips to the fountain or spring or wherever, back and forth, back and forth, until those tall jars were full to the brim. I’m sure they were all wondered what on earth this water carrying was for, what it had to do with the current crisis over wine.

Pouring water in those jars was weird and confusing enough, but what came next really stretched the obedience of those servants. In verse 8, Jesus told them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” Imagine yourself in their place, in the place of that one particular servant who dipped a pitcher into a big jar they had just filled with water. What did he think as he carried that pitcher into the dining room and poured it into the steward’s wine goblet? Would the steward to choke or frown or spit out water when he was expecting wine? Imagine the servant’s surprise when the steward smiled and took another drink and called for the bridegroom to congratulate him on his choice of vintage.

The Gospel of John is chock full of beautiful symbolism and you can find plenty of it here in this story. The church fathers loved the fact that this miracle took place at a wedding feast and that John’s later book, Revelation, pictured the wedding feast of the Lamb and the Church as the Bride of Christ. All of it fulfilled prophecies like we read from Isaiah 65 this morning, that God will delight in and love His people like “the bridegroom rejoices over the bride.”

And Jesus created new wine that filled up the jars which were used to ceremonially wash people seeking to be right with God. It’s a symbol of how He came to pour out His own blood to wash us from our sins and to be the wine of our salvation. We remember that every time we celebrate Holy Communion. I could preach a whole sermon on either of those glorious symbols, wedding or wine, and celebrate our Lord’s saving grace.

Yet I’d like to dwell now for a bit on the amount in those jars, remembering the extravagance of weddings, the over-the-top way we celebrate those sweet moments in human life. To put it bluntly, it was an absolutely incredible amount of wine. I’ve often simply said it was 120 gallons.

Literally, John wrote that each of those jars held two or three “measures.” A measure was 8 to 10 gallons. Do the math. The lower limit for what they held is about 96 gallons. The upper is 180. Even the minimum is huge. Take a standard 750 milliliter bottle of wine and at the bottom end it is still nearly 500 bottles. Jesus did not just save face for His mother and their hosts, he bestowed a lavish, delicious wedding gift on that young couple.

Our reading from Psalm 36 said,

⁷How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

⁸They feast on the abundance of your house,
and you give them drink from the river of your delights.

The steadfast love of God is an abundant love, a lavish love that pours out His mercy and kindness like a river. There is always more than enough, like those gallons and gallons of wine that blessed the wedding in Cana. When you trust in Jesus, like Mary His mother trusted in Him, like that servant carrying what he probably thought was just a pitcher of water trusted in Him, there will be enough, enough love and grace for everything you need and more.

It’s not just the point of tension in a little story about a wedding feast. One of our great human fears is that what we need will run out, that there will not be enough, whether it’s food or drink, money or medical care, jobs or housing, friendship or time. We are scared of scarcity. That fear fuels arguments in our homes, in our workplaces, and in our society. If you get that, will there be enough left for me? If they take those jobs, what will happen to mine? If we let them in, will there be room and security for those of us who are already here? If we spend the money on that, will there be enough for this? If I let this baby be born, will I be able to have a life of my own? We ask all those sorts of questions out of that basic anxiety over scarcity. Will there be enough?

This sweet, profound, abundant first miracle of Jesus addresses that anxiety, aims to put the kibosh on all those fears. The love of God in Jesus Christ is abundant, lavish, full to the brim of all that we truly need. The economy of the kingdom of God is not an economy of scarcity but of abundance, an economy based on the lavish love of Jesus, who cared even about the wedding day of a poor couple in a forgotten little place.

Of course, scarcity is still a fact of our lives and of this world. Even water has become a scarce, precious and expensive commodity in the warmer parts of our nation like Arizona and California and the rest of the Southwest. We want everyone to have medical care, but the resources for that turn out to be scarce and costly. And just at home and here at church we still need to balance our budgets and pay our bills and keep the lights on and the water running.

And for those of us who are getting older or those of us who really busy trying to provide enough to meet those other scarcities, the big item that may seem scarce is time. How do we get our work done, maintain relationships, serve those in need, come to worship, keep the house clean, and every once in a while take a badly needed break? There just doesn’t seem to enough time for it all.

How then does the abundant, lavish love of the Lord Jesus address those very practical and real scarcities we wrestle with every day? How does that lavish gift of fine wine at the wedding in Cana spill over into your life and mine? Does it? Can it?

I don’t want to give the impression that it’s easy or simple or always purely happy, but the love of Jesus is truly and always enough for our deepest needs and desires. Jesus said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and all these [other] things will be added to you.” He meant it. We may be lonely or hungry or even homeless. Many people are. But Jesus has abundant and lavish love for us even in the midst of that scarcity. That’s why Christianity has been a faith received and embraced most dearly by those who are poor.

Our reading from Paul’s first letter to Corinth today also shows us that our Lord’s lavish love comes in gifts that go beyond the merely material. Paul says that Jesus through the Holy Spirit gives everyone, that’s everyone, a spiritual gift or three. Whatever those gifts are, it’s the same Spirit, the lavish Holy Spirit of God who distributes them to each and every Christian believer. Right here in this room we have an abundance of spiritual gifts all poured out by the lavish love of our Savior.

The other part of this story of lavish love is that Jesus invites us to join Him in making that love abundant. Whenever we follow His command and share what we have, whenever we put those spiritual gifts to use for others, our Lord makes it clear to anyone paying attention that there is enough for all, more than enough of Him and His love to go around.

Today I invite you to truly live in the kingdom of God, a kingdom based on abundance, not scarcity. I invite you to the great wedding feast of the Lamb, where the rich wine of heaven flows to all who are thirsty. In His kingdom, at His wedding, let the memory and present reality of His abundant love overcome your fear of scarcity. Don’t be afraid to offer or share what you have, even when you don’t know how it will turn out. Neither did the servant know how it would turn out as he carried that wine to the steward. But he did what Jesus asked, trusted His love. Let us trust Him too.

There’s one more familiar and sweet part of this story I wouldn’t want to leave out: what the steward said when he tasted the water which became wine. “You have kept the good wine until now.” That’s the promise we have in Jesus’ lavish love. No matter how old we are or how much we’ve lost in life, the good wine, the best wine is yet to come.

That wedding I began with was four decades ago. Beth and I will celebrate our fortieth anniversary this June. And I can honestly, truly say that God has blessed us abundantly. Even in midst of recovery from knee replacement, getting older and all it means, we’re finding that the good, the better, has been saved until now. And that the best is yet to come. That’s how I believe it is in Christ. That’s how I believe it can be for you if you let go of fear, don’t base your life on scarcity, and trust in His lavish love.

Amen.