Hello and thank you for joining us for this week's episode of Trinity Sermons.
This week we are continuing with our sermon series Around the Table, looking at all of
the meals that Jesus shared during his time on earth.
Do you know any wine connoisseurs, or have you ever seen them at work?
They often swirl, sniff, and sip at the wine to uncover all of its notes.
This week Rob shows us how we can do the same thing with scripture, slowly drinking it in
to uncover all that God has to show us.
Let's listen in.
Today's reading is from the Gospel of John chapter 2 verses 1 to 25.
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.
Woman, why do you involve me?
Jesus replied, my hour has not yet come.
His mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you.
Thereby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by 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 wine after the guests have had too much to drink, but you have saved
the best till now.
What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he was
revealed, which he revealed his glory and his disciples believed in him.
After this, he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples.
There they stayed for a few days.
When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
In the temple courts, he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves and others sitting
at tables exchanging money.
So he made a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle.
He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.
To those who sold doves, he said, get these out of here.
Stop turning my father's house into a market.
His disciples remembered that it is written, zeal for your house will consume me.
The Jews then responded to him, what sign can you show us to prove your authority to
do all this?
Jesus answered them, destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days.
They replied, it has taken 46 years to build this temple and you are going to raise it
in three days.
But the temple he had spoken of was his body.
After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said.
Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover festival, many people saw the signs he was
performing and believed in his name.
But Jesus would not entrust himself to them.
We have been spending some time thinking about the various meals that people ate with Jesus
and we just keep on keeping on because Jesus just kept on eating with people.
Throughout the Bible there's just so many stories of Jesus eating meals with people.
So we're five weeks in but we're nowhere near the end just yet.
But we have been asking you to send us some of the photos of the meals that you've been
eating.
And so you guys have been doing that every week.
I really appreciate it.
So here's a picture of the Zadkiewicz clan.
There's John and Mary Ann and Matt and Heather having a meal together.
Here is a picture.
Oh, there's our reader this morning, Ali.
Ali and Rick having what I think this was an anniversary dinner with the Strasslers.
This is a picture of Molly and Elizabeth and Kathy enjoying a lunch together.
Here we have a picture of the Wormald Life Group, one of our life groups here at Trinity
all gathered around a table.
I think they eat every week when they get together.
And then here's a picture of Bill and Dale.
They went on a motorbike ride and they stopped to get a hot dog at Easterbrook's.
So keep the pictures coming.
You can send your pictures of the meals that you're eating with people.
Send them to eattogetherattrinitystreetsville.org.
Now one thing that we have definitely learned as we've been going through this teaching
series is that whenever Jesus had a meal someone, it wasn't about the food.
You know, whenever Jesus ate, it was about way more than the food.
It was about healing and reconciliation and transformation and forgiveness and inclusion
and love.
No, no, no.
It was about way more than the food.
And now today I think we can add to that statement that whenever Jesus had a drink with someone,
it was about way more than the wine.
I don't know if there's any wine connoisseurs with us here this morning.
I am not a wine connoisseur.
Most people who go to like buy wine, they look at the label and they look at all the
things the label says, you know, oh, this is a 2020 Merlot from the Napa Valley, right?
They look at all this stuff and they say, oh, that's a good wine.
I don't usually look at the label on the bottle.
I look at the price tag under the bottle and I'm like, oh, $9?
Yes, that's sold, sold.
But wine connoisseurs, they really get to know their wine.
They really get to know their wine.
And the way they do this is there's these three like tests that they do to detect what's
going on in the wine and to get all the flavor out.
First of all, they swirl it.
Have you ever seen a wine connoisseur do the swirl?
It's like they're auditioning for a part in Swan Lake, you know?
They got to get it just perfect.
So graceful.
There we go.
So graceful.
And they have to get the angle, you know, just right because of course if they don't
get the if they don't get the angle right, then the wine police are going to show up
and revoke their membership from they're not allowed to drink wine anymore.
You didn't swirl it right.
But then after the swirl, of course, comes the sniff, right?
They don't just do a little of this.
No, wine connoisseurs, they like plunge their nose like right into the cup and they take
a deep breath like they're like like they're inhaling the meaning of life.
They suck it in and then they say things like, oh, I detect, you know, a hint of pencil shavings.
Yes, pencil shavings.
Yes, yes.
And in a freshly opened can of tennis balls.
Yes, I'm detecting.
Oh, and what's that?
What's that?
Oh, yes, it's a it's just a subtle note of pretentiousness.
I mean, come on.
How are we?
But anyways, but that's not it.
That's not where it ends.
After the swirl and after the sniff, there is, of course, the sip.
And when they sip it, they don't just like sip it.
They put it in their mouth and they let it like roll around in there like they're doing
gymnastics with it and then their mouth.
Right.
And and then this is my favorite part about the wine connoisseur.
After they after they have like done all these things, they just stare off into the distance
and they have it in their mouth and they act like the wine is telling them its life story.
Oh, bold start, bold start, troubled teenage years, right?
Smooth, smooth finish.
Right.
Like this is this is how wine connoisseur but listen, and it's easy to make fun of.
It's kind of a funny thing.
But really, what they're trying to do, what are they trying to do?
They are just trying to get every last note, every last bit of flavor out of that wine.
And that is actually not a bad idea to keep in mind when we come to today's reading, because
today we come across this miraculous reading of how Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding
in Cana of Galilee.
And don't you dare just chug this down.
Don't you dare just like, oh, this looks good.
Drink it down and say, that's a great story and walk away.
No, there is way more going on in this story than you would ever think.
That's why today what we are going to do is we are going to swirl it and we are going
to sniff it and we are going to sip it slow to get every last flavor and every last undertone
out of this story.
But first, before we go there, I think we have to address this.
And that is many of you will say, can we even trust a story like this?
I mean, this does seem like a very weird first miracle, we're told it was Jesus, first miracle
for Jesus to do.
Making more wine at a wedding.
Really, that's the opening miracle.
But actually, it's that weirdness which makes it all the more trustworthy.
Because think about it this way, let's imagine you were going to make up your own religion.
Let's say you were just going to invent it.
What would you have the leader of that religion do for their very first miracle?
I mean, wouldn't you have them do something like amazing and powerful, like walk on water
or, you know, call down fire from heaven.
Wouldn't that be how you'd want to get the movement going, get out of the gate with a
real, real bang, right?
That's how you would do it.
If you were inventing the story, that's how you would do it.
If you were inventing Christianity, you would never say, hey, I got a great idea.
I got a great idea for a first miracle.
He's at a wedding and they run out of wine.
And he makes a bit more wine.
I don't think that's nearly impressive enough.
And there's no way anybody would invent that.
In fact, there's this guy by the name of Reynolds Price, he says, if you were inventing, if
you were making this up, a biography of Jesus Christ, who would make the inaugural event
of his career a miraculous solution to a mere social embarrassment?
So if it wasn't made up, then that means it must have happened and been recorded for us.
And that's why we can trust it.
So don't spiritualize this story.
Don't say, oh, this is a story about, this is an allegory.
Jesus didn't really turn water into wine.
What he really did is just try and teach us about his new ideas or then the new life that
he offers us.
Don't you dare do that.
This story is there to tell us that God is directly involved in the events of human life,
turning real sick people into healthy people, turning real blind people into people who
can see and turning real water into really, really good wine.
I just want to say a side note before we really start swirling and sniffing.
And that is this.
I know that many people look at the story and they have all these questions about alcohol
and whether we should be drinking alcohol, yes or no.
Was it wine?
Was it not?
I actually think that the questions about drinking alcohol and how often we should drink
alcohol or whether Christians should drink alcohol is actually a really good conversation
that probably should be happening because we all know there is a ton of sorrow and suffering
that happens in our world because of the abuse of alcohol.
But I think we also need to acknowledge that that is not what this story is getting at.
That is not what this story is about.
No, what we're supposed to do today, what we're supposed to do with this story is we
are supposed to uncork this story and drink deeply of what is going on here, to swirl
it, sniff it, taste it carefully and pick up all the notes and flavors.
Now there's so many notes and flavors that I actually gave you some notes when you came
in today.
It's kind of like what a little wine connoisseurs checklist.
I would invite you to go down those with me because there's a lot to learn from this story.
So for starters, as soon as we open the bottle, as soon as we open the bottle and start swirling
it around and sniffing it, you will start to detect hints of joy.
That's the first thing that really hits you.
This is a story about joy.
The story begins just by saying this.
Jesus had been invited to a wedding.
Now that tells you something right off the bat.
Jesus is clearly not an anti-social killjoy.
Jesus is the kind of person that gets invited to a party.
Jesus is not only the kind of person that gets invited to a party, but when the party
is running down and it's getting late, Jesus is the kind of person that keeps the party
going and keeps the wine flowing because wines and wine and weddings and joy all go together.
In those days, you know, if you didn't have wine at a wedding, then you didn't have joy
at a wedding.
And when Jesus saw, oh my goodness, he saw that the wine was running out.
He had to jump into action.
Now at every wedding, there is somebody who's responsible for making sure that the guests
continue to have fun and the joy is there.
And that person is the master of ceremonies, the MC.
It's their job to make sure that the joy carries on all night long.
But this master of ceremonies at this wedding had obviously screwed up his job royally.
And now the joy is all about to evaporate from this wedding.
But guess what?
Guess who saves the day?
Jesus jumps in and actually what that ends up meaning is that Jesus is really the true
master of ceremonies.
He is the real joy giver.
Jesus is the one who keeps the good times rolling.
Now that's actually hard for us to believe because many of us don't associate Christianity
with joy.
There are a lot of people in Mississauga this morning who did not get up and go to church.
And if you ask them why, they might say something like this and say, well, maybe when I was
a kid I used to go to church.
But when I got older, I wanted to have fun.
I wanted to have fun.
And they don't associate the church with fun or joy.
And many of us have been part of a Christian community at one point or another where it
was all about duty and it was all about service and it was all about the rules and the laws.
But that's a problem because Jesus was the master of ceremonies.
He was the joy giver.
He was the one who kept the joy flowing.
So you can reject Jesus if you want.
That's fine.
But don't you dare call him a drag.
Jesus loved a party and he was the one who kept the joy going.
So you smell that?
There are major, major hints of joy in this drink.
But if you keep sniffing and you keep swirling, you're also going to detect overtones of prayer
in this story.
Here's why.
Because you see, part of prayer, not all of prayer, is coming to God with our requests.
Many of us struggle with asking God for help.
We don't really know how to ask God for the things we need.
We think that maybe God's only interested in the big things and not interested in the
little things in my life.
Or we think that if I do come to God and ask him for something, I better get the words
right or I better say it in the right way.
Otherwise, God is not going to answer my prayer.
But look at Mary in this story.
When she realizes there's a problem at the wedding and some people actually think that
maybe Mary had a hand in helping plan the wedding, what does she do?
She simply says five words.
They have no more wine.
No flowery language, no groveling, no deal making.
She just lets Jesus know that there is a problem.
And that is a beautiful picture of prayer.
When we pray, all we have to do is lay our needs before God.
We don't need special words.
We don't need even to tell God how to solve the problem.
We just need to lay the problem before him and trust that he will solve it as he will.
I mean, what if our prayers sounded more like this?
God, they have no money.
Amen.
Jesus, she has no cure.
Father, he has no friends.
Lord, I have no strength.
Mary didn't know how Jesus was going to solve this problem, answer this prayer.
Neither did we.
She didn't know how to turn water into wine.
Neither do we.
But what Mary does and what we can do, and sometimes the only thing that we can do is
we say, God, there is a need here.
Right?
Jesus, we're in trouble.
They have no wine.
Okay?
That's another hint.
As we sniff and swirl this, we detect, yes, hints of joy.
Yes, we detect these undertones telling us what it means to lay our needs before God
in prayer.
But related to those undertones of prayer, we also detect distinct notes of discipleship.
Discipleship.
You see, right after Mary's request, the next thing she says is this word of obedience.
Right?
His mother, she turns to the servants and she says, do what he tells you.
Do you guys know what a disciple of Jesus is?
A disciple is someone who not only learns from Jesus, but then does what Jesus says
to do.
Obeys what Jesus commands.
So if you pray to Jesus, but you do not have a willingness to obey Jesus, then it's like
saying, you know, I believe in God, but I just want to do the things that God says to
do.
Or I'm a citizen of this country.
I just don't follow the rules of this country.
But Jesus, when you say Jesus is my Lord, Jesus is my master, what you're saying is
I'm going to listen to him and I'm going to do what he says to do.
In fact, one of the last things that Jesus said before he left this earth, he said, go
and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them like we did this morning with Finn in
the name of the father, the son and the Holy Spirit, and then teaching them to obey everything
I have commanded you.
And so as you can see, there's so much in here.
This wine, I mean, we're just going to keep on going, but we've got these hints of joy,
these overtones of prayer.
And now we've got these notes of obedience and discipleship.
But just as we're getting started, this wine, we swirl it a bit, maybe take a sip.
There's another nuance here you can't miss.
And that is the nuance of family.
Did you notice how Jesus, do you notice how Jesus responded to his mother?
It's surprising in two ways.
First he addresses her as woman.
And then he says, why do you involve me?
Now the first part, woman, isn't as bad as it sounds.
It sounds kind of harsh.
But actually, it's funny, in John's gospel, he never refers to Mary by her first name.
For some reason, he always refers to Mary as woman.
And actually some translations translate it as dear woman.
So that can actually be a bit of a term of affection.
But that second part, why do you involve me?
I think it does have a little bit of a harshness to it.
You know, Jesus, that's not how you talk to your mother.
Jesus, what are you doing?
What is going on here?
Here's what's going on here.
Jesus is creating new relationships, if you will.
Because after being known as Mary's boy for 30 years of his life, there's this shift happening.
Jesus' relationship to Mary is changing.
He's always been part of Mary's family, always been part of Joseph's family.
He's got brothers and he's got sisters.
But now, but now relationships are changing because he has this sense that God has given
him a new mission.
And that mission is to create a brand new family, a family that has nothing to do with
blood.
We welcomed Finn into that family this morning.
Jesus is creating a new family and it's a family that has everything to do with faith
and not a lot to do with blood.
And he's prioritizing, re-prioritizing his own relationships as a result.
It's almost like, did you notice, when Mary treats Jesus as her little boy, son, they
have no more wine.
Her request gets denied.
But when she treats Jesus as a disciple, as a follower, do what he tells you, well then
her faith is honored by Jesus.
Relationships are changing here.
We're seeing them change.
And this may feel like really sad news for Mary to have this relationship change for
her, but it's really good news for us.
Because it means that we are invited into God's family.
Not by blood, but because we've been adopted into God's family.
It's not our ethnic background that brings us into the family, but it's our faith in
Jesus.
And I don't know, I mean, maybe you've got great relationships in your life or bad ones
or great relationships with your family or not, but you take a sniff of this story and
you will realize that Jesus is making a brand new family.
And you can pick up the hints even here.
Okay.
Now, I mentioned, we're keeping on going.
I hope you're keeping up.
We keep on going here.
I mentioned that Mary would have felt a little sad at all this, but there is actually more
sorrow.
There are actually deeper accents of sorrow going on in this story than we might think.
Now, you might say, well, how is that possible, Rob?
You're talking about this being having hints of joy and now you're telling us it has accents
of sorrow.
How do both of those happen in the same bottle of wine?
But it's there.
If you read that story, it's there.
And even the amateur Bible connoisseur can pick up these notes.
Look, when Mary asks for help with the wine problem, Jesus says something strange.
Did you notice it?
He says, my hour has not yet come.
What is he talking about?
That seems like a non sequitur.
It seems like his head is somewhere else.
It's like he's thinking about something else.
He's a million miles away.
It actually makes me feel like he's sad.
My hour has not yet come.
You know what, I wonder if he's thinking about his own wedding.
You know, most people who go to a wedding, they think about their own wedding.
They think about, you know, when will it be my turn or what will my wedding look like?
But you know, Jesus was never going to have a wedding like this.
And he knew that.
The Bible tells us that Jesus would be a bridegroom one day, but at a very different wedding.
Because you see, we're the ones that Jesus loves.
We are his bride, the Bible says.
And the sad part is showing his love to us, coming together with us, it wasn't going to
happen at a joyful banquet hall, but it was going to happen on a painful cross.
Is Jesus thinking about his own death at this wedding?
I think so.
Jesus's wedding day will be the day that he dies for his bride.
When he says, my hour has not yet come, do you know that the only time the word hour
is ever mentioned in John's gospel is referring to the hour of his death?
And so here it is, here is Jesus.
He's sitting at a party and he's being asked to provide wine for this couple's wedding
celebration.
Meanwhile, he knows what it will take, what it will cost to provide the wine at his own
wedding celebration.
The real wine Jesus gives is his blood.
And he sees that hour coming.
So even as he sits there in the midst of that joyful feast, he's sipping a cup of sorrel.
He's sipping the suffering and the pain.
You can feel it coming through.
You can taste it there.
It's all there.
But if you have a really keen nose, you will know that there's actually something else
there too.
You will detect this other more beautiful, more unmistakable aroma.
And that is the aroma of a hopeful future.
You see, in Jesus' day, more than anything else, you know what people wanted to happen.
They wanted the kingdom of God to fully come in their lives.
And if you asked anyone, what does the kingdom of God look like when it comes, they would
say, oh, it'll be amazing.
It'll be a day when God fully reigns, when wars are over, when peace is supreme, when
everyone is healed, where wrongs are made right, where the poor are taken care of.
This future age, they look forward to this future age when it would dawn.
And again and again and again.
You know what image the Bible uses to refer to that great day?
It's the image of a wedding feast.
From Matthew to Revelation, when the kingdom finally comes, it's going to look like a wedding
feast.
And I think we need to pay attention to this.
I think you need to pay attention when John uses the phrase on the third day.
Do you know that God met with the Israelites on Mount Sinai on the third day?
Do you know that Jonah came out of the belly of the fish on the third day?
Do you know that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day?
The third day is a symbol of God's arrival.
It's a symbol of God's deliverance.
And so as Jesus sits at this wedding banquet, we are left to conclude something pretty radical.
And that is that the kingdom of God is actually really near, or the kingdom of God is actually
already here.
Is it possible that in Jesus, that heavenly banquet is already beginning?
Because we tend to think of heaven as this thing that happens at the end of our life.
And after we die, you know, in some Never Never Land, that's what we think heaven is.
And we think that it's only when we die that we step into that heavenly future.
But Jesus seems to be pulling that heavenly banquet from the future and planting it firmly
in the present.
And so this story, smell it, it gives the aroma of the coming age, or it might even
be saying that the coming age, the kingdom of God is already here in Jesus.
The water of the old age is replaced by the wine of the new age.
And if that's true, guys, if that's true, the future is already here and the kingdom
is already here.
And then you don't need to wait around for peace.
And you don't need to wait around for reconciliation and healing.
You can get out there and you could start making those things happen right now with
every meal that you eat, with every guest you invite, with every feast, with every glass
of wine, the kingdom of God can break in right here and right now.
So here we have it.
We're almost done.
We have swirled it.
We have sniffed it.
We have sifted.
I haven't sifted, but there's a good reason for that.
As any wine connoisseur will tell you, the last thing a wine leaves with you is the finish,
right?
Oh, it's oaky.
It's spicy.
It's smoky.
It's, you know, complex.
That's my favorite one.
It's complex.
I don't know what it is.
It's complex, right?
But when you drink deeply of this story, you realize that you are being invited to take
a step of faith.
Guys, do you know why the Bible uses the image of a kingdom or the image of feasting and
drinking to talk about God's kingdom?
It wants to make it a sensory experience for you.
In other words, we're not just supposed to know in our head that God is good, but we
are supposed to taste and see that God is good.
You could be sitting here today, some of you are, and you're saying, I know God loves me.
I know God is good, but have you tasted it?
Have you really felt it?
Have you experienced it?
It's not just enough to know it.
It's not just enough to know that honey is sweet.
You have to taste the honey to experience the sweetness and Jesus must be experienced.
It's one thing to believe in God, but do you hunger for God?
Do you thirst for God?
Does God fill you?
Does God satisfy you?
This is what this story is trying to teach us.
It is an experience, right?
It's not just something in our heads.
It should consume our whole being.
So today you've been hearing me talk about this cup of wine, a cup of hope, a cup of
joy and prayer and discipleship and sorrow and family and future.
And I wonder, are you ready to take the cup?
Are you ready to drink the cup?
Are you ready to receive all that Jesus has for you this morning?
And if so, I want to tell you two things that you need to do to receive this cup.
The first is you have to admit that you're empty.
Don't come to Jesus and say, oh, Jesus, you know, I'm nine tents full and I just need
you to top me up a little bit.
That's not how it works.
We have to come to Jesus and say, Jesus, I got nothing.
I've tried, I failed, I've got no plans, I've got no ideas, I've got no strength.
I haven't got anything.
That's the first step.
Just admit your own emptiness to God.
And then secondly, ask Jesus to fill you.
You know, Mary said, Mary said, Jesus, you can solve this problem and Jesus can solve
whatever problem it is that you're going through today.
Just say, God, I'm empty.
Would you fill me?
Fill me with hope.
Fill me with strength.
Fill me with joy.
Fill me with peace.
So that's all you have to do.
Admit that you're empty.
Ask Jesus to fill you and then drink deeply of the new life that God offers you.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Thank you for joining us for this week's episode of Trinity Sermons.
This sermon was recorded at Trinity Church, Streetsville in Mississauga on October the
6th, 2024.