Welcome to Moore in the Word, a podcast of Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia, that seeks
to glorify God through biblically sound, thought-provoking and challenging talks and interviews.
In this episode, from a chapel service held on Friday the 2nd of May 2025, Mark Thompson, Principal of
Moore Theological College, speaks on John 2:1-11 and the sign Jesus did at the wedding at Cana in Galilee.
He reminds us that what Jesus brings is something better than the very best this world has to offer: lavish and extravagant
grace that points beyond itself to the joyous wedding banquet of the Lamb on that final day for those who trust in him.
We hope you find the episode helpful.
Good morning.
Welcome to, uh, Term 2.
I'm glad that it started so well, hasn't it?
With those, uh, mission reports.
It's been wonderful.
Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, we pray that this morning as we turn our attention again to your word
and seek to hear your voice, that you might address us where we need to be challenged.
Would you challenge us where we need to be encouraged?
Would you encourage us and would you draw our eyes to Jesus for we ask this in his name.
Amen.
Some of the scenes in John's gospels are so well known to us, uh, not just as Christians, but as heirs of the Christian heritage of
the West, and we can simply glide over the surface, inwardly smile at the outline of the story and miss the point that is being made.
The reason we're told this particular event in the first place, and one of those scenes it seems to me is undoubtedly the wedding in Cana.
Found in John chapter two and the turning of water into wine.
But I do suspect we need to be a little uncomfortable with this story before we can really grasp what it's all about,
because though the events seem straightforward, they are odd in a number of different ways, and it's in that very oddness.
We begin to understand why we need this story, why of all the things that Jesus said and did we need to hear about this one?
So if you'd turn with me to John chapter two.
Let's have a closer look.
Uh, I wanna start just a few verses back because I think that that, that will help us to see how odd this story really is.
So chapter one, verse 50.
Jesus answering, said to Nathaniel, do you believe because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree?
Sorry.
Do you believe because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree?
You'll see greater things than these.
And he said to him, you all will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man.
On the third day, there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there and Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding.
And when they had run out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine.
And Jesus said to her Woman, what does this have to do with me and you?
My hour has not yet come.
His mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you.
There were standing there, six stone water jars as required by the Jewish purification rights, each holding around 40 liters.
Jesus said to them, fill the jars with water, and they filled them to the prim and
he said to them, now draw some and take it to the head steward, and they took it.
But when the head steward tasted the water become wine and did not know where it was from, though the servants who drew it knew.
The head steward called the bride gram and said to him, everyone serves the good wine first, and
then when they've drunk a little bit, the lesser wine, you have kept the good wine until now.
This the first of the signs he did in Cana of Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him.
There's nothing too perplexing about the story Is there, um, a shortage of wine at a wedding
acutely embarrassing as it would've been, particularly in a culture of honor and shame.
And Jesus souls the problem by transforming a huge amount of water into wine, as you might have expected with Jesus.
Uh, the wine he creates is not only abundant in quantity, but it's the very best in quality.
What's more, as we read this story, we don't have to wonder for a moment about what it all means because
John tells us in the very last verse, this, the first of the signs he did in Cana of Galilee, and he
manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him entirely in line with the purpose of the entire gospel.
This little event is directed towards faith.
These things have been written.
John wrote at the end of his gospel in order that you might believe that Jesus is
the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life in his name.
The disciples witnessed this event.
They understood it as a manifestation of Jesus' glory, and they believed in him.
They were convinced by what they witnessed, that he is one worth believing in.
And the question is whether you will follow the response of those first disciples or not,
but just how is this a manifestation of his glory?
Just a chapter before John, the human author of this gospel, testified the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory.
Glory as of the only begotten from the father full of grace and truth.
And in those two verses, immediately before John's account of this event that
I read, Jesus promises Nathaniel that he's going to see genuinely great things.
The angels ascending and descending on the son of man, all those disciples, were going to see astonishing things, things that will
really stop them in their tracks, greater things than these glory as of the only begotten from the father full of grace and truth.
So, so we who read this gospel are being set up to expect truly spectacular earth shattering events.
The Unpassable glory of the only begotten son on earth.
And then we read, as Tim Keller once put it, Jesus just resolves a catering mishap.
He just enables a party to keep on going.
How is that the glory as of the only begotten from the father?
How is that a great thing like angels ascending and descending upon the son of man?
How should what Jesus did in Cana that day show us his glory and provoke our faith?
It is the first of the signs, uh, the first of many signs in this half of John's gospel.
It is the introduction, the entrance into the signs that follow.
And yet at one level, it does not seem to rise much at all above the ordinary.
A, a wedding part of the normal rhythm of life.
Wonderful.
Yet ordinary is interrupted for just a short period of time, really.
And it's all, if it is all just about avoiding embarrassment, how does it provide an incentive to believe?
Well, the first thing to notice is that it is a sign.
It points beyond itself to something else in this disruption of a normal, quite ordinary
event, and more especially in the way this is resolved, something else is being taught.
It's not just about the joy of the wedding feast, and the lesson is not just that you should be prepared and cater properly when you have a function.
The whole incident is about Jesus.
Who he is and what he came to do.
You might have noticed that he's the only person named in the story.
We read this gospel and we know that he is at the Centre of the action.
His glory was manifest.
His disciples believed in him.
Yet it appears that most of those there that day did not know it.
It all happens because of him.
He remains hidden.
He remains behind the scenes.
The head steward has no idea what he has done, neither does the bridegroom.
I'm not sure how long that state of affairs continued.
I'm pretty confident the servants would've spoken up sooner or later, but certainly
at the time it was just the disciples who see what the sign is pointing to.
You see the guests at that wedding came to celebrate the beginning of a new life for the
bride and groom the beginning of a, a new family, and that's always worth celebrating.
They came expecting a party, but the disciples were a little different.
They just had a whirlwind week.
When you think about it, the testimony of the Baptist.
The call of Andrew and Simon, remember Andrew's words.
We found the Messiah
and then the call of Philip and Nathaniel and the promise of Jesus.
They would see great, extraordinary things.
It's now the third day since that promise, the end of the first week of public ministry.
We dunno what else Jesus had been saying to them over those last few days.
But already they knew that he's the one.
Moses and the prophets had written about the fulfillment of the promises in their scriptures.
The Old Testament had arrived at last, and they expected to see what that looked like as they walked with him.
So many times in the Old Testament, you'll know God's great saving work is pictured
as a feast, a banquet overflowing with joy, with choice, food, and abundant wine.
Take the prophet Isaiah, for example, chapter 25.
On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well aged wine of rich food,
full of marrow, of aged wine, well refined, and he will swallow up on this mountain, the covering that is cast over all peoples.
The veil that is spread over all nations.
He will swallow up death forever and the Lord God will wipe away tears from
all faces and the approach of his people he will take away from all the earth.
For the Lord has spoken, he'll be said on that day.
Behold, this is our God.
We have waited for him that he might save us.
This is the Lord.
We have waited for him.
Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
Sounds a lot like the end of the book of Revelation, doesn't it?
Salvation and feasting, joy and celebration.
And in that sense, it's entirely appropriate that the first disciple's pilgrimage with Jesus should start here with a wedding feast.
The joy of this couple, this family and their friends, is the perfect context for Jesus to begin to manifest his glory, which will one
day climax in a feast of rich food, a feast of well aged wine at this wedding in a little heck town in the the hill country of Galilee.
The stage was being set to begin to show who Jesus really is.
And what he came to do.
Now, I don't, I don't think the disciples understood all this at first.
Perhaps they just threw themselves into the eating, the drinking, the singing, and the dancing.
At first, a time to rejoice in the ordinary joys and rhythms of life, and that's a good thing.
But their worlds had been turned upside down less than a week before, and they were looking at things differently now,
measuring things by, by the promises they had believed and had been waiting so long to see fulfilled and thinking about him.
Maybe Isaiah or Amos or Jeremiah with their talk of feast and celebrations stemming from the salvation of God's people.
Maybe those parts of scripture weren't all that far from their minds,
but while perhaps they and other guests were eating and drinking and singing
and dancing, a few people soon became aware that something was not quite right.
A wedding feast like this one, uh, would've gone on for days and at some point far earlier than anyone expected, they ran outta wine.
I mentioned a moment ago that, uh, this was a big deal in a culture of honor and shame.
It would bring great shame on a family if they had not provided adequately for their guests.
It's something that would be remembered for a very long time.
Would be brought up against them again and again.
It's not a failure that would be easily forgotten or forgiven, so it's not as small an issue as we might first assume, even just on the surface level.
Then what Jesus did that day to address the shortage of wine meant a lot, an act of gentle compassion towards people in need.
But what he was about to do in that context was a sign.
It pointed beyond that immediate situation to something much bigger.
There are lovely little hints throughout this story that point forward, this is a sign, but it's a sign of something yet to come.
So when Jesus' mother brings, uh, the situation to Jesus' attention, he tells her My hour has not yet come.
It's not time yet.
There is a time, but it's not now.
Jesus was very aware that he'd come for a purpose and he'd come for a particular moment above all others his hour had not yet come.
It will come and he will make it clear when it comes later in this gospel when some Greeks come looking for him.
Jesus understood the timetable.
The hour has come, he said.
For the son of man to be glorified.
When he prayed on the night that he was arrested, he said, father, the hour has come Glorify your son, that your son may glorify you.
Jesus, you see repeatedly associates this hour, the hour that is yet to come and His glory.
What happened that day in Cana was simply a foretaste of something much bigger that was yet to come.
Something he would do not in a back room at a wedding, but through public display on a cross,
and it is a sign of something far better, not just a sign, not even just a sign of something to come, but a sign of something far better.
When, uh, after Jesus' mother had left him to it and we're told about the six stone
jars standing by, uh, we're told that they were for the purification rights of the Jews.
They were meant to be filled with water when the time came.
They would be used for washing hands and feet as the, as the Jewish law demanded, but Jesus repurposes them.
Instead of expressions of the old religious regime of regulations and laws and stipulations and obligations and
fastidiously, striving to make yourself clean and keep yourself clean, they will carry an expression of a new order.
The order of grace and generosity and rejoicing in a victory decisively, one for us.
The repurposing of those stone jars acts out what the gospel writer told us in the very first chapter.
From his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace for the, the law was given through Moses.
Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Something new is here.
Something immensely significant has come with Jesus, but also something better, far better.
What Jesus is bringing, and this is what we need to hear and understand what Jesus
is bringing is better than the very best this world has to offer those jars of water.
Were meant to remind those who used them of their impurity and of their need to be cleansed.
Jesus used them to symbolize that the new thing that has come into the world him.
Takes us way beyond this to something far, far better grace.
Overflowing, extravagant, wonderful grace, celebrating salvation, done and dusted, fully accomplished and available freely, richly, even excessively.
You see, Jesus gave them not just more wine, but better wine.
It's a picture of grace.
The unsu surpass goodness of the grace of salvation given to us, and as that
day also made clear, he was not stingy in giving it it's lavishly, provided
the same Jesus who gave that sign in Cana the sign of something to come.
The sign of something far better.
He's the one who will preside at the great wedding banquet John talks about in Revelation 19, and if
you like, those first disciples are taken back by the extravagance of Jesus' provision at that wedding.
Then let me tell you, you haven't seen anything yet the
picture of a feast fuller and richer than you could ever imagine, celebration beyond anything you could ever experience.
It's one of the beautiful pictures of the great consummation of God's purposes.
Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the lamb.
What happened that day in Cana was not spectacular in the way we might've expected.
Given what's happened up to now and what we've been told, you can understand why people would talk about it as odd a catering blunder.
An ingenious solution to a problem that should never have arisen in the first place as the guys from top gear would've put it,
but it's far more than that, and emerging out of what, at first instance looks unimpressive and insignificant is a
manifestation of the glory of Jesus, the one who brings something new and better than even the best the world can offer.
He has brought the salvation promised in the Old Testament and here in Cana they get a taste of it.
Everyone serves the good wine first and then when they've drunk a little, the lesser wine.
But you have kept the good wine until now,
and yet friends.
Between those two wedding banquets, there is another celebration and it's one we're going to share in in a few minutes time.
Another sign that points beyond itself in the first instance to the cross where our salvation was
fully and finally accomplished forgiveness, new life and righteousness secured for us forever.
But pointing to, to that banquet that is to come, didn't Jesus say on the night he shared his last supper with his disciples?
I will not drink of this fruit of the vine.
Until that day when I drink it new with you in my father's Kingdom.
Yet, in a way, at the very heart of this symbolic meal we share in a moment is the same sign that Jesus gave at the wedding
of Cana, his rich provision of Grace Fuller than we could ever imagine The sign of something new and monumental and better.
Jesus manifested his glory not in the way we might have expected, but it was enough against the mighty
backdrop of the promises of God in the Old Testament to convince the disciples that he was worth trusting.
And so the big question of this gospel remains, will you trust him?
As we participate in this symbolic meal, we have the opportunity to affirm that our confidence is entirely in him.
And what he came to do and the rich unconstrained grace, he came to give to the entirely undeserving like me and like you.
And that's why we can eat and drink and be thankful.
Should we pray together?
Our Father, we thank you that not only did you send your son, but you made clear what he came to do and that it was for us, and would you help
us with very great joy to celebrate what it is that he has done and help us to remember that our Lord is the one who gives unconstrained grace.
And we pray that in his name.
Amen.
Thank you for listening to Moore in the Word, a podcast of Moore Theological College.
Our vision as a College is to see God glorified by men and women living for
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We invite you to attend any of our upcoming events, including this one from the Priscilla & Aquila Centre.
The term "Complementarian" was coined in 1988 to describe the view that God created men and women equally in his
image, with equal dignity and purpose, and equal standing before him as sinners and as recipients of his grace.
However, in marriage and in leadership of the church, some roles and responsibilities for men and women are not identical or interchangeable.
There is ordered complementarity of equals.
Even though the term "Complementarian" was new, this view reflects 20 centuries of biblical interpretation and church practice.
Join us for the next Priscilla & Aquila evening seminar on Wednesday the 13th of August, 2025, when writer
and theologian Claire Smith will examine the history of complementarianism, not just for its own sake,
but to help us gain a greater understanding of our current context and to identify areas of future focus.
To find out more and register, visit the Priscilla & Aquila website.
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