The Wedding Guest - Part A

I've watched the best planned events go awry. I'll never forget the garden wedding that I did where the groom fainted. Not once, but twice. Yeah, it was really beautiful. They came and they were walking down the aisle and I told the groom, make sure you have a good meal in the morning. Well, he didn't do that.

So we got up there and he's nervous and the blood leaves his head and legs are locked up and he just went back and we caught him and we kept going and he did it again. So for the rest of the wedding, we had to have him sit in a chair while his bride stood nice and tall next to him and they finished it off. He'll never forget that, I'm sure.

And welcome to Connect with Skip weekend edition. Weddings are memorable events for many reasons. They're memorable for all the joy and excitement and also for all the stress and chaos. They're memorable for all the love and fellowship and how family and friends come together to celebrate something truly special. And they're also memorable for all the unexpected things that are bound to happen.

However, imagine just how memorable it would have been to have Jesus as a guest at your wedding. That's where we'll find him as Skip Heitzig continues our series Believe 879 today here in Connect with Skip weekend edition. But before we get started, here's what we have for you this month into Connect with Skip Resource Center. Joy in the midst of hardship is a hallmark of the Christian life, but is it really possible?

Here's Lenya Heitzig. Sometimes what starts out as a happy trail turns into a really daunting road and we have to figure out how to navigate. A lot of times God's purpose in allowing trials is to give us opportunities to grow to the point where we genuinely experience joy in the midst of trials. Learn how to face trials with courage, wisdom, and yes, joy with Lenya's booklet, Happy Trials. And when you give $20 or more today to help keep this Bible teaching ministry on the air, we'll send you a special bundle of three booklets by Lenya, Happy Trials, Don't Tempt Me, and Speak No Evil. In Don't Tempt Me, I hand you the keys to unlock the thoughts, circumstances, and fears that can cause you to give in to temptation. And in Speak No Evil, I encourage you to avoid setting fires with your words and instead use them to bring showers of blessing.

Get your bundle of three booklets when you give $20 or more by calling 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. Well today we'll be in John chapter two, so if you'll turn there in your Bibles, Skip Heidse gets things started with a little reflection on just how stressful weddings can be. Wedding days are high stress. How many of you are married? Raise your hand. How many of you remember your wedding day? How come more hands went up?

No. You remember them. One of the reasons is because there were so many details and there was months of planning and they all culminated on that day.

High stress. Detail after detail. There was a young woman who was getting married and she said to her mother, Mom, this day is so important to me. I do not want to overlook one insignificant detail.

And she said, don't worry, sweetheart. I'll make sure the groom is there. Well, the groom is hardly an insignificant detail. However, in our story, the wedding supper at Cana, the wedding feast, we don't know who the couple is. They're not mentioned at all. There's no mention of the bride or the groom by name. They're unnamed. They're unidentified.

And there's no record that they even said a single word, which may be a good thing. I think it was Ogden Nash, the American poet, who said to keep your marriage brimming with love in the loving cup when you're wrong, admit it, and when you're right, shut up. But the real reason that John does not record that this couple is named or said anything at all is because they're really not the most important part of the story. The most important one in this story is not the bride or it's not the bridegroom. It's not the mother of the bride. It's not the one who officiated the marriage. It is the wedding guest. It is Jesus himself because what he does and what he brings to this wedding would change everything for a group of disciples who are watching. I love this story. And I love the fact that Jesus' first miraculous sign was at a wedding. And I thought as I was reading through the text this week how weddings would be really different if Jesus were the invited guest and how marriages would be different if Christ were the center of the home and how relationships would be different if that also was the case. I do a lot of weddings.

I have done a number of them for years. And one of the reasons I love them so much is because I see what nobody else sees. I have the best seat in the house standing up here. I get to see the sweat beat up on the brow of the groom as he is being watched by a whole bunch of people.

And sometimes his hands will shake uncontrollably. I get to watch that. It's a lot of fun. I get to watch tears in the eyes of sometimes both the bride and the groom. I certainly get to see the love that is exchanged in just the looks that they have. It's a wonderful, wonderful time.

And no doubt this was also a wonderful moment for this young couple. Now John chapter 2 moves us geographically from the area of the Jordan River down south and it moves us north northwest to the area of Galilee which will become the headquarters for Christ. And just about five miles north of his hometown of Nazareth was the village of Cana of Galilee. Nathaniel, this last disciple that we read about in chapter 1, his hometown was Cana of Galilee. Now we're going to read through 11 verses of chapter 2.

There's one little point that isn't mentioned here that I want you to know about. The day of the week this wedding happened on was a Wednesday. The reason I know that is almost universally in Jewish literature that was the appropriate day for the wedding of a virgin in Israel was a Wednesday. It was certainly not done on Saturday like in our culture because Saturday was the Sabbath and a marriage would not take place on the Sabbath. Wednesday was the typical day and you know Jewish weddings are like the coolest because the bride and groom get married under a canopy and as soon as the ceremony is done they lift them up and carry them through the streets with the canopy above their heads and they're singing songs.

It's a torchlight ceremony and they would make the most circuitous route through the town possible so that everybody in town could get on the bandwagon so to speak and say congratulations, God bless you, bless you, matzol tov, good on you and they would all be involved. This marriage was probably a wedding that was of a friend of the family who was very close to Jesus and his mother Mary or perhaps even a relative because Jesus and Mary his mother were invited and Mary it seems like she's serving behind the scenes. She's part of the workforce and so probably they were related or at least good friends but what I want to show you today is something I think John shows us. As we go through the story we see Jesus Christ and his relationship to four separate entities and John brings them all out. First of all his mother, second the moment, third a miracle, that's probably what it's most famous for and fourth his men the disciple.

Jesus in relation to all four of those entities. Let's begin in verse one read through the fifth verse and what's highlighted there is Jesus and his mother. On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there. Now both Jesus and his disciples were invited to a wedding and when they ran out of wine the mother of Jesus said to him they have no wine. Jesus said to her woman what does your concern have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.

His mother said to the servants whatever he says to you do it. Now you know something always goes wrong at a wedding right? I don't care how much you spend or how well you plan there's going to some detail that is unforeseen that will crop up. I remember my own wedding it was wonderful. It was a warm day but it was a beautiful day and the music was good and the food was great and Lenya looked like a knockout.

I remember I saw her I just went oh but there was one detail that just kind of changed the day for me. I rented a tuxedo but I did not try it on before the wedding. I put it on right before the wedding it fit fine except for one small item that was the shoes they were one and a half sizes too small for my feet so the entire wedding I have like bird claw feet inside my shoes and if I shed tears during the wedding it was not out of joy it was out of sheer pain and agony. I'll never forget that but I've done a lot of weddings as I mentioned and I've watched the best planned events go awry. I'll never forget the garden wedding that I did where the groom fainted not once but twice. Yeah it was really beautiful they they came and they were walking down the aisle and I told the groom make sure you have a good meal in the morning. Well he didn't do that and so we got up there and he's nervous and the blood leaves his head and his legs are locked up and he just went back and we caught him and we kept going and he did it again so for the rest of the wedding we had to have him sit in a chair while his bride stood nice and tall next to him and they finished it off.

He'll never forget that I'm sure never live it down. Then there was the silent wedding that I did that's right the musician forgot that he had to play that day at a wedding so there was no music. It was a silent wedding it was like an old black and white movie and when she walked down the aisle it seemed to take hours because music helps. Well here's a wedding where they run out of wine. Now I cannot overemphasize the distress that must have been in Mary's voice when she said to her son they have no wine because to have no wine was a social catastrophe which I'll explain in in a little bit. What I want to focus on first is the relationship between Jesus Christ and his mother at this point and I do that because this has been a huge issue historically. Mary has been worshipped by some being called the mother of God. Some say that she was sinless. Some say that her body was assumed into heaven and that Jesus Christ crowned her the queen of heaven and the queen of the universe. She has therefore been revered and prayed to and depended upon and she has been called the co-redemptress of the human race and the co-mediatrix of the human race. There's even a church in Rome and I've been to it it's a basilica that has Jesus hanging on the cross on one side of the cross dying for the sins of the world and on the other side of the cross is Mary dying on the cross. Even Vatican II in the 1960s spoke of and I quote the union of the mother with the son in the work of salvation close quote. Well with that background verse four is very very interesting because Jesus said to her woman in Greek ganai woman what does your concern have to do with me my hour has not yet come.

Now don't don't misunderstand this is not harsh this is not inconsiderate or disrespectful. It is polite to say woman. Jesus will say the same thing to Mary when he hangs on the cross and says woman behold your son and gives her to John's care. In fact it's a typical polite way to address a woman. Six times in the new testament in the gospels Jesus calls different women by the name woman. It's like some of the women in the new testament by the name woman. It's like saying mrs or lady or ma'am ma'am. Now that's polite but it is not intimate.

It is more formal and it indicates a change in the relationship that he would address his mother like any other woman calling her ma'am or mrs. Couple that with the question what does your concern have to do with me. Now in the Greek I discovered it's even more poignant.

It's tia moi chi soi ganai or literally what what with you and me woman. And and it's a little semitic rhetorical question that is meant to show we're thinking in two different galaxies. We're thinking in totally different manners. My thoughts are not your thoughts.

Two divergent ways. Now you couple that question with the formal woman and as I said it indicates a change in the relationship and here's the change. Jesus here is beginning his public ministry and now earthly relationships will not determine his course of action but a different relationship will. It's as if Jesus is saying I'm not just your son.

I'm to be your savior and I'm on a different agenda and and Christ predicted this day would come. He was 12 years old when he did and he remember he was lost in the temple and Joseph and Mary were like part way back to Nazareth. Where is he and they had to go back and find him and Jesus said didn't you know that I must be about my father's business and what father was he speaking about. God the father.

There's a whole nother relationship that I'm tracking with even more than this relationship of son and mother and that is my heavenly father. Now all of that to say simply that Mary is a blessed woman. She was a wonderful godly example of motherhood, a wonderful example of womanhood, a great wonderful example of spiritual submission but she is not sinless and she is not the co-redemptress and she is not the co-mediatrix of the human race. I'll tell you what she is and what she was. She was a disciple who needed God's grace and mercy like anybody else and I'm saying that because that's what she said about herself.

When she was told that she was going to be the mother of Jesus in Luke chapter 1 in a beautiful section called the Magnificat of Mary, she responds by saying my soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit rejoices, listen, in God my Savior. Savior? Well who needs a savior but a sinner? Only sinners need saviors. Sinless people don't need saviors. Co-redemptresses don't need saviors.

Only those who know that they need God's grace and mercy because their sinners need a savior. So I would say to you if you want to honor Mary, please honor her by doing what she says to do in verse 5. Whatever he says to you, do it. She points to Jesus and says honor my son, submit to my son. So you want to honor Mary, do that. Submit to Christ. Love Jesus.

Obey Jesus. Make it all about Jesus because that's what she did. She was never given any special honor by the early church.

You'll never find a shred of evidence that that happened. She was certainly never worshiped by the early church. In fact, she's hardly mentioned in the Bible at all after a certain point.

She just drops off the page after Acts chapter 1. Now don't you think that if Mary were to play a role in our salvation or if she were to be prayed to, don't you think the New Testament would at least mention that? But it doesn't mention that.

In fact, what it says is quite the opposite. In Matthew 12, Jesus is teaching and the house is packed full of people listening to his Bible study. And as he's teaching, he gets interrupted by somebody who says, hey, your mother and your brothers are outside.

They want to talk to you. Remember what Jesus said? He didn't go, my mother? He looked around the room and said, who is my mother and who are my brothers?

And he pointed to those listening. So those who listen to God's word and keep it the same is my mother and my brothers. Then in Luke's gospel chapter 11, evidently there was somebody already wanting to worship Mary back then. And this person came up to Jesus and said, blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you. Jesus immediately shot back and said, blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and do it. So this is a good section to highlight as John does the relationship between Jesus and his mother.

Woman, what does your concern have to do with me? Second thing I want you to notice because John brings it out is Jesus and the moment, the relationship between Jesus and the moment. You'll notice in verse one, it says on the third day. And so far, haven't you noticed how John is very particular about recording what happens on what day is if there's some schedule that Jesus is keeping.

If you haven't, I want you to notice back in chapter one, after the prologue, look at verse 29. The next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, behold, the lamb of God who is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And down in verse 35 is another time indicator. Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples. Verse 43, the following day, Jesus wanted to go to Galilee because he's got a wedding to go to. And he found Philip and said, follow me. And then verse one of chapter two on the third day.

So there was a couple of days that he would travel from down at the Jordan River to Galilee, to Cana up there in the mountains. But John is announcing the timetable. But the key verse is back in verse four of chapter two.

Woman, what does your concern have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. I want you to notice that phrase because you're going to see it five more times in the Gospel of John. Jesus will make to my hour, my hour, my hour, my hour, my hour. And what does he mean by that? What he means by my hour is the time of his suffering, death and subsequent resurrection. That is the manifesting sign of who he is and what he has come to do by his death and resurrection. I'll give you a few examples, just a few.

I won't go through them all. John chapter seven, verse 30. They sought to take him, but no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come. And John chapter 13, verse one.

It was before Passover. And Jesus knew that his hour had come when he would depart from this world and go to the Father. John 17, verse one. Jesus is now praying to his heavenly Father. Father, he says, the hour has come. Glorify your son that your son may glorify you. Okay, I want you to see something.

I don't want you to miss this part. Mary asked Jesus something by saying they have no wine. And Jesus says, woman, what does your concern have to do with me?

My hour has not yet come. So Mary couldn't have simply been asking Jesus to pull off a miracle. Like, hey, you know, they don't have any wine and you're really good at that. Because that wouldn't make any sense. It wouldn't make any sense because Jesus rebuffed her and saying, you know, we don't share the same concern. And then he makes more wine, which is what she's indicating.

No, what she must have been saying and indicating to him is, son, now is the time. Here's the launching point. Here is the time when you can display and reveal who you are and what you have come to do. Give some unmistakable sign, some supreme manifestation that you are the Messiah and launch it publicly so everybody will know here and the word will go out. He says, my hour has not yet come. Of course, now what we're waiting for is the time of Jesus' return. That time has not yet come, but it will. In the meantime, we have a duty to help prepare as many hearts and souls as possible for that event, which in many ways will be like a wedding.

Exciting, stressful, unpredictable, and totally unforgettable. Now, if you'd like a copy of today's message, it's available on CD for just four dollars plus shipping when you call us at 1-800-922-1888 or when you visit connectwithskip.com. The wedding Jesus attended was a significant event in more ways than one, so be sure to join us next time to find out why right here in Connect with Skip weekend edition, a presentation of Connection Communications. Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the crossing.

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