1st Sign: Wedding At Canna, Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. John gives you seven miracles to prove that Jesus is God, and that's what he did. That is part of what he did, but he did a lot more than that.

That's not just the answer in and of itself. In fact, if you just wanted to perform miracles to show that he was God, he had the power, none of these things would have had to take place. I mean, he could have taken a crowd of people out and looked at a mountain and made it disappear. He could have gone out on a perfectly sunny day and said, I'll make it rain.

He could have picked up rocks and turned them into butterflies. That proves he's God. That's not what happens in Jesus' ministry, and that's not what John wants to talk about at all. These are signs that reveal the heart of God. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt.

Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. Would you open your Bibles to John chapter 20 and verse 30? John 20 verse 30.

Listen to what John says. He writes, therefore, many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book. But these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. And then if you go over to verse 25 of Chapter 21, right at the end of the book, John says this. And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written. John writing about all the things that Jesus did. But in 20, 30 and 31, he says, the reason that I am writing this book and telling you about these things is so that you would believe.

And then secondly, that you would have life. I want you to think for a moment what it would be like to be John. He's a very, very old man. Gray hair, wrinkled skin.

His eyes would probably be very dim, but full of life and hope. Matthew, Mark and Luke, their gospels have been circulated throughout the church for decades. And here is this old man writing this book. The disciples are all long gone. They're all dead and have been dead for a long time. He's on the island of Patmos. Just off the coast of modern day Turkey.

He's 1000 miles away. From where he spent time with Jesus and Jesus did his ministry. And John writes this gospel. It is very different than the other three.

The other three are called synoptics. They're similar. John's is not.

It's very different. The language in John is the simplest language in the New Testament. It is the most simple form of Koine Greek that you'll find. In fact, when I was a seminary, the first Greek class that you have to take in dealing with scripture is John, because it's so much easier to understand than any of the others. And yet he tells us, I'm writing this at this time for two reasons. One, that you would believe and two, that you would have life. And I think often when we think when John is using that term, he means I just want you to believe. And then after you believe, you get to go to heaven when you're dead. But I don't think that's what he means.

I think he means something more than that. Turn with me now in John to John 10, verse 10. John 10, verse 10. John is giving the discourse that Jesus used of the good shepherd. But down in verse 10, Jesus says something very profound.

Jesus says the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life. And have it abundantly. Jesus is referring more to than just eternal life here. That's certainly part of it.

But I want them to have life. And have it abundantly. And so John decides. I'm going to write my gospel and in my gospel. There are going to be seven different miracles.

I'm going to write these seven miracles in a way that I can get people to respond through belief and having life abundantly. Now, he's already told us at the end of the book how many miracles could John have picked from? Hundreds? Thousands?

I don't know. Countless. But he picks seven. The other thing is John never calls them miracles. He calls them signs. Simeon is the Greek word. Simeon means that something is going to be revealed.

And he said, that's why I've picked these seven for a very particular reason. So it's pretty clear that these Simeon, these signs, reveal that Jesus has the power of God. But there's something else he wants to reveal. He wants to reveal the fact that Jesus has the nature of God.

And what is the nature of God like? Often when John is taught, and I've even taught it this way, and was taught it the exact same way, is that John gives you seven miracles to prove that Jesus is God. And that's what he did. That is part of what he did, but he did a lot more than that.

And it's not just the answer in and of itself. In fact, if you just wanted to perform miracles to show that he was God, he had the power, none of these things would have had to take place. I mean, he could have taken a crowd of people out and looked at a mountain and made it disappear. He could have gone out on a perfectly sunny day and said, I'll make it rain.

He could have picked up rocks and turned them into butterflies. That proves he's God. But that's not what happens in Jesus' ministry, and that's not what John wants to talk about at all. These are signs that reveal the heart of God. And I hope as you go through these with us in these next weeks that you come to the understanding that just how much God cares about you and loves you and wants to help you. That's what these signs reveal. That's the message. And boy, do we need that message today.

I mean, I'm just amazed how many people are so anxious and worrisome and fearful and lonely. All these kind of things in the day in which we live. And John says, look, I want you to see something about God's nature in the signs that he performs. And the first one we're going to look at today is in John chapter two, verse one, John two, verse one. And John starts out and just says, on the third day, there was a wedding. On the third day, there was a wedding. The third day is from the third day after he had spoke to Nathaniel ending up chapter one. You take take a walk and it says on the third day, there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee.

Cana is about four miles from Nazareth. That's where Jesus and his family came from. And then it says, and the mother of Jesus was there. So there's a wedding taking place. Now, again, just for background, weddings in those days and weddings today are very different weddings. Their wedding, first of all, all weddings were prearranged. The parents made a contract and prearranged the wedding. This wasn't we went out and we dated for a few times. We see if we liked each other.

You know, it's not like that. The wedding is prearranged. As soon as it's prearranged, there's a contract that's prepared and both families sign it. So the contract is finished and then they go and they take vows in the synagogue. So the young couple goes into the synagogue and they take their vows at that time. When they take their vows, there are tokens exchanged between the groom and the bride.

It could be a ring, but not necessarily. Now that is called that begins what is called betrothal. That's the betrothal period.

That's very important when you're studying Mary and Joseph and understanding that they were betrothed and all that. So this betrothal period could last anywhere from just two months to about one year. Now, what's interesting about it, after you were betrothed in the synagogue, she went to her home and the groom went to his home and you did not socialize anymore. So you weren't dating during the betrothal period.

And this really becomes interesting if you're kind of a woman, because after these two months to one full year. The groom would have friends almost always at night. They would have torches. And then he would go to the bride's house. To pick her up.

Now, it's always unannounced. So now, I want you ladies to think about this. Sometimes when I officiate a wedding, and I mean this in, I hope, the right way. But sometimes the bride, the woman doesn't even hardly look like the woman I know. You know what I mean? It's just like, whoa.

I mean, why is that? Because the point of it is I want to look my absolute best that I possibly can on my wedding day. Well, just imagine from two months to one year, he can come by on any night. That means that night you have to be ready for him to take you. So I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be a woman at that particular time wondering when he's coming. And he would come and then he would take the bride to his house.

When they got to his house, there'd be speeches made by members of the families. And then there was the wedding feast that would occur right then. The wedding feast was usually three days to one week long.

There have been some that have been longer and recorded and some a little bit shorter, but always at least two to three days. This is what sort of the precursor to what we call reception. You know, that's the wedding feast.

But it's very, very different than what we would call a reception. The groom's family pays for all this. That's always what happens. That's what's happening at the wedding feast.

That's the way this works. So he says in the third day, there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there. And that something's going to one other thing I want to add. I'm guessing for sure that the reason that she's there and Jesus is it's a male member of their extended family.

Somebody they know who's a family member, who's a male, because the groom is the one paying. And the way that Jesus and Mary acted through this tells me they felt some sense of responsibility. And it says in both Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding as well. And that that's not the twelve. There's only five disciples at this time. Jesus hasn't launched that ministry. The twelve aren't there. It's just five of them. And they go with Jesus.

And that becomes a very important part of this story. And then it says in verse three, when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to him. They have no wine.

That's it. They have no wine. Now, again, understand the way this works. This is a serious social breach of etiquette. Unlike anything you and I would probably imagine. First of all, it's an insult to all the people attending. That you've run out of wine. And then thirdly, the other thing that can happen is in some cases, there's actually been people sued by the guest because they ran out of wine.

So you could just imagine what this whole thing must feel like or be like. So I guess I should add one more thing about it is that you and I might be thinking now, well, back in those days, that's crazy. I mean, if they had a wedding reception that lasted two days, you know, a full week. I mean, everybody must have just been loaded, you know. That's not true.

That's not even remotely close to the truth. Understand that in Israel at that time, the minimum you could cut wine and should cut it for events like this is one to three. In other words, all wine was cut three parts water to one part wine. That was the way they cut it. You could cut it for other purposes.

One to ten. You could go that far. The reason for it is water was very hard to come by and water that you could easily drink was hard to make sure. So they cut it with wine. Now, they had wine before it was cut, much like our wine, same alcohol content. But in scripture, that was called strong drink.

OK, if you're a Levite, fit Britain to touch it. You can't drink strong drink at all. Strong drink is different than wine. Now, you could get drunk on wine, but I mean, you might have to drink gallons and gallons of it before you could possibly get drunk.

But you could in that sense. But the point of it is, is that it was very different than the kind of wine that we talk about from from our point of view. Strong drink in the Bible is just simply uncut wine. Strong drink in the Bible is not bourbon, vodka. It's not that it's just uncut wine is called strong drink. So she just says that Jesus, as clear as she can, they have no wine.

Now, that's kind of an interesting thing. The question is why? Some commentators, but not many, but some have said, well, that's because she saw Jesus do hundreds and hundreds of miracles almost every day of her life and knew he'd do a miracle. I don't believe that at all. I don't think Jesus did that at all. That wasn't the way Jesus lived.

But I do believe this. She knew she could count on him. She knew what kind of person he was. Jesus is a first born son. Joseph is likely dead by now. He may have been dead for some time by now.

She had to lean on Jesus. What kind of son do you think he was? You see, was he resourceful? Was he bright?

Could you trust them? He's every one of the things you could possibly imagine. That's Jesus. And so she just looks at Jesus and says they have no wine. Now, built into that, there seems to be some expectation in some way. What's Jesus response?

Jesus says, woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour is not yet come. That's a little abrupt. It's interesting, though.

One of the most interesting things is right in the beginning. Woman. Gunay.

Why do you do that? I mean, how many of you at 30 years of age or some would call your mother man? I mean, do you think it's a mother?

No. Same thing you said to her all the way through his ministry. Gunay. There's a change here.

He's about to embark on his ministry. He always calls her Gunay. He doesn't call her mom or mother. It's not necessarily a derogatory term. It means, like I said, madam or man. It's a Semitic expression. And here's what he says after it.

And it's very typical. It says in the English Bible, what does that have to do with us? Literally, it says what to me and to you is this.

That's literally what it says. What to me and to you is this. In other words, what does this have to do with me? So they're out of wine. Whose responsibility is the wine?

The groom's family. What does this have to do with you and me? And then he says, my hours not yet come. Now, a lot of times in the New Testament, our means the cross, but also in a general sense, our means the time he's about to begin his ministry until it ends at the cross. In other words, that whole point of his public ministry is called his hour. He said, my hours not yet come.

I haven't started the public ministry. And that's kind of an interesting thing. You know, when you think about it from all the things that Jesus is going to do in his ministry, this seems like it could have been something very, very small. But he answers it in kind of an odd way.

I want you to think about this, though, isn't that kind of a. There's one thing that Mary knew for sure. Her son was the Messiah.

And his father was God. She knew that her whole life. God told her. She knew she was a virgin. She knew all this.

She always knew this. She knows he's the Messiah, so she just tells him the facts. And maybe with the anticipation, I mean, think of what Jesus did do.

Let's see, we know for a fact that Jesus would say, well, you know, that the lame walk. That the blind see the lepers are made pure. I raised the dead. Think of the miracles that Jesus does. Unbelievable amount of miracles. And and you're telling me they're out of wine.

Me. You see, that's what you want it. That's that's the point. And it's a very important point on why John chose us.

And I'll get to that in a moment. And so what ends up happening here is. How does Mary react to this? His mother said to the servants, notice the word mother. John's very careful to tell you he said woman, goonay, next verse, mother. So that's pretty clear. He didn't ever say he wasn't just using another word for mother. He was careful not to say that Jesus called her goonay or woman. And then it says that she said whatever he says to you.

Do it. That's it. That's a conversation.

They're running out of wine. Whatever he says to you, you just do it. That's a statement of incredible faith on her part. From my point of view, it's just I'm just amazed at it. Look, he's the Messiah.

He's the son of God. Whatever he says, you just do it. How could if she reacted? I mean, she could have stomped off mad, right? She could have said, I'm your mother. She could have said that clearly. She could have said, if you really love me, you do this. Or, you know, she could have even said, I mean, after all the things I've done for you, do you know what labor was like with you? Do you know how hard this has been for me? She doesn't say any of that.

Her response is amazing. You just do what he says. I trust him. I know who he is. You do what he says.

That becomes an extremely important part of this particular story. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called OnePlace.com. That's OnePlace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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