INTRODUCTION

The language of John 2:11 can be understood to mean either that it was the first chronologically (the first miracle Jesus wrought after the commencement of His public ministry), or that it was simply the first in John's selection of signs to relate (the first on his list). It is not a matter of any great consequence which of the two is correct; I personally favour the second: this is the first in John's choice of the signs he will relate.

If you are at all familiar with the Gospels, it must have struck you that John in his gospel records far fewer miracles of Jesus than do the other evangelists - only seven in fact; and he calls them 'signs' ... because a sign, like every miracle Jesus wrought, is not intended to call attention to itself, but point your attention elsewhere. Signs are not put up to absorb your attention, but to direct it. So, the signs of Jesus were not done simply to impress, and leave you gasping with astonishment; they were done to point you adoringly to Him Who did them, so as to understand Who He really is, and what He was in the world to do. John's choice of seven suggests that he has chosen, rather like the seven colours of the rainbow, to fill in the full range of colours in the light that shines from Christ. These signs are carefully selected so as to convey a complete and rounded view of all that Jesus is and all He came to do. As he tells us in 20:30, "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

The first in John's selection of seven signs, was the turning of water into wine at a village wedding.

As always, when these miracles are recalled by John, there are two levels at which they are told. There is the surface level - a tale told very simply, with a sharp eye for detail, which anyone can understand. And there is a deeper level; details which at first reading seem to be no more than true-to-life touches, suggest deeper meanings. John is a master in this suggestive use of language.

Take just one example: when Judas went out from the Last Supper to betray Jesus, John adds very simply ... "and it was night." And so it was - the sun had set and night had come. But it was true also in a deeper sense - that decision of Judas triggered into action all the powers of darkness. It was indeed "night".

We have the same sort of thing in the telling of this story. Let us take it first at the surface level. In the difference Christ makes to life, we shall see here, first ...

THE BETTER TOUCH HE HAS

i. At the surface level

There is a wedding in the little village of Cana in Galilee. A wedding was a big occasion in the drab lives of the poor village folk of those times and that land, and a happy one. The feasting went on for a week, and the bride and groom were treated as though they were the king and queen of the village. Mary seems to have had some part in the arrangements - perhaps she was a relative, and took a hand in the catering?

And then the supply of wine runs out. That will bring shame on the bride's parents - it is a failure of hospitality, among a people for whom the duty of hospitality is the first social duty.

Mary, as she has obviously learned to do for many years, shares the problem with her eldest son who, since Joseph's death, has borne responsibility for the family.

At first He appears to be disinclined to get involved. But Mary knows Him better, and waits expectantly. Sure enough, He proves Himself master of the situation, and saves the day for the embarrassed hosts. In the most unobtrusive, behind-the-scenes sort of way, He performs a simply prodigious miracle - 150 gallons of water changed miraculously into the most delicious wine - and what a pure, wholesome, sparkling beverage it would have been, made to His recipe!

How cheering that He should exercise such power, just to ensure the happiness of a young bride and groom, and spare these humble peasant folk the humiliation of failing in their duty of hospitality ... and do it all in such a quiet way that few even realised there had been a crisis.

This, the first of His signs John chooses to relate, Jesus did at Cana, and it showed the sort of man He was. His disciples loved Him for it!

You can read the story like that. That one so great, should use such powers so humbly and to such kindly purpose, reveals Jesus in the most glowing light.

And it is true. The difference He makes to life is to be seen in its most practical affairs ... in its everyday-ness. It is in the trivial round, the common task, that you will discover the better touch He has. Like a good father, He will move mountains just to ensure his child's happiness for an hour ... or a young bride's!

It is possible that He has done that for you, and like the bride and groom that day, it has never dawned on you that you owe some shining hour of happiness that you will treasure in your memory till your life's end, just to Him, and His intervention behind the scenes.

Not a mountain-top spiritual experience even - just a simple human joy ... like a day He gave my mother and me in Cambridge back in 1973. Grantchester meadows in the morning, where the poet Rupert Brooke drew inspiration ... a leisurely punt along the river through a long summer afternoon between the weeping willows and the green lawns ... and while the sunset lit the high window of King's College Chapel in a golden glory, choral Evensong with - would you believe? - the combined choirs (only that day) of Winchester, Eton and King's.

A perfect day ... and presided over behind the scenes by the Lord of all joy! I do believe it.

He does that sort of thing. It was not I alone planned that day. He took a hand in it. Not water, you see ... wine; sparkling, refreshing ... such as He makes. Altogether good.

That is one way He manifests His glory - by the better touch He has. It is real, and it is of real consequence.

Trace your happiness up to Him. Let your gratitude flow out to Him - simply and naturally. It will be true worship. Do not be among the ignorant masses who, like the guests, do not know where the source of true joy lies. Be among the servants who knew where it came from!

ii. At a deeper level

But that is not all. There is more.

At the beginning of his gospel John has said that the glory to be seen in Jesus is the glory of God. There is then a diviner glory to be seen here - something that opens a window onto God.

Now we must probe the details of the story to find it.

1. ... that conversation Jesus had with Mary. There is something more there than meets the eye (and indeed, as we shall see, there is in each of the seven signs a recurring feature: at some point, Jesus says something disturbing, that brings you up short.)

2. ... and those six stone jars - why does John insist on our knowing that they were used for purposes of Jewish purification?

3. ... and the sheer quantity of wine produced! What does that mean?

4. ... and the remark passed by the Master of Ceremonies. It lends a nice touch of humour to the story; but isn't there something half hidden in that remark that beckons you?

Let us take first the conversation between Jesus and His mother. This will alert us to ...

THE BETTER WILL HE SERVES

At the beginning of his Gospel, John has confronted us with some massive claims for Jesus.

Through Him, for one thing, creation itself took place. And here is Creation's Lord exercising His mastery over it. As one old commentator put it, "The modest water saw its God and blushed"!

John has also asserted that Jesus came into the world from the bosom of the eternal God.

Until now, nothing in His life has suggested either His true identity, or His real origin. Like any good son, He has been subject to His mother. Now even His mother must recognise Him for Who He is. His public ministry has begun and He is launched now on a course that will come to its climax in what He refers to as "His hour" which is also mysteriously God's Hour. She must release Him for this deeper loyalty to His Heavenly Father.

The conversation on our Lord's side sounds rough, abrupt, even discourteous. That is a misfortune due simply to accidents of translation. 'Woman' was a word which in its day conveyed a tone of great courtesy, and even tenderness. He was to call Mary that again from His Cross when He entrusted her to the care of John. His heart, then, was full of tender concern for her.

The other phrase - literally, "what to me and to thee?" - is one of those idioms impossible to translate adequately into any language, and even if you could, everything depends on the tone of voice in which it is said, and no mere printed words can convey that.

In effect what Jesus said was, "Dear lady, please understand, that from now on, as I move toward the Hour God has appointed to me, I must serve a higher will than yours."

It was gently done, kindly done - but done firmly, nonetheless. "I do only those things that please my Father" ... He was to say it plainly later to the Jews. Here He says it, equally plainly, but more gently, to His mother. He could do nothing to please her save as it happened also to please His Father.

There is a truth here you and I will do well to heed.

Jesus cannot do for you what you want! He can only do for you what His Father wants. You cannot write your own agenda for Him to follow - even for the saving of your soul. Only God can write that agenda. The good you fancy He should be doing for you, He cannot and will not do, unless it happens to agree with the good that your Father in Heaven holds in the secret counsel of His will for you.

There is no way we can manipulate Him to our desire. We can only submit ourselves to Him so He may shape us to our Heavenly Father's desire.

Is there a thing for which you have pleaded with Him, because you desire it? And you have pleaded for it even with tears, it may be, and strong crying, reminding Him of His promise to answer your prayers? And He has not granted it? And you are dismayed, and full of bitter complaint, perhaps?

Is it a time, then, when He is saying to you, with great tenderness, but with equal firmness, "My child, what I do for you I do to satisfy my Father's good pleasure, not yours."

It is a marvellous tribute to Mary that she absorbed the full impact of what Jesus was saying to her, and at once accepted it fully, and submitted herself. What a woman she was!

A sword pierced her mother-heart in that moment, I promise you! She had wanted to show off Her Son! So proud of Him she was. Instead, she lost Him, in a sense. But if she flinched, she did not show it. Realisation was matched by active submission. At once, she abandoned all thought of trying to influence Him in any way. But she trusted Him, absolutely. Her response was to go at once to the servants and say to them, "Do whatever He tells you."

I tell you, this is a rebuke to me! Is my heart so plastic as was Mary's in the Potter's hands? I wish it were!

She has just suffered her whole desire to be set aside - a mother's desire ... and in an instant, still not knowing what His desire might be, she embraces it - and not for herself only: she bids others embrace it, who are as ignorant as she. Joseph Parker comments that this thing Mary said to the servants, "Whatever He tells you - do it," is one of the greatest tributes ever paid to Jesus. And considering the swift pain and the sudden ignorance out of which she said it, Joseph Parker is surely right. For it is the tribute of a total trust, and an entire submission of her mind and heart to Jesus. But it is not a blind faith, an unintelligent faith; for if it be true that Jesus will do for her what His Heavenly Father determines shall be done, what greater good can she desire? She says again, as she had said at the beginning, "Be it unto thy handmaiden according to Thy Word."

To such trusting obedience, Jesus is concerned, even now, to bring you and me.

Tell Him your trouble, indeed, but trust Him for its remedy. Read between the lines of His refusal a better answer to your prayer.

He gives the best to those who leave the choice with Him.

Believe in the better will He serves ... and in ...

THE BETTER JOY HE BRINGS

This is to be seen in the detail about those six stone jars.

They were used, John informs us, for the Jewish rites of purification. "The Pharisees and all the Jews, do not eat unless they wash their hands, observing the tradition of the elders; and many such traditions they observe." (Mark 7:3) Those water pots stand for the whole system of Jewish ceremonial observance - and, by implication for all human religion at that level. It lacks the power to cleanse and make truly glad the heart of man.

Except Christ put forth His power upon us, we are not set free from sin, nor from the guilt of our sin.

"According to the old Jewish arrangements," we are reminded in Hebrews 9:9, "gifts and sacrifices were offered which could not perfect the conscience of the worshipper." How could the blood of bulls and goats take away sin? "But the blood of Christ, Who through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God, shall purify your conscience from dead works to serve the Living God."

Until your conscience is cleansed, you can never know the true gladness - that gladness that reaches into every fibre of your being, and lifts you into the very presence of God, alive in every part with praise. That is the joy with which he would fill you - up to the brim!

John has already contrasted Moses and Christ. By Moses came the Law, by Christ came grace and truth. Moses' first miracle was to turn water into blood! He introduced what Paul was to call the Dispensation of Death! Christ's first miracle was to turn water into wine! He introduced the Dispensation of Life, of the Spirit.

Christ brings to us the wine of life, so to speak ... by way of His shed blood, of which the wine speaks to us, indeed; but so as to yield all that which wine in the Old Testament was understood to symbolise in the making glad the heart of man, as you read in Psalm 104:15.

The Better Joy He Brings. And ...

THE BETTER PROVISION HE MAKES

For you see with what abundance He gives it! This is underlined by the sheer quantity of water that was turned into wine - 600 gallons of it! More - far more than was needed. "Christ," said Archbishop Trench in his commentary on this point, "is not a niggardly giver." As John will say later in his Gospel (3:34), "He giveth not the Spirit by measure."

"Where sin abounds, there Grace super-abounds"
"In God's right hand are pleasures for evermore. "
In Christ Jesus, the provision for your needs is more than ample - it is simply prodigious.
Lift your eyes to the better provision He makes.

And, finally to ...

THE BETTER END HE SECURES

Notice what the steward said, "Every man (there is a subtle emphasis on the word 'man' in Greek, as though a contrast is intended with what Jesus did) every man serves the good wine first ... but you have kept the good wine until now."

He said so much more than he knew.

We put forward first what is best about us (as William Temple observed in his comment on this passage in "Readings from St John's Gospel"). When people first meet us, they find us civil, friendly and considerate: but as they come to know us, especially if they have to live with us, they have to put up with what is less good. Like Nebuchadnezzar's dream image, the gold of the head gives way to feet of clay!

But in our communion with God, it is not so: as we deepen our fellowship with Him, we may say - at every stage - "You have kept the good wine until now."

At evening, Christ keeps His morning promises. What a testimony to this truth an elderly saint may be. Said Alexander McLaren once, "The dreariest thing in the world is a godless old age. And perhaps the loveliest is a godly old age - a calm sunset in which the clouds, which perhaps have darkened the long day, are illuminated with a mellow glory, and all the colour of life is shown in richest texture."

The Lord has in store for you more joys - and better ones - than any you have known as yet. "O Taste and see that the Lord is good."

CONCLUSION

By placing this first of hts choice of seven signs right at the beginning of the Lord's ministry, John makes it serve much the same purpose as the sermon preached in Nazareth and recorded by Luke: a key of understanding is supplied with which we may unlock all the doors along the corridor of His developing ministry: Not water - wine. He came that we might have life.