What do you do when you run out of wine?
Pastor’s Corner
A few weeks ago as we started our study through the Gospel of John, and one of the key verses that we looked at was John 1:14 – “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” I think that John wrote this gospel so that today we could be included in that amazing privilege; “We have seen His glory.” The glory of the One and only incarnate Son of God; Show Me Your Glory! This seeing has huge effects. Verse 16 sums them up: “From the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another.” When God gives us eyes to see the glory of Jesus – His beauty, greatness and worth – that great grace invades our lives. We have Grace to love; Grace to rejoice; Grace to live forever. So for every text I look at in this gospel, I’m praying: Show me your glory. Grant me your grace. Show me more of the greatness of Christ and help me to be more like Christ.
John says in verse 11, “This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. He thus revealed His glory, and His disciples put their faith in Him.” So here John puts the focus again on seeing the glory of Christ. His disciples saw His glory, and they believed on Him. The disciples only recently had begun to follow Jesus and it was only two days before the wedding in Cana. What this miracle did for them was to deepen their existing faith rather than to bring them to faith. They already believed in Jesus, but their faith grew and was strengthened. Nothing is ordinary after Jesus has touched it.
To the Jewish people wine symbolized joy. The Jewish rabbis had a saying, ‘Without wine there’s no joy.’ At the wedding in Cana their joy had run out. “Woman, what does this have to do with me?” ‘Your relationship with me as mother has no special weight here. You’re a woman like every other woman. My Father in heaven, not any human being determines what miracles I perform. And the pathway into my favor is faith, not family.’
This is very good news for us. It doesn’t matter what family line we come from. Your parents may be the most ungodly people you know. That won’t keep you from the favor of Jesus. Faith, not family, makes you His friend. Part of Jesus’ glory is His radical freedom from family favoritism and His radical allegiance to His Father in heaven.
Jesus felt the need to make clear not only to His mother, but to all the rest of us, that because of who He was, physical relationships on earth wouldn’t control Him or force Him. His mother and His physical family wouldn’t have any special advantages to guide His ministry. And His mother and physical family wouldn’t have any special advantage to receive His salvation. The reason is that Jesus was absolutely bound to His Father’s will in heaven and not to anyone on earth, and there could be no competing controls on His life.
So, what do we do when the wine runs out? Mary came to Jesus and told him of the problem that they were facing. I can just imagine her telling the groom’s mom, “You just hold on a minute! I know just what to do with this situation.” She came to Jesus and told him…I love her instructions to the servants. “Whatever he tells you to do, do it!” Sometimes it’s hard for us to understand God not only meeting our need but providing for us abundance. That’s the story of grace. There’s no measure to grace. There will always be enough grace to meet our needs. That’s the story of God’s love. There’s nothing that you can do that will cause God to stop loving you.
Understand this principle of God today…God isn’t just a God of the required – He’s a God of the abundance! Look at those mountains! There’s an over abundance. God didn’t give us ‘just enough’ beauty, it’s all around us. What do you do when the wine runs out? Mary showed us by example; she told them that if they would just do what He said, they would see a miracle. A miracle that not only met their immediate need… but a miracle of abundance.