“The Wedding at Cana”
Original sermon given on January 19, 2025, written and delivered by Pastor Jeff Leininger at First Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church.
Watch the sermon live.
“The Wedding at Cana”
John 2. 1-11
John 2.1-11
In the name of the Living God and the Christ who has appeared to us. Amen.
“Big bags of mostly water”, so an enemy alien from Star Trek insults Picard and his crew. Commander Data pretty much agrees. So does the data. We’re about 70% water, as any biologist will tell you.
The editors of Wired Magazine a number of years ago commissioned a study to try and calculate the total value of the chemicals in your body. Ready for the results? “$7.12 worth of phosphorous, $5.95 worth of potassium, and about four bucks’ worth of a dozen other substances for a grand total of $17.18.”[1] The study was some years ago, so our chemical value certainly has gone up with inflation, I’m sure you’re happy to hear. You might be worth closer to $35.00 now.
LSU physicist Edward Zganjar (pronounced Skanyar) theorized over two decades ago that the essential human elements such as “the iron in our blood and the calcium in our bones” were brought here by a massive supernova explosion[2] — we’re essentially made up of a few ounces of stardust randomly collected from the vast extensions of space.
Big bags of water, the biologist says. About $35 worth of chemicals, calculates the chemist. A few ounces of stardust, speculates the physicist.
And they’d be right, each of them, from a certain perspective, anyway. It begs the question: What are we made of, really? What fills us? What is truly essential about us?
Are we really just big bags of mostly water? Common, ordinary, insignificant. Polluted maybe even. Like the big stone jars at a Jewish wedding, filled with Middle Eastern water, barely fit to drink. Our lives measured solely from the standpoint of biology, chemistry or physics might seem unremarkable, random, accidental at best.
Yet we’re here today because Jesus tells us otherwise. You see, at the word of Jesus, the most common, ordinary things become extraordinary. The putrid becomes purified; the cheap wine becomes the finest; and big bags of water become abundant life for a thirsting world.
This is what we really see happening at the Wedding of Cana, the first of seven signs in John’s gospel revealing the glory of Christ. The jars were filled with the most common, ordinary water, used for ritual washings by the Jews. One wonders what the servants were thinking when the wine is gone, and the Lord tells them to fill the jars and bring them to the head waiter! “Okay, well, here we go, here comes the well water, how’s this going to go over?” And yet they must also have had some measure of faith and obedience. They heed the only command that Mary, Jesus’ mother, ever gives us: “Do whatever my son tells you.”
In this first sign of Jesus, we already have all we need to know about both our salvation and our service, which is why it is such a powerful word for us this morning. Our salvation — our standing before God — is not based upon the great quality of water that we are; or how fine and refined we are; or how abundant our gifts are; or the high levels of piety we have achieved. Our salvation is solely based upon the word that God has spoken over us, and in us in the word, Jesus, messiah.
And that word is life, forgiveness, full restoration, abundant blessing, and absolution. It is the same word spoken at the very beginning, when God breathed his Spirit into the clay. The word incarnate in the womb of the Virgin Mary. The word which passed into the ears and hands and feet of wedding servants. which commands a disabled man to get up and walk. Which blesses a bit of bread to feed thousands. Which bids us in the storm to believe that he is still there. Which commands to wash and be clean. Which summons forth Lazarus from death to life.
It is the same word that was spoken at the cross, where the sin-infested savior, taking our place, breathes out forgiveness. It is the same word present with us today, when these most ordinary elements of bread and wine deliver his body and blood for us. At Cana in Galilee, Jesus’ time had not yet fully come, but it would culminate in the greatest sign of all: his death and resurrection. Our salvation is not about us any more than that fine wine at the wedding was about the well water they poured into those jars.
That’s our salvation, but the same can be said of our service. You see, it’s especially tempting in Christian circles to look around and compare our level of gifts, piety, and spirituality with those around us. And on a really, really good day we can just about fool ourselves into thinking, “Yeah, I’m a pretty darn good big bag of water, compared to that bag over there.” Or “I’m definitely worth over $18 bucks, now, compared to the $17.18 of that Christian, over there.” Or “My stardust is finer than yours!” Maybe… but in our more honest moments, especially when we compare ourselves to God’s Holy Law and all the pretention is pulled away, we realize how lacking our lives really are and how far we fall short.
But that’s why this Cana Miracle is so liberating for all servants of the Lord. It’s not about you! It’s about the word of Christ, who brings forth the finest merlot from the most putrid of water. We are called simply to be faithful to what he has told us to do. To paraphrase his mother, “Just do what he tells you to do,” and let him worry about where the wine is coming from. Faith and obedience, even if you don’t know where it will lead or how it will turn out.
Brothers and sisters, we have the eternal word breathed into us by the spirit, awash in us in the living waters of baptism. We have been transformed by the word of Christ in a miraculous way into gifts of God’s. Believe this and live this, in the grace and confidence that he is with us, and his word, though it’s all we got, is all we really need.
Come soon Lord Jesus. Amen.
[1] https://www.pharmexec.com/view/46-million-man
[2] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/06/990625080416.htm