Mountains Dripping with Sweet Wine
A Sermon by Andrew Colman based on John 2:1-11
Here we are at the first miracle of Jesus. Or, as John calls them signs, we are at the first sign of Jesus. It is the first of many spectacular events in Jesus' life that pointed both the recipients of His gifts and all who witnessed them to a deeper truth about Him.
John calls them signs because they are not meant to be the point of focus themselves. Instead, they are meant to guide our gaze and attention back to the one who worked the sign.
We hear this in the very last line spoken tonight, "This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him."
For those who saw the whole of what happened, they did not marvel at the miracle, the massive jars of Wine themself.
No, that was the lot of the banquet host who had no idea what was happening. Once he received this new batch of Wine, he praised the bridegroom, the one responsible for ensuring there was enough Wine to go around for the whole seven-day feast of the wedding.
For those who saw the whole thing unfold, it was not the Wine that impressed them. It was the Maker. When they saw the sign of the Wine in the jars, they looked back at who those Jars were pointing to: Jesus.
But it seems strange that of all of the first miracles that Jesus could have come up with - of all of the signs that he had done - he chose turning water into Wine as the very first one.
I mean, think of miracles that we have recorded in his Gospels. He brought sight to the blind; he cured leprosy; he commanded that a legion of demons be cast out of a possessed man; he caused a paralyzed man to walk; he cured a hemorrhage of 12 years; he healed fevers both at the bedside and from a long distance, he cursed fig trees... he walked on water, he raised two people from the dead!
One might think that Jesus, who was coming to bring life to the world, might start by bringing someone back to life. Instead, he starts by turning water, a lot of water, into Wine, a lot of Wine! And some of the best, if not the best, Wine this world has ever tasted.
Maybe it's because he knew that he was doing something much bigger than all of these things. Not that they are not important, each one of them is hugely important, but they are not the whole story unto themselves.
Allen Dwight Callahan, Baptist minister, speaks to the sign of the wine:”The "sign" of Wine suddenly in plentiful supply points to the realization of ancient Israelite hopes for a coming age of fulfillment and freedom. Classical Israelite prophecy looked forward to an abundance of Wine in the time of Israel's restoration: Amos 9 says "The time is surely coming, says the Lord, when ... the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. I will restore the for tunes of my people Israel.” In Judean apocalyptic literature, Wine is a symbol of the coming messianic age of peace and righteousness.” Enoch 10:19 looks forward to the vine yielding Wine in abundance, and in 2 Baruch 29:5, each vine shall have one thousand branches and each branch one thousand clusters. The abundant Wine suddenly flowing at the wedding feast in Cana is a "sign" that the "day surely coming" has now arrived.” (End quote)
In the Gospel of John, Jesus began with a sign that he is the promise of God of peace and righteousness was being fulfilled.
We heard that loud and clear in our Isaiah reading tonight, but lets keep on with Amos for a second,
"Behold, the days are coming," says the Lord, "when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet Wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. I will restore the fortunes of my people in Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their Wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.
That is a big promise; it is quite literally the biggest promise.
It is one that encompasses everything that Jesus is about to do. Heal the sick, feed the hungry, comfort the brokenhearted, cast out demons, raise the dead; it is all bound up in this sign at the Wedding Feast of Cana, where there is an all but endless supply of Wine. It was somewhere between 750-1000 bottles of Wine!
It is the sign that carries, undergirds, and informs all of the signs that are to come. Which is a blessing unto itself... because when we think about it.
Do we think that for the blind man who was healed at the pool of Siloam, that day would be the last bad day for the rest of their life?
Now that they are cured of blindness, that they will have no more problems?
Of course not; that is just not the way things work. For better or for worse, that's not the way things work. That person, who was cured of his blindness, would still have had to deal with the fact that they had lived a life where they were not able to get their life set up in a way that would make a living to the end of their days a joyful stroll down a market lane picking out whichever pomegranate that seemed to suit them the best.
Hopefully, their community around them will have been there to help them out. They would still have to live with many, if most, of the consequences of not being able to live a typical life up until that point.
So it goes for each and every one of us here.
We live through the hurts, illnesses, and losses that all of the people in the Gospels experience. That is what makes this a contemporary story - not one that is lost in the past, where we need to figure out how it applies to our modern lives.
We become hungry, and we are fed; we are hurt, and healing comes; we feel alone, and we find a company or the company finds us.
Sometimes, we are the ones doing the work of feeding, comforting, and healing. Sometimes, we are the ones who need it. And that is a blessing If there is one thing that is certain: if we are still here to see one more day, we will be needed to do and will need from others that Kingdom work - of feeding and healing again because that is the world in which we live,
We see this in the story of the wedding itself. The Wine ran out.
One of the bridegroom's jobs was to ensure that Wine didn't run out. And one can only assume that they did their best to make sure that that didn't happen.
It's all any of us can do is do our best to make sure the Wine doesn't run out. But try as we might, it seems like the Wine always seems to run out.
Either we will, or someone we know will get sick, lose a job, get hurt or realize an old wound, or we’ll lose a friend or loved one.
The brokenness systems, patterns, people, ourselves, the brokenness of the world will happen - in all of its utterly surprising and profoundly disappointing ways.
And all of a sudden, our sure supply of Wine that we had planned and planned and planned for runs dry... somehow runs dry... again.
And then comes the promise from tonight's reading. Though the Wine has run dry - before we know it - in ways that we cannot even see or anticipate - it is being replenished, not just replenished but built up. The promise of the Wine at Cana's wedding is that it will be better and more plentiful than what we brought to begin with.
The promise of the first sign of the Wine at the Wedding at Cana is that the one plowing the soil shall overtake the reaper, that the seeds of grape vines will be planted in those rows, and that the Joy that the wedding banquet brings is the beginning and the end of the story is there and will come again.
The promise of the sign at the Wedding at Cana is that peace and righteousness has come.
That is God's promise to be with us, dwelling among us, suffering and dying for us, redeeming the whole of creation. The promise that the peace of the Lord, which passes all understanding, will keep us through every trial and tribulation and even bring us to a place where we can eventually rejoice in the eternal and glorious Wedding Banquet where every last one of us is invited, the food is rich, and the Wine never run dry.
Amen