Sunday January 19th, 2025 Worship

When you think of signs, what do you think of? Maybe you think of stop signs or speed limit signs, maybe it is the signage that businesses use to indicate that they exist there, or maybe it’s things like the first peek of a flower coming up to remind us that spring is right around the corner. Most people don’t know that before I became and English and Religion major, I was actually headed down the pre-med track. And, while I absolutely hated the math portion of my chemistry classes, I always loved the lab days, when I got to titrate chemicals and watch for the signs of color changes indicating that something was happening with our intended reaction. It was a slow process of dripping chemicals drop by drop into a solution waiting for that exact moment when the color began to turn. Sometimes it took just a few drops, other times, we had to try really hard to keep paying attention because it went on so long that we would miss the reaction if we started to focus on other things instead. You’d wait for five minutes and the second you look away is when the reaction would happen, and you’d have to do it all again.
This idea of signs and transformations is central to our Gospel story this morning too. In John’s Gospel, the turning of water into wine at the wedding of Cana is called the first sign that Jesus did (John 2: 11). While the other Gospels will call something like this a miracle, it is a distinction in John’s Gospel that everything he does to indicate who he is and what he can do is called a sign. Linguistically, I think this is important because miracle sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime, infrequent occurring event. And, while Jesus performs multiple different signs instead of the same one over and over again, by calling them signs, it signals us to pay attention. When we think about signs in our daily context, they often signal a change, whether that is to stop traffic, remind us that there is a curve coming around the bend, that we can go faster or slower, or there is a traffic jam up ahead. Signs prepare us for what is happening or what will happen.
When we think about the first sign that is performed in this story, turning water into wine, it seems like a cool party trick, but it also leaves us wondering what importance this has to the reality of what Jesus is going to do in the world. But, like most stories, we have to look at the surrounding details to understand the importance of what this sign represents. It’s like if you see a sign for a deer crossing, you should probably at least glance around to see if there are any deer! Although, maybe that sign was a little bit more common for me growing up in Minnesota.
The jars that Jesus had the stewards fill were maybe just used because they were conveniently large vessels that could be filled, but that seems unlikely from very intentional Jesus. These jars were what the Jewish people used to perform their purification rituals. They would have needed jars of such large size for a wedding because that is a lot of hands to be cleansed before they ate over the course of a week-long wedding gathering. But by using the purification ritual vessels for the first sign, and then having wine be the symbol of this first sign, Jesus is signaling the beginning of the transformation of what it means to be purified by God. It is parallel with his teachings in Mark chapter 7 about how it isn’t what goes into our bodies that defiles us, but what comes out of it, when they were having a debate about the disciples not following the purification laws of cleaning their hands before eating. While, personally, I still think we should be washing our hands, Jesus is signaling a shift in what it means to be righteous in the eyes of God, a transformation that is going to impact the way people approach their faith.
It’s not that Jesus is totally getting rid of all the ways of old, after all, he was Jewish himself, but he is using them to meet people where they are at. He didn’t have the stewards smash the vessels, but instead used them to create the symbol that we continue to use today as we remember what Christ did for us through his death and resurrection. This is the beginning of the transformation of religious life because Jesus performs this one sign, but he doesn’t do any teaching, and aside from the stewards, no one knows how this good wine was produced or where it came from. Even the language of the chief steward to the bridegroom indicates that this is a flipping of the usual order, since people usually served the good wine first and then the lesser wine when people were too drunk to notice that the wine wasn’t as good (John 2: 10). Even with them originally serving the “good” wine first, Jesus’ is still better.
Then, there is the symbolism of wine representing joy, but also purification. When we hear stories like this, we also have to remember that our modern-day water processing treatments are still relatively new compared to the length of history. This meant that, for many people, wine was also used as a means of being able to safely drink water, since the fermentation process would kill off many of the germs and bacteria. The chemical transformation of this water allowed people to live longer and more safely, protecting them from water-borne illness. So, when we think about Jesus being the fountain of living water, this sign today is a continuation of that. While he probably could have just purified the water if he really wanted to, the sign would not have had as great of an impact because people would have been hesitant to consume it, even if Jesus said it was safe. How would they know to trust it, there is no visible sign that it has been changed. They know what to expect from wine.
So, this sign today is so much more than just wine for a wedding feast. While that joy and celebration is important in our lives, a true gift from God, there are so many other layers to this story that continue to give us signs that this singular sign is just the beginning of a transformation. It shows that Jesus truly knew the people who he was ministering to. While the story doesn’t tell us who the bride and groom are or their connection to Jesus, from my experience with wedding planning, it seems like someone he must have been close to if he, his mother, and his disciples were all invited to this celebration. In this seemingly simple sign, Jesus is signaling the disciples to begin paying attention because the signs are only going to keep coming. Jesus doesn’t make this a flashy act, but that only adds to the appeal of people slowly being drawn into this new reality of what the world will be like. Like when we titrated in chemistry lab, drop by drop, Jesus is slowly beginning the transformation of the kindom, sign by sign, person by person, calling us to pay attention to what he is going to do next, beginning with this seemingly unrelated event of turning water into wine at a wedding.