January 20, 2013 AD Sermon, by Pastor Ben Willis

According to John 2:1-12 [NLTse]

2 The next day there was a wedding celebration in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and His disciples were also invited to the celebration. 3 The wine supply ran out during the festivities, so Jesus’ mother told Him, “They have no more wine.”

4 “Dear woman, that’s not our problem,” Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.”

5 But His mother told the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.”

6 Standing nearby were six stone water jars, used for Jewish ceremonial washing. Each could hold twenty to thirty gallons. 7 Jesus told the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” When the jars had been filled, 8 He said, “Now dip some out, and take it to the master of ceremonies.” So the servants followed His instructions.

9 When the master of ceremonies tasted the water that was now wine, not knowing where it had come from (though, of course, the servants knew), he called the bridegroom over. 10 “A host always serves the best wine first,” he said. “Then, when everyone has had a lot to drink, he brings out the less expensive wine. But you have kept the best until now!”

11 This miraculous sign at Cana in Galilee was the first time Jesus revealed His glory. And His disciples believed in Him.

12 After the wedding He went to Capernaum for a few days with His mother, His brothers, and His disciples.

My wife, Amy, and I have been married for 22 years; 23 years this-coming October. Here’s our wedding photo: She’s just as lovely as ever; me, well, I’m working on it…

When we got married we both lived in Baltimore, MD downtown in the Inner Harbor area. She was renting a little second-floor 3-room apartment and I was renovating a 3-story brownstone two streets over. After we got married the brownstone was no longer mine: It became hers, too, and we worked on it together. Our first couple of years of marriage were tough: I’d lost my job during the 1990-housing crash and was working for minimum wage doing handyman work around a friend’s rental properties. But Amy was making a lot of money as a Psychiatric Nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital; and because we were married, her income was my income, too!

As I’ve mentioned at different times, my grandfather was a world-renowned scientist: He helped invent the flamethrower and was a part of one of the Manhattan Project work teams that developed the atomic bomb. As my grandparents got older they began giving their children and us grandchildren our inheritance while they were still alive to avoid tax troubles. It wasn’t a million or even hundreds of thousands, but it was a nice little nest-egg to either spend or invest. And because Amy and I were married, all of that became hers, as well.

We both brought debt to our marriage: Some college debt, some credit card debt. And I became responsible for her debt and helped pay it off, and she became responsible for my debt and helped pay it off.

It was no longer, “Hey, there’s Ben Willis!” or “Look, it’s Amy Butterworth!” (Yes, pancake and maple syrup fans, I married Ms. Butterworth). No, we were “Amy and Ben”. Everywhere we went it was, “Here’s Amy and Ben!” Through the covenant of marriage two had become one.

John records in our reading this morning Jesus’ first miraculous sign revealing His glory. I think it is significant that it happened at a wedding: Our Savior changing water – that symbolizes ritual cleansing – into wine – that symbolizes the New Covenant He’s established in His blood.

Looking back into ancient history, when people made covenants – like a marriage or a treaty – the two might exchange cloaks to symbolize that they were each giving their authority to the other. They might exchange weapons as a way of saying, “Your enemies are now my enemies. I’ll fight your fights as if they were my own.” When our Father made a covenant with Abraham, they walked through the blood of slain animals together, promising their loyalty to one another – Abraham and God, promising their loyalty to each other – even to the death…

By entering into a covenant-relationship with us God has given us everything He has and bound Himself to us in a relationship that cannot be dissolved. And with the Lord Jesus’ death it is a “‘Til death do us part” relationship. (And even then He exercises His power to raise Him and us from the dead!)

Notice with me how different the covenant that Jesus established between the Father and us on the cross is from the covenant Moses established between the Father and Israel on Mt. Sinai. Moses went up the mountain and then brought down with him commandments as the condition for the peoples’ faithfulness to the covenant. A complicated sacrificial system was needed and set in place to make atonement for any covenant breaches… On the other hand, Jesus carried a cross up the mountain, let Himself be nailed to it, asked the Father to forgive us, and died to satisfy divine justice for the sin of everyone who would ever believe it.

One covenant was conditional, based upon obedience (even though it lovingly had provisions for every time breaches might be made so the transgressors might be brought back into the covenant again). But the New Covenant was and is unconditional, based on a whole different kind of love: The Lord Jesus died to bring us back into right and intimate relationship with the Father (as God had intended with Adam and Eve in the beginning); and, anyone who believed and trusted in Jesus was (and is) welcome to be a part of it.

The prophet Hosea speaks of this different kind of love, of a day when God’s peoples’ relationship with Him would grow from that of an obedient “servant-master relationship” to that of a loving “husband-wife relationship”. Hosea says, speaking the Word of the Lord: “‘When that day comes,’ says the Lord, ‘you will call Me “my Husband” instead of “my Master”… I will make you My wife forever, showing you righteousness and justice, unfailing love and compassion.’” The Lord said, “When that day comes you will call Me ‘my Husband’ instead of ‘my Master’…”

And yet even in our day where we as a people – His Church – have been invited into this husband-wife relationship with Almighty God, we can see our Betrothed calling us into an even more and more maturing love here as we wait for Him to come and take us home.

Somewhere I read the following description of this “divine marriage” we are a part of, and the growth of love and intimacy that is hoped for us. It went something like this: “In the beginning She was more concerned with Him giving her a happy life. She saw her Betrothed as making Her happy and as a way to being happy for the rest of her life. Jesus called this “immature love” but accepted it, He did not cast Her off. However, His goal was to mature Her love so that He alone – not riches, nor comforts, nor mere happiness, nor even promises of wonders to come, that He alone – would in the end be for Her the goal of Her life…

My brothers and sisters, together with Christians across every continent, speaking every language, with every color of skin and from every known people group, we, together, are the Bride of Jesus Christ, and He our Betrothed, our Husband! Since the beginning the Father has sought to prepare an equally-yoked Bride for His Son. In this New Covenant marriage-relationship He established on the cross, all Jesus has is ours, and all we have He desires we freely give to Him: His name, His authority, His armor and weapons (all ours!); our treasure, time, and talents, our friendships and business contacts; our thoughts, words, and actions (all His!); His righteousness, His healing, His riches in glory, His strength (all ours!); our sin, our sickness, our poverty, our weakness (all His!).

O, if we truly knew our God and Husband! O, if we truly knew how He has been pursuing us our whole lives long, and how He is pursuing us each and every day! O, if we truly knew who we are to Him and how precious we are to Him, His Bride! O what lives of lavish and extravagant thankfulness we might lead in response to His pursuit and love!

Would you pray with me?

Holy, holy, holy One! Grant us the grace to know You and receive You to be our God and our Husband! Grant us all we need to recognize and respond to Your pursuit: The signs of it in our past, and the ongoing expressions of it each day! Help us to comprehend the incomprehensible: That is, all that we are to You, how prized, sought after, sacrificed for, and precious! Fill us with Your Holy Spirit that our self-worth, priorities, words, actions, and relationships might all be transformed out of thanksgiving for You and Your love in our lives… Amen?