The Power to Change

Mark Twain once said, “The only person who likes change is a wet baby.”

We all struggle with accepting change at one time or another. But when change is really for the better, and that is evident to us, it does make change a little easier to accept.

Today we are going to look at a story in the life and ministry of Jesus that shows us his tremendous power to bring about change. The story is recounted to us in John 2:1-11. Listen for God’s word to you…

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. ² Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” ⁴ And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” ⁵ His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” ⁶ Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. ⁷ Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. ⁸ He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. ⁹ When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom ¹⁰ and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” ¹¹ Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

When reading Scripture, it is often helpful to pose questions to gain deeper understanding. The most basic questions to ask of Scripture are sometimes the most helpful, questions like: When? Where? How? Who? What? And why? Those are the very questions I want to pose as we consider this passage from John 2:1-11.

First, when did this miracle happen?

John tells us that “on the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee.” That statement links this narrative with what has gone before. John has been relating to us the events of the first week in the ministry of Jesus.

• On the first day of that first week John the Baptist testified to the priests and Levites as recorded in John 1:19-28. (Thursday)
• On the second day John the Baptist identified Jesus as the Lamb of God, in John 1:29-34. (Friday)
• On the third day Andrew and John (later to be Jesus’ disciple) followed Jesus and spent part of the day with him. (Saturday)
• On the fourth day Andrew brought his brother Simon to meet Jesus. (Sunday)
• On the fifth day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee and called Philip to follow him. On that same day, Philip found his friend Nathaniel and introduced him to Jesus. (Monday)
• Then Jesus spent the sixth day traveling. (Tuesday)
• And on the seventh day of that first week of Jesus’ ministry, he attended the wedding at Cana in Galilee. (It may be that this wedding happened on a Wednesday because that was the custom of the time.)

At any rate, John may have been using a literary device, a creation week motif, to present Jesus as the great re-creator. Jesus has tremendous power to mold and reshape our lives. Literally, he has power to recreate us from the inside out.

But if this miracle of turning water into wine happened at the end of a 7-day sequence, why does John say it happens on “the third day”? Well, John may be counting from the last time he said “and the next day” in his narrative. But it may also be true that John is looking forward to the end of his Gospel, when another act of recreation is going to happen “on the third day”.

The bottom line is this: Jesus has the power to recreate us, to make something extraordinary out of the ordinary, for he is the one who can change water into wine.

In Russia, in 1989, the number one graduate study subject was conversion. But the Russians weren’t studying conversion from a religious point of view. They understood the political significance that if there is a way to change a person’s values, motivations, goals, and lifestyles, you have the ultimate power in the world, a power even greater than nuclear weapons. So, the Russian graduate students wanted to understand: how can we use conversion as a political force for the state?

I believe Jesus has all authority and all power because he is God in the flesh. But he uses his power, not for political purposes. No. He uses his power to change people’s lives for the better, just like changing water into wine.

Second, where did it happen, this miracle of changing water into wine? 

It happened at Cana, which was probably not far from Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown. It was at a wedding feast. Apparently, Jesus’ mother Mary had some official function there. It seems she was responsible for making some of the arrangements for the wedding banquet. Perhaps a relative of hers was getting married. So, Jesus is invited, along with his disciples.

What I want you to see here is that Jesus was perfectly at home on such an occasion. He was no killjoy.

Sherwood Eliot Wirt, in his book, Jesus, Man of Joy, writes:

Why do you suppose Jesus was invited to this event? Was it because He had a face like the shroud of Turin—large, sad, staring eyes and a drooping mouth? I could have told the experts years ago that the shroud was not authentic. People with such faces are not usually seen at weddings. Jesus was no death’s head at the feast. Rather He was, if I read Scripture correctly, a delightful person with a contagious personality—just the kind of individual people like to be around. He exhibited a light spirit. He radiated good cheer. According to the Letter to the Hebrews, He was anointed by His Father with the oil of gladness more than His companions.

That’s why Jesus was invited to the wedding. Not because He was a relative they had to invite. Not because He was an apostle of gloom. Not because He was sure to go about buttonholing the other guests and informing them that the fires of hell awaited them. He was invited because He was someone special—a lovable gentle Man and a very warm Friend.

How does this picture compare with other Scriptures that tell us Jesus was a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief? Let’s note right away that the sorrows and griefs came later in His ministry and were not of His own devising. They played no part in His temperament. Rather they were thrust upon Him from the outside. He was unaware that they were coming. He was ready for them, but this wedding took place early in His ministry, and at the moment He was not borrowing trouble or taking thought for the morrow.

How did this miracle of changing the water into wine come about?

Wine was essential for a Jewish feast. The Rabbis said, “Without wine there is no joy.” Hospitality in the culture of that time and place was a sacred duty. It would be a great humiliation for the wine to run out at a wedding feast. And they couldn’t just run to the local “Wine and Spirits” shop to buy more alcohol.

So, Mary came and laid the problem before Jesus. Apparently, Mary’s husband Joseph had died young and Mary had grown accustomed to depending upon her eldest son to fix things. Moreover, Mary probably had some hint of Jesus’ supernatural power. So, Mary becomes a model for us of how to seek Jesus’ changing power through prayer. Mary doesn’t tell Jesus howto solve the problem. She just presents the problem to him and trusts him to do the rest. We need to do the same when we bring problems to Jesus in prayer.

Jesus’ words to Mary sound terribly harsh to us: “Dear woman, why do you involve me? My time has not yet come.” However, these words may have been spoken in a very gentle tone. What Jesus seems to be saying is that he, not Mary, must determine the timetable of his earthly ministry.

Mary continues to trust that Jesus will do something, despite his words to her. Sometimes we don’t understand God’s delays in answer to our prayers. Mary shows us that we need to continue to trust God anyway.

Jesus does not disappoint Mary. He tells the servants to put water into six stone water jars, enough to fill them. These jars were the kind used by the Jewish people for ceremonial washing. The servants do as Jesus instructs. Then he tells them to draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet, who was responsible for making sure that the banquet ran smoothly. The servants did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had become wine.

Now, how could this be possible? How could anyone turn water into wine? I think C. S. Lewis answers this question quite well when he says in his book, Miracles,

Every year, as part of the Natural order, God makes wine. He does so by creating a vegetable organism that can turn water, soil, and sunlight into a juice which will, under proper conditions, become wine. Thus, in a certain sense, He constantly turns water into wine, for wine, like all drinks, is but water modified. Once, and in one year only, God, now incarnate, short circuits the process: makes wine in a moment: uses earthenware jars instead of vegetable fibers to hold the water. But uses them to do what He is always doing. The miracle consists in the short cut; but the event to which it leads is the usual one.

Who made this miracle happen?

Well, of course, Jesus did. He is the one who here reveals himself as the glorious God of wine. Again, I find Lewis helpful…

This miracle proclaims that the God of all wine is present. The vine is one of the blessings sent by Jahweh: He is the reality behind the false god Bacchus… If the thing happened, then we know that what has come into Nature is no anti-Natural spirit, no God who loves tragedy and tears and fasting for their own sake (however He may permit or demand them for special purposes) but the God of Israel who has through all these centuries given us wine to gladden the heart of man.

John P. Meier, writing in the New York Times Book Review said,

Many treatments of Jesus get bogged down in a discussion of the possibility of miracles; properly speaking, that is a philosophical rather than a historical or even a theological problem… All that need be noted is that ancient Christian, Jewish, and pagan sources all agreed that Jesus did extraordinary things not easily explained by human means. While Jesus’ disciples pointed to the Spirit of God as the source of His power, Jewish and pagan adversaries spoke of demonic or magical forces. It never occurred to any of the ancient polemicists to claim that nothing happened.

What was the miracle that happened at this wedding feast?

Well of course, water was turned into wine, not wine into water. This shows us that Jesus was no ascetic. He was accused of being a glutton and drunkard. (Matthew 11:19; Luke 7:34) So Jesus must have enjoyed food and wine.

If some modern-day church people were transferred back to this wedding feast at Cana, I think they might be embarrassed by Jesus’ behavior. That is how unlike our Master we have become. I know some modern-day Christians who would probably wish that Jesus had turned wine into water, rather than the other way around. We have lost the joy that is always present where Jesus is.

I am reminded of the gifted public speaker who was asked to recall his most difficult speaking assignment. He said, “That’s easy. It was an address I gave to the National Conference of Undertakers. The topic they gave me was ‘How to Look Sad at a Ten Thousand Dollar Funeral.’ That’s not tough, I could have referred plenty of so-called Christians to him who could tell you how to look sad on any occasion.”

But there is no hint of solemnity or sanctimoniousness to John’s picture of Jesus. The new movement Jesus is starting here is all sunny and joyous, with plenty of room for humor and gaiety, and yet at the same time rigorous and glorious. Wherever Jesus is, there is joy and feasting and new wine that must be poured into new wineskins. Jesus constantly compares the Kingdom of God to a wedding banquet, and I have never been to a wedding banquet that was not a joyful occasion.

Still, some folks have a hard time accepting Jesus’ way of doing things. Some like the old wine better than the new. Yet, whenever we do not accept the kind of change that Jesus can bring to our lives—we lose.

This leads to the final question we must answer: why did this miracle happen?

On the surface of it, it appears that Jesus performed this miracle simply to save a humble, Galilean family from embarrassment. Here we see the Jesus who cares about all of our problems, no matter how small. In fact, there is no problem too great for Jesus’ power, and there is no person or problem too small for his loving care.

While all that is true, there may also be a deeper spiritual reality to this story. John tells us that the water in the stone jars was used by the Jewish people for ceremonial washing. So, the water was, in a way, symbolic of the old Jewish religion. And wine was symbolic of joy. Thus, what this miracle may be saying to us is that Jesus changes the water of religion into the wine of a relationship with himself.

A.W. Pink once wrote about the Judaism of Jesus’ time: “Judaism still existed as a religious system… but it ministered no comfort to the heart. It had degenerated into a cold, mechanical routine, utterly destitute of joy in God.”

What Pink wrote about Judaism is true of all religion, even Christianity, without Jesus at the center. Apart from Christ, who is the source of life and joy, religion is a cold and lifeless formalism. Apart from the sunny exuberance that Jesus brings, religion is joyless and hardens personalities.

As my friend Tim Hansel once wrote, religion is “a pattern of rules and regulations, a system that helps us tidy up our behavior, somewhat like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It allows us a better view as we go down.”

And Archbishop William Temple once said, “It is a great mistake to think that God is chiefly interested in religion.”

I agree. I don’t think God is interested in religion at all. I believe God wants to have a relationship with us through his Son Jesus Christ. He wants to work in us from the inside out, rather than from the outside in. Jesus’ miracle here is symbolic of the fact that he can change cold, mechanical religion into the joy of a warm-hearted relationship with himself. In his presence, the water of ordinary, conventional religion can be transformed into the wine of a love-filled life.