Jesus first recorded miracle in the New Testament was His turning water into wine! However, it wasn't His first miracle. Before the universe was created, Jesus, together with the Father and the Spirit, performed a mighty miracle. They planned in love your salvation! The second major miracle was when Jesus as LORD created the universe out of nothing.
So now we have the Agent of Creation and your Salvation beginning His ministry at age 30. His first sign will be in a little town in Galilee--Cana. Cana means "land of the reeds." It is a picture of how fragile humans are--bruised reeds with all kinds of needs.
Note well Jesus' first great sign will take place in Gentile land. It signals God so loved the world--Jew and Gentile. In John's Gospel this first sign will be followed by six more--seven all total--the perfect number by God's perfect Son. The seventh sign will be Jesus' rising bodily from the dead to be our everlasting Head.
Now a sign is something like a double miracle in John's Gospel. Its roots are in the Old Testament predicting what the Messiah will do. So it is a prophecy miracle as well as something that is greater than the laws of science--done by the LORD of science--Jesus! So it is a double scoop of delicious Divine ice cream.
John's account begins with Jesus attending a Wedding "on the third day." In Jewish thinking that would be a Tuesday. The first day was Sunday, the second day Monday, and the third day Tuesday. How many here were married on a Tuesday? Most likely, most were married on a Saturday. So, why Tuesday? In the beginning on the third day God made vegetation including grapes. In Genesis 1:10 and 1:12 twice God said it was "good," double good. Since the day was considered twice blessed many weddings took place then. Moreover, weddings were a BIG shindig. Multiple days! Party hearty. Also, on the third day after Jesus died, He becomes the risen Bridegroom for the Church His bride! Now all of Jesus' disciples, all twelve are with Him.
Now since Jesus created Adam and Eve in the very beginning, it was only proper that he would be at such an occasion. And it is also quite possible Jesus was attending the wedding of a niece on Mary's side. At any rate--lots and lots of people. So many people were here that a problem occurred. They ran out of wine!
This was far worse than if someone ran off with the wedding cake. It was a potential social embarrassment of the first order. Mary, who forgets nothing, likely new that in book of Amos and Joel there were references how the coming Messiah would bring new wine of an outstanding kind to God's people. This would be sign of prosperity in step with Messiah's presence. At a minimum Mary knew that Jesus was extraordinary--more than competent. Joseph her husband had died earlier and Jesus had provided for his mother in ways that made her supremely confident in her Son.
Feeling for the young couple, seeing the problem, Mary goes to Jesus for help. She comes to Jesus saying, "The people running the wedding have no more wine, can't you do something about it?" Mary knows Jesus can help--but she has no idea just exactly what Jesus will do. Implied here is that Mary thinks Jesus will perform a miracle.
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Jesus response no doubt caught Mary off guard as it did the first readers of this Gospel. Jesus said to his mother, "My dear Mother, don't you understand that if I do this, it won't change anything for you but it will change everything for me." In love, Jesus is telling Mary "You need to hang on to your hat. The next three years are going to be unlike anything you can imagine after today."
Notice, Jesus does not tell her what He is going to do. Mary walks away and tells the servers "Whatever Jesus tells you, make sure you do it!" Mary has full confidence in her Son. She also knows that He works outside the box and will do things at others might seem strange.
Now there were six large purification jars there holding 30 gallons a piece. Jesus tells the servers to fill them up with water right to the brim. They did. Then Jesus told them "Take your pitchers and take them to the Master of the Ceremonies." They did.
At Jesus' order they emptied these pitchers for the Master of the Ceremonies to sample. Likely this was day four or five of the wedding. Wow! The Master of Ceremonies was impressed! He probably was wondering where this wine came from--because it was off the chart wonderful wine. Jesus had turned the water into something like forty year old wine in a split second. From a chemistry point of view this was a spectacular miracle. Changing water into carbon based wine in a moment was something only God could do. And Jesus did.
The Master of the Ceremonies called the bridegroom over saying, "This is really, really good stuff. Every other host serves his best wine first, but you have saved the best wine until now--this exquisite tasting wine!" This was the first of a long list of extraordinary miracles Jesus would unleash. They revealed His glory as well as His Father's glory. It moved His disciples to believe in Him because they knew He was the promised Messiah fulfilling what the prophets foretold long ago (Amos 9:13-14; Joel 3:18; Micah 7:15). His credentials were impeccable.
In Jesus Christ we see a Savior eager to help us--so pray to Him, daily, often, always. In Jesus' Christ we see a Person who can do strange wonderful signs which reveal to us that He is the promised Messiah. In Jesus Christ we are assured that when wine runs out He will provide for us in strange ways.
Years ago my wonderful mother was at her end's wits. The cupboards were totally bare. There was no food in the house to feed her nine children. The jars of wine, so to speak, were all empty. She prayed to Jesus. About thirty minutes later the old red wooden dump truck from the Red Owl Food store drove by our house to the next door town dump. It was filled with old but eatable potatoes. It was filled with TV dinners too old to sell but not too late to eat. It was filled with heads of lettuce a bit brown here and there, but fine with modest pruning. And then there were pot pies plus ice cream bars and potato chips tossed in the dump truck for good measure.
It was a strange answer to prayer not unlike Jesus' strange answer to Mary's prayer at Cana. It signaled to us that the LORD of Cana was at work once more. I am trying to remember if this was on the third day, a Tuesday, after last minute sales.
Won't surprise me if it was. What a wonderful Savior we have in Jesus Christ!!!
