The Messiah’s Secret – The  Wedding  at  Cana (2)

Morning Readings:  Isaiah 62 1-5.  John 2: 1-11  

The wine running out. 

Visual Aid: The Puzzel jug:  (the jug refilled itself)
One small jug,  a glass bowl, container with water and fruit juice (red)                                                                                  
From the container fill the jug with water/juice. ( talking as its being poured.)
 On our Christian journey the Lord will cause us to cease from our activities :run out of ideas, plans, money, opportunities or even time.
Pour out water/juice from jug into bowl. The jug appears to be empty.

The Lord will allow us to run out of our own ideas so that we stop and listen to the still small voice in our inner ear. Abandoning ourselves to his love and care.

The Lord wants to give us the new wine of his Spirit that will never run out. Continue to pour more water/juice out from jug. It is as we live out the gospel, the Lord will continue to fill us with his Spirit.  Pour more out from the jug.

Persistent prayer. 
Isaiah was persistent in prayer he did not run out of enthusiasm or conviction that God would bless Israel. In the Hebrew Scriptures God is depicted as the husband of Israel and we understand she has been estranged from her husband because she had turned her back on his ways.  Jeremiah wrote, "Not like the old covenant that I made with their fathers when I took them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord." Jeremiah 31: 32.

Isaiah was appealing to God’s love and faithfulness towards Israel and Jerusalem. Isaiah was looking for a reunion of the marriage between Israel and God. No longer to be called forsaken and her land desolate, instead to be called by a new name, “My delight is in her."                                                                         

The Jewish people knew that persistent prayer works:  Abraham appealed to God several times not to destroy the righteous in Sodom and Gomorrah. Genesis 18:22-33  

Jacob wrestled with the angel until he got a blessing. Genesis 32: 24-30

Jesus told a parable were the persistent widow came to the unrighteous judge and won through, Jesus making the point that we ought always to pray and not lose heart as God will hear those who come to him and he will respond.. Luke 18: 1-7.

St. Paul wrote, “Continue steadfastly in prayer.” Colossians 4: 2   Pray and don’t give up; only believe it will be answered in due course.

John the Apostles’ Vision  

 “And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them.“ Revelation 21: 2, 3.

The Wedding at Cana.

The wedding at Cana took place at the beginning of Jesus ministry, for us, it is no co-incidence when we bring the reading from Isaiah alongside of it. It speaks of the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy the marriage that unites God and Israel but also unites with God and Israel the Gentiles through the Jeremiah covenant.” “This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days says the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write then in their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach everyone his fellow or everyone his brother, saying ‘know the Lord,’ for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful towards their iniquities, and I will remember their sin no more." Jeremiah 31:33, 34.

The writer of Hebrews quotes from this prophecy.Hebrews 8:10. In speaking of a new covenant he treats the first as obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.”                                                                                                                       

I asked myself this question, why did God in the presence of Jesus at this wedding at Cana allow the wine to run out. It had to be for a reason.

After the ceremony everything was going well at the feast until the wine ran out. Mary brought it to the attention of Jesus expecting him to do something. Jesus’ response to his mother These words, “O woman what have you to do with me, My hour has not yet come."

The two together the wine running out and Jesus saying, ‘My hour has not yet come,’ indicate something was delayed.

Jesus the bridegroom, the Messiah came but found desolation and a land forsaken.

 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her brood under her wings, and you would not! Behold your house is forsaken and desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Matthew 23: 38.

Jesus in his ministry found that the nations’ hearts were unprepared. Slow to understand, hard of hearing, they were hardened by what they had been taught under the law, The crowd said to Jesus, “We have heard from the law that when the Messiah comes, he will remain for ever.” John 12: 34 

Even his own disciples did not grasp, understand when Jesus said that he was going to be killed.

At Jesus transfiguration he was in conversation with Moses and Elijah and Luke records that they were heard to speak of Jesus’ departure at Jerusalem.  Luke 9: 30,31, 45.

 “Behold, your house is forsaken and desolate.” God was going to leave his dwelling place in the Most Holy Place this was signified when by an act of God the temple curtain was torn in two when Jesus died on the cross. The house would be left desolate empty of God’s presence. The law had run out of time, it had come to an end.

The wine running out was a sign.

The wedding guests we read were not aware of the wine running out. Behind the scenes Jesus was working alongside of the servants as they carried out his instructions, they filled the six empty purification jars with water. The water, was transformed into wine. They took it to the Steward, who in turn took it to the bridegroom declaring that he had kept the best wine till the last. What a result the best wine that they had ever tasted. Jesus’ disciples believed in him when they saw this sign. It was a sign to his disciples that God was in Jesus doing something new.

The wine running out.

The symbolism is mind blowing, the wine running out – the end of the old covenant, the transformed new wine representing the blood and Spirit of the new covenant. Every covenant is ratified with blood, even marriage.

The New Wine

 2,000 years later the Gospel catches people unawares as the Holy Spirit reveals Jesus. It could be described like opening a window and the wind comes into the room blowing all the papers around.

When the Vicar called at the home of Dennis his first reaction was that he would make a quick exit and leave him to talk to his wife. But instead he stayed and listened to the message about Jesus’ “To all who receive him, who believe in his name he gave power to become children of God. Born not of human descent, nor of the will of man, but born of the will of God.” Dennis accepted Jesus as his Saviour and through the laying on of hands he received the promised gift of the Holy Spirit.

The wine running out.

The Lord may remove things from our life will bring us to that point where we come to the end of ourselves like ‘the wine running out’ we can’t do anything to change a situation in our own strength. This were we look to Jesus. 

Filled to overflowing with the new wine.

Christian Gerry was seriously ill in hospital, he thought he was going to die, he turned to the Gideon Bible in the locker at the side of his bed. He opened it up at random to the first chapter of Job. He read how Job had lost everything but he did not blame God, he believed in God. Gerry reading this chapter, he recognised himself and he woke up next day a changed man. Where he felt that ‘the wine had run out’ in fact he had come to the end of himself and turned to the Lord our God and had an encounter with Jesus Christ. Gerry was filled with the Holy Spirit.                                                                                     

Sister Irene Mary Anglican  Nun from Blackburn.

Sister Irene regularly would contact me and place an order for my pottery. On most occasions she would remind me to pray for the Lord’s coming. “We must pray for the Lord’s kingdom to come, Dorothy.” I could see that the Holy Spirit had put this persistent prayer on her heart. When I say the Lord’s Prayer I often think of Sister Irene Mary.