35. A Glorious Wedding: Jesus and John's Gospel Part 4

G'day everyone.

Dave here.

Welcome to stories of a faithful God.

Have you been watching the Olympics?

There are thousands of athletes at the Olympics.

They look so amazing and powerful.

They look really great.

You know what's strange though, for most of them, if you passed them in the street, you

wouldn't even notice them.

Their greatness would be hidden.

But then the Olympics come around and the whole world watches them and suddenly their

greatness can be seen by everyone.

Another way of talking about someone's

greatness is by talking about their glory.

For an olympic athlete, you see their glory

when they're competing in their event.

If they get a medal, we give them glory and

honor.

When they stand up on the podium.

If they win gold, they and their country's glory is seen.

When their flag is raised and their national anthem is played, the cameras flash and

pictures of them are shown around the world.

If you're not watching when that happens

though, if you miss it and then you meet the athlete at a party or in the library, you

won't know about their glory.

Their glory will be hidden.

The Lord Jesus, he has far more glory than any olympic athlete.

And if we could see into heaven and see Jesus on his throne with all the angels bowing down

and worshipping him and golden light shining out from him, we'd see just how amazing his

glory is.

When he first came to earth as a human, though

his glory was hidden.

Even the people who liked him didnt know how

glorious he is.

In todays story thats about to start changing.

Get ready for our next episode of stories of a faithful God for kids.

In our last episode, Jesus started gathering his first followers, his first disciples.

They're pretty excited.

They think they've found the king that God

promised to send in the old testament, the Christ.

They saw how he knew them even before they met him.

And Jesus was like, that's nothing compared to what you're going to see now.

It's two days later and it's time for a party.

It's a wedding.

Jesus mum is there.

Jesus is there, and his disciples are there as

well.

I don't know if you've ever been to a wedding,

but just like any party, it's got its own sorts of special food and drink.

The drink that was most important for weddings in those days was wine.

People didn't have as much money in those days, but they'd save up for ages to buy

enough wine for their children's weddings.

What made that especially hard was that

sometimes weddings could go for days.

And the one thing you absolutely positively

did not want to happen was for the wine to run out.

That would be super embarrassing.

Well, you'll never guess what happens at this

wedding that Jesus goes to.

Okay, okay.

You probably can guess.

That's right.

The wine runs out for a while.

Not many people know about it.

Pretty soon, though, their cups are going to be empty and they're going to be asking for

more wine.

For some reason, Jesus mum knows about the

problem.

And in John, chapter two, verse three, she

pulls Jesus aside and tells him they have no more wine.

Jesus answer isn't really what you'd expect.

I mean, he doesn't freak out, he doesn't yell,

ah, there's no more wine.

What are we gonna do?

This is a disaster.

The whole world's gonna end.

And I didn't get to watch blue eyed.

That would be a bit dramatic.

But he also doesn't offer to help.

Instead he's like, so why are you telling me?

Let me read you what he says.

See what you make of it.

In verse four, he says, dear woman, why come to me?

My time has not yet come.

Umm.

What time is a time coming when he'll suddenly open a wine shop?

No, this is actually something really important.

Jesus is talking about the time when people will see his glory, when his greatness will be

shown to the whole world.

It's the time that he came to earth for.

Much later, in John, chapter twelve, verse 23, Jesus will say, the time has come for the son

of man to receive his glory.

Hes talking about the time when hes going to

die on a cross and then be raised to life and go back to heaven.

But thats years away, Mary.

Jesus mum doesnt know about it yet, but Jesus

is saying, do you really want me to show how great I am by doing a miracle?

Its not time to show my full glory yet.

So far Jesus hasnt done any miracles.

Marys probably just thinking, can you go and find somewhere to buy more wine?

She gets the servants together, the people like the waiters, and says to them, do

whatever he tells you to do.

She doesnt understand what hes saying to her.

She doesnt know what hes going to do.

But she does trust that he can get this

problem sorted.

Now, John tells us that there are six large

stone water jars there at the party.

They hold about 20 or 30 gallons of water

each.

That's like 75 to 110 litres each.

Altogether we're talking 120 to 180 gallons or 450 to 660 litres of water.

It isn't for drinking, though.

It's for washing.

There's enough water there for one or two large baths.

But it isn't for having a bath either.

No, the Jews use it for special ceremonial

washing.

They think that if they wash themselves and

their bowls and cups in a certain way, then God will be happy with them.

Which is really sad because God never told them to do that.

Their leaders just made it up.

In fact, in another place, in Mark, chapter

seven, Jesus gets asked by some of those leaders why he doesn't do this special

cleaning.

And Jesus gets really angry.

He's like, don't you know that washing plates and hands isn't how God sees you as clean from

sin, it's the sin inside you that makes you dirty in God's eyes.

That's the big problem that needs to be dealt with.

And washing with water isn't going to do it.

Just to be super clear though, that doesn't

mean you should stop having showers or baths.

They won't wash away your sin, but they will

wash away your stinky smell.

You can't use this podcast as an excuse to

start smelling like rotten fish and start looking like some maniac mud monster from

Mars.

Anyway, back to the story.

These jars are sitting there not helping anyone.

And in verse seven, Jesus tells the servants to fill the jars with water.

That's kind of a weird thing to do.

Isn't he meant to be helping with the wine

situation? Anyway, they do what he asks, they fill the

jars right up to the top.

Then Jesus tells them in verse eight, now take

some out and give it to the master of the feast of hang on a second, you want us to give

some to the master of the feast? The guy who tells everyone when to fill their

cups with wine and to drink it in a special celebration.

The guy who tastes the wine first, you want us to go and give him some of this water?

I don't know if the servants were thinking that.

All we know is that they do exactly what Jesus asks.

But surely this could be super embarrassing.

This is meant to be a massive celebration with

special wine that's been bought and kept especially for it.

Even today at parties there's usually a special party drink.

You don't normally have water back then to just give out water, that'd be really awkward.

But the servants do it.

They carry a cup to the master of the feast, a

cup filled with the water that they took out of the stone jars.

They hand it over, maybe with hands shaking a bit.

They step back and watch as the master raises the cup to his mouth.

He takes a sip and instead of throwing it to the ground and yelling, what on earth did you

bring me water for? His face cracks into a big smile, a surprise

smile, a smile that says, this could be the yummiest thing I have ever tasted.

Why? Well, verse nine says this.

When he tasted it, the water had become wine.

He did not know where the wine came from, but

the servants who brought the water knew.

This guy's absolutely amazed.

He calls over the guy getting married, the groom, and he says to him in verse ten, people

always serve the best wine first.

Later, after the guests have been drinking a

lot, they serve the cheaper wine.

But you have saved the best wine.

Until now.

John doesn't tell us how the groom reacts.

Maybe he's like, umm, yeah, that's, um, totally what I did.

Umm.

Wait, what's happening here?

What's happened is that Jesus has turned all that water, the 180 gallons or 660 litres of

water, into wine.

This is his very first miracle and it doesn't

happen by accident.

Do you remember how we've talked in the last

couple of episodes about clues, how in the Old Testament, God said what was going to happen

and then Jesus did those things? That way we can work out who Jesus is?

Well, the Old Testament Book of Amos was written in a time when everything seemed to

have gone wrong.

God's people had sinned and sinned and sinned

so much that finally God had kicked them out of the land he'd given them.

But just like we've talked about before, God promised to come and deal with their sin.

He'd forgive them and look after them and care for them.

In Amos, one of the things that God says will happen on that day is that there'll be heaps

of wine.

In Amos, chapter nine, verse 13, he says,

sweet wine will drip from the mountains and it will pour from the hills.

That's a poetic way of saying there's gonna be a lot and it's gonna be the best.

God's gonna give a lot of good things, and because he's gonna deal with the people's sin,

those things will never have to be taken away as punishment again.

Now, Jesus has made a lot of wine, the sweetest, most wonderful, most delicious wine

that people have ever tasted.

That must mean the day of God's kindness and

dealing with sin has arrived, John tells us in verse eleven.

So in Cana of Galilee, Jesus did his first miracle.

There.

He showed his glory and his followers believed

in him.

Up until now, his followers, or disciples had

heard enough to think that Jesus is pretty great.

He's worth knowing.

Now, though, they've seen just a tiny bit of

how glorious he is.

They've seen in just a tiny way that he's

doing the things that God said he would do.

They haven't seen all his glory yet.

They still don't know just how glorious he is.

But already they've seen enough to start

believing in him.

They want to have all the goodness that he can

give.

This turning of water into wine though, that's

only the beginning.

It's only the first miracle.

The things he does are only going to get bigger.

The things he gives are only going to be better.

The glory that we're going to see is only going to get more amazing.

But thats a story for next time.

Hi again.

Ive been telling you about the new Spotify playlist SFG for kids.

There are a couple of songs there that are helpful for todays episode.

One is called Glory to Jesus by Colin Buchanan Glory to Jesus.

The other one is called Sing Jesus name by emu kids sing Jesus name.

Of course there are lots of other great songs there and if you have songs that you want to

recommend, I'd love to hear about them.

Send me a message@faithfulgod.net.

dot grown ups if this is helpful for your family and you can see it's helpful for other

people as well, it would be much appreciated if you can give five or $10 a month.

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Keep trusting Jesus.

Bye for now.