Matthew Poole: Good Let's pray for God's help as we open up his word. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are here with us this morning. God, thank you even now as we sung songs, God, your spirit has been here moving in our hearts, moving in our midst to draw us to yourself, to draw us to see uniquely the glory of your son, Jesus. God, and we pray now as We open your word, God, that you would speak to us. You would be gracious and open up the ears of our hearts, God, not that we would just hear about you today, not that we would just hear about your glory, but that we would behold it. By faith, we would behold it, we would be transformed. God, our affections would be stirred for you this morning. Help us to see Christ. God, I pray against every distraction, every warring thought this morning that seeks to penetrate and block us from seeing Jesus. God, would you be strong and guard us from the enemy in this time who does not want us to see Jesus. So help us now, God. We're desperate, we're desperate. We need you, but we're also hopeful because... You love to reveal Jesus to us. So do that this morning and it's in your name we pray, amen. The prophet Isaiah says, Fear not, for you will not be ashamed. Be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced. For you will forget the shame of your youth and the reproach of your widowhood. You will remember no more. for your Maker is your husband. The Lord of hosts is his name, and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer. The God of the whole earth he is called, for the Lord has called you like a wife, deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment, for a brief moment, I deserted you. But with great compassion, I will gather you. And later in Isaiah 62, he says, as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you. Marriage is central to the story of the Bible. It in fact bookends the entire Bible. And it's central in how God has chosen to relate to his people as a bridegroom relates to a bride. It's central because there's also no more significant relationship in terms of a relationship that signifies union and intimacy and trust and joy. There's no relationship like that on earth. The two shall come together and become one. This also means that there's not another relationship that can produce so much pain and so much shame. The reasons why these promises that we just read from Isaiah, which are glorious, the reasons why those are there is because we as the people, the bride of God, have done something to remove ourselves from the experience of the joy and the intimacy and the union that we have with our God. These promises are coming on the backside of a relationship that's been fractured. God intended us to experience perfect union with himself. Adam and Eve in the garden created, even there, there's a wedding there, Adam and Eve together, experiencing oneness with their God. But something has happened. We have betrayed our God. And throughout the Old Testament, this is one of the ways that God describes our sin. Not in terms of breaking rules, but in terms of breaking relationships. running after other lovers, breaking union. And this creates all manner of brokenness that we now experience today. We have anxieties, we have fears that are all wrapped up in this relationship with our God having gone wrong. And we chase all kinds of idols and things to try to fill that or to recreate that and we simply can't. We know that in the depth of our being, at our core, we are against and divided against our Maker. And so we might wonder, and maybe you're here even this morning, recognizing perhaps that you have sinned, that there is something that stands in between you and God. And maybe we could wonder. Could God ever receive us back? Have we just gone so far that He will no longer love us? He actually will just cast us off forever and there's no hope. How long do we need to wait? There's maybe a cloud of shame that hangs over us today. How long do we wait till God would come and remove that shame? This is what the Old Testament is, this tension that's being presented throughout the whole Bible. How can this relationship be restored? And this morning, it is not an accident that Jesus, God in the flesh, determines to inaugurate his ministry, to perform his first miracle, not by casting out demons or healing the sick or calming the storm. but by rescuing a wedding. It's not an accident. On the surface, this story may appear a bit odd, but we will see today it is full of glory. First thing, we just jump right into this story. On the third day, there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee. And the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. This is a catastrophe. It's an absolute catastrophe. Weddings back then were not like weddings that we have today. They were massive communal events. Either there's somebody close here or it's just like the whole town is invited. So Jesus and the disciples, they're all there. This is not just about two individuals coming together that have found each other. This is about an entire community being strengthened. It's a massive communal and social event and so therefore these weddings and these parties could go on for a long time. For a week perhaps. That's a long party. It's a great party. We should bring that back. So they could go on for a long time and this party has run out of wine. The most critical element of celebration for these events was wine. It was the symbol of celebration, it was the means of celebration, and that element is gone. The problem is not just merely that, the party is over, like the record screeches and it just turns to, like comes to a halt. It's not just that the dancing stops and the party is over, it's that there is this impending sense of incredible shame. Incredible shame that would be coming to the wedding party in the community. It's so intense that lawsuits could be brought on this type of thing. You run out of wine, the shame's broad, and mean, people have lawsuits here. Tim Keller notes this, he says, this was not just a mere breach of etiquette, this was a social and psychological disaster. We are meant to feel this tension. We are meant to feel the impending shame, the doom and the gloom that is on the horizon here. We are meant to feel the impossibility of this situation. That's why Mary, maybe she was close here, she has some responsibility that she has and that's why she goes to Jesus and she just merely places the problem before him. Jesus, they're out of wine. do something, right? he gives it to Jesus. It's an intense scene. And then Jesus says, verse four, he says, woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you. Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding 20 or 30 gallons. And Jesus said to the servants, fill the jars with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, now draw out some of the water and take it to the master of the feast. So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water, now become wine, and did not know where it came from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew, the master of the feast called the bridegroom, and he said to him, everyone serves the good wine first. And when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. After a little bit intoxicated or they've had their fill, then comes the good wine. But here's what you have done. You have kept the good wine until now. This was the first of the signs that Jesus did at Canaan in Galilee and manifested his glory. It's sign, the first of the signs that he did in Cana. What did he do? What is this sign doing? It is manifesting the glory of Jesus. This has been John's whole point we've been seeing in the first chapter. The word of God made flesh dwelling among us. We have seen his glory. His glory is being manifested. Here is a sign, the first of the sign. And so the question for us in this text is what is this sign pointing to? It's a pointer. Signs point beyond themselves. They're pointing to realities beyond themselves. If you're driving down I-40 and you see a sign for Wilmington, the sign is not Wilmington, right? The sign is pointing. to a reality far beyond. And that's what's happening here. We're gonna see throughout the book of John, John has these signs. These signs are revealing the glory of God in Jesus Christ. So the first one we have here, and the question is, well, what is the glory? What is the unique glory about Jesus Christ that John is revealing to us here in this text? So that's where. That's what we're gonna be looking at this morning. And the first is this. Jesus, who is our glorious bridegroom, he comes for his bride. Our glorious bridegroom comes for his bride. You might have been put a little bit off kilter when Jesus responds to Mary and he says, woman, what does this have to do with me? It sounds a little jarring, right? Like Jesus, don't talk to your mom that way. Now, none of the scholars can translate it well into our culture, but it's kind of like ma'am saying ma'am. It's not a derogatory name, but it's not mother. And so Jesus is doing something very interesting and unique here. What he's doing is he's distancing himself from the earthly relationship that he has with his mom. saying this is not my primary orientation. He's pulling back to signify his relationship with the Father, with God the Father. And at the same time, he's saying, okay, I'm about to flex here, but I am not doing this out of manipulation. I'm doing this out of my own sovereignty. because I'm on a mission here. And I'm gonna step into this need here, but I'm not stepping in just because you want me to. I'm stepping in because I'm choosing to. Jesus is sovereign, he's on mission as the bridegroom. John is gonna make this point clear in chapter three and all the other gospels make this point as well. Jesus is the bridegroom. He's the one. So throughout the Old Testament, God is this husband to his people. Who is God? What is he like? Here he is in the person of Jesus, the groom. And this is also signifying the type of people we are. We are the people that he loves. We are the people that he pursues, that he cares for, that he's passionate about rescuing and redeeming. And so it is no accident that this is a wedding. It's no accident this is when Jesus is first choosing to reveal himself and manifest his glory. It's not an accident and this is not just some power display. It's not just a trick. It's not a side, random miracle. It has the full weight and the full purpose baked into it for who Jesus is and why he came to the earth. What that means for us is that the search is over. Our God has come for us. God has come. We don't have to dial 911 and wonder if they're gonna get here in time. He's come, He's already here. We don't need to search anywhere else. Our God is here in the person of Jesus. He's who our souls were made for. He's come for us. This should give us fresh reason to repent. He's made the first move. As much as we have given him reason to not come, he just keeps coming. And he's here. So what do we do? We repent. He's the first one to come in and to initiate the relationship that we, we're still running in the opposite direction and he's chasing us down. We get the joy this morning to say, okay, we can return. It is safe to return. and to run back to our God to receive his love and his pursuit of us. and all the ways that we chase other lovers and we do this through maybe overt sin. It's very obvious to us, cheating, stealing, lying, gossiping and slandering and not loving people. We do that in obvious ways. And there's a sense in which doing that is loving the world. It's betraying our God. We can also do that in ways that are subtle, that we don't get like, and ourselves into our career and into our family, maybe even into ministry. And it's really got the attachment of our hearts and we're looking to these things to give us the pleasure and the intimacy and the love and all the things that we should be getting in God. We're looking to get them here. And of course it doesn't work. But that too, even the things that might look good on the surface can be complete spiritual adultery. 100%. And the gift here is that God is pursuing us, which means what a grace it is that we can stop doing those things and run back to him to receive his love, to rest in his pursuing love. So we've seen that the glory here is that the bridegroom comes for the bride, but also how does he come for the bride? Does he just show up? Like is that? The end of it, is that the full way that he wins her back to himself? Here's what we see next, that Jesus, our glorious bridegroom, he also dies for his bride. Jesus makes an interesting comment. Mary when she says you know Jesus do something he says this he says my hour has not come My hour has not come. Now, what does he mean by that? My hour of doing miracles? My hour of casting out demons and healing the sick. Is it my hour of turning liquids into other liquids? That's not the hour that he's talking about. The hour, which we'll see throughout John, the hour is the hour of his suffering. It's the hour of his suffering and his death and the future exaltation that he will experience. So there's something very odd going on in Jesus right here. Mary sees the situation and she's thinking, this wedding needs wine. Jesus is thinking about a different wedding and he's thinking, and it needs my blood. So at the very outset of Jesus' ministry, he's got the cross in full view. It's in full view. And this wedding, he's probably got all of that in his head. As Tim Keller was like kind of mentioning his wonderful section in encounters with Jesus, this, like, it's almost as if Jesus' eyes maybe just glazed over for a moment. And he just starts seeing far off in the distance to the people that he would purchase. to the people that he would spill his blood for, that suffering moment. It's not just that suffering is what he's here to do. No. No. He's here to win his bride. He's here to purchase a people for himself. All right, this is the, there is a bride price, you could say. There's a bride price. If Jesus is gonna get the people to be his own, it's not gonna be. cheap. It's gonna cost something and it costs blood. Now why blood? Because water is insufficient. Water is insufficient, and this is also, again, another detail that's not accidental here. In verse six, there are six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification. What did those rites of purification represent? That represents us trying to get ourselves clean so that our God can receive us. And they're unable to do that. It only washes skin deep. We don't need skin to be clean. We need our hearts to be clean. We don't need improvement. We need transformation. We need a miracle to happen. So for the Jews, this cleansing is a ceremonial washing. They could not come and enjoy the feast. There was no eating unless you had your hands clean. It's a sign, it's a pointer. That whole system is pointing to the inability to point to them that they are a guilty, sinful people unable to rejoice in their God without God cleansing them and doing a miraculous work in their lives. So the stone jars represent the inability of all of our rituals, the things that we run around trying to do and paste on ourselves and put on masks and try to do good deeds that outweigh the bad deeds and all the things we try to do to make ourselves look good, to make ourselves feel good. But they don't work and that's these stone jars. None of this works. None of this makes us presentable to our God. None of it can take away our sin and our shame and produce eternal joy and celebration. Or you could say this represents the things that we do to try to earn God's love. And it can't happen. There's nothing we can do to earn God's love. We saw this back in chapter one of John. The law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus. The law came through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus. It's not that the law was bad. The law is good and holy. It just can't save us. But its intent was never to save us. Its intent was to crush us, to point us to Jesus so that we would have to rely on mercy so that he would get all the glory. That's its intent. To highlight and display the glory of God in the grace of Christ. And in the mercy of Christ. All have been consigned to disobedience underneath the law. so that it might rest not on human will or exertion, but on God who gives mercy and gives grace so that he can get the glory. The law says do this and you can have joy. Grace says believe this and you can have joy. Receive this and you can have joy. The law says earn. Grace says receive a gift. The law cannot produce it. The law also condemns us. There is a penalty, a real penalty for disobeying God's law, which is death. This presents the other massive problem here, how a holy God could love a sinful people. and still retain any sense of justice. He's got to take care of sin. If he's gonna be faithful to judge, he has to figure out how to do this. It's not hard for him, this is the plan before the foundations of the world, how he's gonna glorify Jesus. And here's what's interesting, that wine is associated symbolically with both judgment and joy. Wine is a symbol of judgment and joy. Jesus would pick up the glass at the Lord's Supper on the night before he's betrayed, about to be crucified. And he says, this is my blood. This is the blood of the covenant, the new covenant. And my blood poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. In other words, something new is here, a relationship with God that's not based on the law. but it's based on gift of blood. What does that blood do? It forgives, it pays the penalty that you and I deserve. And it washes us clean. And it renews us and gives us new life. And we're new creations in Christ. It's how Tim Keller, he puts it simply. So how is Jesus going to actually bring us joy? by losing all of his, by leaving his heavenly existence with the Father, by leading a lonely, misunderstood life, and by going to the cross and dying in our place. This is how God satisfies His justice and displays His incredible love for us. Jesus becomes submissive to the law in perfect obedience so that when He dies for us, it's a perfect sacrifice. Coming out of the grave, the sacrifice is sufficient for any that believe in Jesus. This is our story too. Dying with Christ, being raised from Christ, forgiven. So as we consider Jesus coming to the earth, let's be reminded this morning that he's not coming here looking for a spotless bride that he can take to be his own. He comes for a people that have made themselves filthy. And those are the very ones he chooses that he might make them radiant and spotless. That's the gospel. You and I, when we want to get married, we go look for the choice candidate, right? That's not what Jesus does. He highlights His grace by continuing to pursue maybe the most unlovable of all the candidates. so that he can dispense grace. This morning, what an encouragement to us. What an encouragement. We don't have to fear being ashamed of our sin. He's already covered all of it. Past, present, future sin. There it is. He sees us at our weakest, at our worst. And what does he say? I love you. I love you. I want you. I'm not here out of burden. I'm here because I want you. I want you. In all of your weakness and sin, there's not a place you can go that he will not run after us. What glory, what grace this morning. It also means that God is not asking you this morning, any of us, to jump through hoops this morning to get clean, to get his love. It means we can relax that knee-jerk reaction to want to present ourselves to God. He's not asking for that. It doesn't want you to jump through hoops to clean yourself. It's not possible. It's a waste of time. It's incredibly exhausting. He just wants us to receive, to receive and to run to Him or consider even maybe the shame that we might feel on a Saturday morning after a Friday night that goes crazy. Whatever happens on Friday night, we wake up, there's a sense of shame that might come into our hearts and minds. And what does that shame want us to do? It wants us to run away from God. So we can get afraid. But that's the voice of the devil. And here we see Christ has already died, which means in our moments of shame, we can run right back to him. Grace is compelling us back to him for forgiveness, for acceptance. And we can just note that it's always there, open in Jesus. But where is this going? So it's just. Does just stop there, Jesus dies on the cross, and that's amazing. Does it go anywhere else from there? And yes, it does go to the unthinkable. That's our last piece here. Our glorious bridegroom will return for his bride. our glorious bridegroom will return for his bride. It is no accident, again, another little detail here, that John records that this wedding happens on the third day. The wedding happens on the third day. What John is doing is he's giving a head nod to a new creation that's coming. He's giving a head nod that Christ who died also rose from the dead on the third day. And we're like tracking with some of these major themes in John's gospel, right? He begins his gospel with, in the beginning was the word. And so he's drawing us back to the very beginning and the creation of the world. And he's saying, okay, that was that, but there is a new creation on the horizon in the son, Jesus. There's a whole new created order that's coming in this one. And it begins with Jesus coming out of the grave, which means sin and death did not have the last word. on Jesus. There is life beyond our sin and beyond our shame and beyond our death. There is life with Christ. The master of the feast here, it's interesting, he tastes the wine and he's like, okay, you have saved the best wine for last. And he's talking to the groom. It was the groom's responsibility to make sure there was enough wine. And so the groom here is taking responsibility for what Jesus did. But Jesus is trying to make a different point. And I am the one, he's even like the Lord of the feast here. As Keller and others point to, he is the party planner, he's the head caterer, he's the one that provides the wine, he provides the goods for the whole thing. Jesus is saying I am responsible to making sure. that you experience an unending party, a celebration that will not stop. We've all gone to great wedding parties, and every single one of them stops. You get the blues the next week, like you miss the fellowship and the richness and the meal and all this stuff. It ended. Jesus is here to say there is coming a party, and I am providing for you a party that will not stop. Nothing can stop it. Sin, Satan, death. Nothing can stop it. Jesus is taking ownership here and he's pointing us forward. There's an anticipation being built in here with what John is doing and what Jesus is doing. And I'm even reminded again of the Lord's Supper, which is so symbolically rich. The other thing Jesus says in the Lord's Supper as he raises that glass, he says, I will drink this cup again, but not after we all get together in the new kingdom. I won't drink of it until I see you in the kingdom of my Father. In a new kingdom to come. foretasting that with the disciples then. It's what we do every Sunday, foretasting a wedding banquet that is coming. There is a resurrection glory for the people of God with unending celebration. And so what's happening here is Jesus is declaring once and for all, you are mine forever. Church, you are mine, he's saying. I have bought you, you're mine, I can't wait to celebrate with you. I'm fasting until that day, longing to be with you, until the Father says, son, go get your girl. Go get her. And he comes with a fullness of excitement. Our future church is not marked with burden. Our future is marked with the most intense and partying and celebration there has ever been. You think God is here to kill your joy and to steal your joy? Nothing could be further from the truth. And the devil hangs out all kinds of shiny things for us to say, look, the world has the pleasure. It's not true. It's a lie. God has the pleasure. Who do you think created the pleasures? God did. That's a lie. There is no greater joy than being with God and knowing Jesus, his son, and having him as our bridegroom. This future is what Jesus is thinking about. It has direct impact on us today. is a quote that Tim Keller was mentioning a sermon. heard Dr. Clowney preach on this text. And Dr. Clowney says that he says, Jesus sat. amidst all the joy of the wedding feast, sipping the coming sorrow, so that today you and I who believe in Him may sit amidst all the world's sipping the coming joy. Jesus was anticipating the cross so that we may anticipate glory with him. And this wedding banquet that's coming, church, that will blow every party you've ever been to to smithereens. Like that emoji with the head explosion, that's what it is. I don't even know what you call that. That's where we're going. No eye has seen, no ear has heard what God has provided for those that believe in him. By faith we foretaste it now, in the fullness of hope. This is a joy that we can anticipate. And one other, just another angle for us to consider, so consider the relationship here that God is holding out. We're going to heaven to be with Jesus. And God has intended that this not be in vague terms. Some of us grow up in like heaven is just, or we just get this thing from pop culture or whatever. Heaven, we're just kind of floating along clouds and we're playing harps. And who knows what's happening there? That's not what God has for us. This is so specific and so concrete to drive the core desires and passions and longings of our hearts. And it's meant to be specific. There is a joy coming that is the joy. Listen, it's the joy of us entering into the joy of God that he takes in us. We are entering into his joy. The joy that he has in us. That's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. This reminds me, and maybe you've had your own wedding story, but for me as a groom, I will never forget standing at the altar there and the music's playing and I'm waiting for that moment, right? When the doors open and I see my bride for the first time. What a moment, right? And this is my favorite, my favorite moment of going to weddings is that moment. And it's probably yours too. You're sitting down, we had a wedding here not too long ago, sitting right there and. The doors open and it's like you don't know which, like the music changes, everybody stands up and you don't know which way to look. Do I look at the doors in the Bride or do look up at the Groom? And I was just reflecting on this and there's some reality by which, I like to look at both of course, but looking at the Groom, it's almost as if you also see the Bride. looking into his eyes, the radiance that he has as he sees his bride. And church, this is Jesus. This is how Jesus is postured towards us this morning. He's postured that way, like full radiant beams of glory seeing us, so excited, anticipating the consummation of all things, of all history at this wedding supper. This is the posture, this is the reality of the gospel, the groom, our bridegroom has come for us. He has died for us and he is returning for us that we may be with him forever. John will later pick this back up in Revelation as he is closing down his final thoughts. prophetic, his prophetic witness for eternity says this in Revelation 19 and it's a revelation that is setting its a compass. It's setting the trajectory of our eternity. Here's the words of John. He says, then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude. Like the roar of many waters, and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder crying out, Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice. and exult and give him the glory for the marriage of the lamb has come. and his bride has made herself ready. It was granted to her as a gift. It was granted by blood of this lamb to clothe herself with fine linen, bright. For the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, write this, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the church this morning you have been invited. You are blessed beyond your wildest dreams. Our Jesus is a glorious bridegroom. What a sign. What a manifestation of glory to us. May we rejoice and be glad. May we together sip now as a foretaste of the kingdom to come. May we sip in joy. No matter what the suffering or the sin struggle or the trial that you're going through right now, may you sip with a heart full of faith and hope and joy. As we long for that day, we will sit down with our King, our beloved Bridegroom. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your grace. God, we thank you that for us, For those that have believed in your son Jesus and a sacrifice for us, that there is coming a day filled with rich feasting, where the mountains will flow with feasting, that abundance will be so normal, the provision, all of that, a symbol of Christ for us. God, we thank you that you are an extravagant God. You don't just kind of save us. You save us to the complete uttermost, God, and give us yourself. You give us pleasures untold. God, fill our hearts up this morning with the wonder, with the anticipation, and with the joy that we have in your son Jesus. The joy that he is worthy of. God help us today to repent. to say no to working for your love and to simply receive it. to say no to chasing our careers and chasing the pleasures of this world that will fail us, and to say yes to a love that is as strong as death. God we thank you today that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God, from your love in Christ Jesus, our Lord, our Savior. God and I pray now God that as we respond to today, this morning, God would you help us to see this glory by faith, to taste it by faith. That that's where we're going. It's not just what some Bible teacher said. It's not just what your word says. But we apprehend it as the reality that is true for our own souls. That we are going there and that you are. Fill us with joy, May we in turn be the glad witnesses, just like John the Baptist, delighting to point people to the bride. Lord, may we begin to feast now, even amidst suffering and heartache. May we feast in faith. your son Jesus. His name that we pray, amen.