January 19, 2025, Jars of Stone, Jars of Clay, John 2:1-11 – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell

saintphilipsnorwood ♦ January 19, 2025 ♦ Leave a comment

To listen to this sermon, click the link above. The text is below.

One of the things that makes the gospel of John different from the other gospels is that John wrote his gospel as an old man, many years after his travels with Jesus as one of his close friends and followers. From this long view, John wrote down the things that shone out in his memory as the evidence, the signs of who Jesus was and what he came to do. At the end of his gospel John wrote, “If all the works of Jesus were to be written down I don’t suppose the world itself could hold the books that would be written.” So much to choose from! And one of the stories John chose to set down for us is the story of the wedding at Cana. It’s only in John’s gospel; no other gospel-writer recorded this story in their accounts of Jesus’s teachings and works. But to John it stood out, as a first sign, the first clue, to who Jesus was and what kind of work he was about to do.

We see Jesus, put on the spot by his mother, as mothers are wont to do. He doesn’t feel quite ready yet to “come out” with who he really is. He’s just chosen his first disciples; his ministry is only on the bare edge of beginning. But he speaks to the servants at the wedding, and points out six empty stone jars. The purpose of those jars was to hold the water for the rituals of purification that were an important part of being a good Jew who lived according to the Laws and regulations of their religion. There were rules about washing before eating and washing after being out in the marketplace and so forth, and these jars were there for that purpose.

I think Jesus used those particular jars for a reason. It was a sign that one of the things he was coming to do was to do something new with the old ways of religion. So he told the servants to fill those jars up with water, and they did, filling them up to the brim. And then he told them to take some of that water that they had just poured into the jars and carry it to the master of the feast. I would imagine at this point, the master of the feast was not in the best of moods, because it was no small thing to run out of wine at a wedding and the blame would all fall on him. But the servants did just as Jesus said, and we know what happened. The water wasn’t water anymore; it was wine. And not only was it wine, but it was great wine, so that the master of the feast was pleasantly surprised – wine that good was supposed to be served at the beginning of the feast, when people’s taste was still discerning, not later on when they were a little jolly and any old wine was good enough.

John says that this was the first of Jesus’ signs, and that this sign manifested his glory. And he says that after they saw what he had done, his new disciples believed in him.

But changing the water into wine wasn’t a kind of magic trick to impress people. It was a sign of the kind of thing that we should expect from Jesus. We need to understand that this is the way Jesus works. All Jesus had to work with was the normal earthy stuff of well water, and jars hewn from stone, and a few lowly human beings, and that was all he needed. The sign wasn’t just about what he did; it was also about how he did it. Surely he could have filled those jars with wine all on his own, hey presto! without the water, without the help of the servants, but he didn’t do it that way. He talked to the servants and told them what to do. OK, fill up those jars with water, Take it to the master of the feast (and they must have seen that the water was now a rich red; they probably could smell the scent of the wine as they drew it out and carried it to be tasted).

This was Jesus’s very first public work, remember. There weren’t any stories yet, circulating around, about his works of power. The servants had no real reason to expect anything to happen, except for the calm faith of Jesus’s mother. But they did as they were told, and Jesus used their obedience to create something new and wonderful: excellent wine to gladden the hearts of the people at that wedding.

John remembers this story because it was the first little flash of the glory that would shine through all of the works that Jesus did, during his life on earth, and afterwards through his church. Reading the story of the wedding at Cana is little bit like watching the trailer to a film, where we get to see who the actors are and what kind of film it’s going to be, whether it’s going to be sad or funny or full of explosions. Reading the story of the wedding at Cana, we see the first clue that Jesus was revealing a God who works with the commonest of elements, who accepts simple obedience and uses it to create something excellent and wonderful – and then, that he uses the excellent and wonderful thing that he creates to bless everyone.

Which is what Paul is talking about in his first letter to the Corinthians, when he teaches about how the Holy Spirit works in the church. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are for common, ordinary everyday people who listen to Jesus and do what he asks them to do. They are gifts because Jesus takes us, plain old people doing plain old things, and within our simple tap-water life and work, our giving and helping and building and serving and teaching, he creates the most excellent things, not for our own private use, but to gladden the hearts of our brothers and sisters.

There’s no exhaustive list of the gifts of the Spirit anyplace in the New Testament, because there’s no limit to the things Jesus might call us to do in our life in the church. God might call his children to pray for healing or scrub floors, to teach Sunday school or plant daffodil bulbs in the church yard, to preach or cook or visit somebody in the hospital. And it’s not a class system: like, the lesser Christian washes dishes at the Community luncheon, but the really spiritual Christian preaches sermons. The truth is that in everything we do, whatever we do, we are all just servants. The measure of our gifts is not how spiritual we are, or how spiritual the activity is; the measure of our gifts is what Jesus can make in us when we offer ourselves to him in obedience. And the purpose of every gift is the same – to gladden the hearts of our brothers and sisters, to build up the church. My gift – the wine that Jesus creates in me – is for you, and your gift – the wine that Jesus creates in you – is for me. And it works like that because our wonderful God is who he is: the kind of God who turns water into wine so that his friends can rejoice at a wedding.

Just like the stone jars were filled with really good wine at the wedding in Cana, Jesus fills us up to the brim with himself. We are called to do those things that he tells us to do – and I think we know what he wants us to do if we listen for it. We might be called to speak a kind word, or to write a sermon, or to make a pot of soup, or to repair a flat tire; we do what he asks us to do, day by day, offering our hands and our mouths and our feet and our time in simple obedience. And Jesus pours his Spirit into the vessel of our obedience, and that is what makes it – and us – a blessing for the people around us.

In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote about what a wonderful thing it is that God works in and through us, who are merely his servants: “The God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” And that is a really helpful thing to remember, because it means you never have to waste your time and energy trying to become something you are not. But you can offer to Jesus what you are, all that you are and all that you do, and let him pour the treasure of his glory into this jar of clay that is just you. And he will, because that is the kind of God he is. And then watch and see what excellent thing he will create from the simple water of your obedience, to gladden the hearts of your brothers and sisters and to build up our church. +