Jesus Is the Lord (John 2:1-11)

Jesus Is the Lord

 

John 2:1-11

 

Through our lifetime, we all experience some radical changes such as marrying and joining the army. About 20 years ago, I immigrated from Korea to New Zealand, not knowing much about what was waiting for me. A few days before leaving the home country, one of my friends asked me, “How do you feel?” I answered: “I feel, partly, like the day before wedding and, partly, like the day before joining the army.” Such violent changes result in a totally different life. A man who joined the army must follow the strict military regulations 24 hours a day, and a married person now comes to have another person to whom he/she has unlimited responsibility. An immigrant should also adapt himself to the foreign people, language, lifestyle, and food. These are all uneasy tasks. However, A Christian goes through a huge transition incomparable to all these life experiences. It is that he meets Jesus as ‘the Lord.’ We call Jesus ‘Lord!’ This means that Jesus is my Master. We have lived as we please, thinking that I own my life. But one day, my Master appeared, and claims absolute right and authority over my life, and everything changes. When we call Jesus ‘Lord,’ this is not merely a title. We should know the weight of this name. In fact, our life as a Christian is nothing but the journey of following Jesus and grasping the weight of his name ‘Lord,’ which is actually immeasurable. only then, we will live a new life as a Christian. I wish this time we make another step forward in the journey.

 

At Cana, a village in Galilee, a wedding banquet took place. For all ages and countries, a wedding banquet is a very special and joyful event. In the days of Jesus, the Jews had a year’s engagement period, and then held a grand wedding banquet through which the bridegroom received the bride. It is said that such an event happened usually after the harvest in the fall, and it continued one or two weeks long. During the days, the bride and groom, their families and friends, and all the invited guests enjoyed delicacies and wine along with singing, dancing, and playing games. Burying in laughter the labors of seeding, weeding, and harvesting, they ate and drank to the full together with their beloved people until late night. In the wedding banquet was Mary, Jesus’ mother, and Jesus and his disciples were also invited. When the joy of the banquet was at the peak, a very serious problem happened. They ran out of wine. Probably there were more people than expected. Wine in a banquet is like gas for a car. To be honest, it is wine, not the wedding itself, that enables people to rejoice at the newly married couple and to bless them with big smiles for many days. Being merry without wine is like dancing without music. Now the wedding banquet was on the verge of turning sour.

 

With this urgent problem, Mary came to Jesus and said, “They have no more wine.” It is sure that Mary believed Jesus could and would do something for the problem. However, Jesus replied, “Dear woman, why do you involve me? My time has not yet come.” Jesus’ reply sounds like he would not be involved in the problem because it is not his time. Jesus is talking about time. Running out of wine in the wedding banquet is a very serious and urgent problem, which requires an immediate action. But Jesus said, “My time has not yet come.” Jesus is not driven by the urgency of problems. Jesus works at his time. It is because he is the Lord. From the viewpoint of Mary or the host of the banquet, Jesus’ answer may sound careless and heartless. In fact, whatever they are, our problems and situations are always urgent, and for the problems, we want immediate actions and solutions. Our time is always “Right Now!” With such fear and impatience, our thoughts and behaviors are ruled by the problems and situations. In other words, “problem” is our master that dictates how we think and act. But Jesus is never pushed by a problem. Even in the face of a life-and-death problem, Jesus insists on his time. It is because Jesus is the Lord.

 

Then when is Jesus’ time or God’s time? In the Bible, we often see conflicts between God and man over time. For example, Abraham had to wait 25 years to see God’s promise fulfilled through Isaac, and Prophet Habakkuk complained, “How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?” (Habakkuk 1:2). God’s time is almost always different from man’s time, and a big difference is this: while man’s time is before death, God’s time is after death. God gave Isaac to Abraham only after “his body was as good as dead and Sarah’s womb was also dead.” (Romans 4:19). In the story that Jesus raised Lazarus as well, Jesus came to Martha and Mary after Lazarus’ dead body was in the tomb four days. Man’s time is before death because we have a ‘deadline,’ and we fear that it may be too late to turn around the situation. But God does not have a ‘deadline,’ and there is no irreversible situation to God. We often say that God’s time is the best time. But this is not right. How can there be ‘best’ or ‘better’ or ‘good’ time to God? God cannot be conditioned by time. God is the Creator, even the Creator of time. God’s time is ‘eternity,’ in which there is no ticking of the clock, no urgency, no anxiety, no aging, no death, and no corruption, in which everything is perfectly held and ruled by the Lord in His power, and in which we taste true peace and true freedom. Into the eternity we can enter through receiving Jesus as the Lord and crossing the line of death by faith in Him. This is what Mary did. She crossed the line of death, namely, the deadline drawn by fear, by anxiety, by the busy mind and unbelieving heart. Crossing the line, she broke into Jesus’ time where everything was in the Lord’s hand. There, we are set free from the tyranny of time, and the eternal peace of God comes upon us. In the eternity, we are now ruled only by Jesus the Lord alone.

 

Hearing Jesus’ word, Mary said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Although Jesus’ word sounded like “No,” Mary did not leave Jesus to find another helper or solution. Instead, she said to the servants to do whatever Jesus told them. “Do whatever he tells you!” This means “unconditional obedience,” and this means that Mary put everything in Jesus’ disposition. Every problem has its context, which explains how it happened, who is responsible, what are possible solutions, and so on. The context of a problem may also include past experiences, similar cases, public and professional opinions, worst scenarios, and expected consequences. A problem imposes its context as such upon us, and the grave context blankets us with darkness and chokes us with fear. Then, the problem becomes real, mighty, and overwhelming. It becomes ‘The Problem.’ It flexes its muscle, and we become silent, numb, and even “solemn” before the problem. But Mary did not stay in the grave context of the problem. Instead, she saw that the problem was in Jesus’ hand. She believed that the real context of the problem was Jesus himself, who is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last (Revelation 22:13). So she said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you!”

 

A problem has its context, and we ‘study and obey’ the context carefully in order to solve the problem, or at least, to understand and go with the problem more easily. But Jesus takes a different way. Before solving the problem, Jesus first destroys its context and establishes a new context for us. In Luke 5, Jesus says to Peter, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” Then, Peter answers, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” Here, Peter had his own context of the problem: “we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything.” This fact tells many things, says, ‘There is no fish in the water,’ ‘I am now very tired,’ ‘I am an experienced fisherman,’ ‘What do you, a carpenter, know about fishing?’ But Peter trashed this old context of the problem, and stood on the new ground laid by Jesus, saying “But because you say so……” only because Jesus said so and nothing else, he sailed again into deep water and let down the nets for a catch. And he caught a large number of fish. We often insist on our own context of problem, and just in order to improve the situation, we patch it here and there with some helpful advice in the Bible and desperate prayers. But it does not work. Jesus says, “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse” (Matthew 9:16). We should not keep our old garment and try to patch it with Jesus’ help. We should put on a whole new garment, which is Jesus and his words, by obeying whatever he tells us. Jesus is the Lord.

 

There were six stone water jars used for ceremonial washing, each holding 20 to 30 gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” As told by Mary, the servants obeyed Jesus to the full, filling the jars to the brim. Then, Jesus gave them another difficult mission, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” Surprisingly, they even obeyed that. When the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine, he was amazed at its fantastic quality and commended the bridegroom, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.” Through Mary’s faith and the servants’ obedience, Jesus solved the problem. Saying more precisely, he “created” the solution, the choice wine, out of nothing, out of impossibility, out of mystery far beyond our understanding. This happened when a few people believed Jesus and did whatever he told them. This happened when Jesus was worshipped and obeyed as the Lord.

 

Verse 11 is the conclusion of today’s story. “This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.” This conclusion tells us why the problem happened in the wedding banquet. It was for revealing the glory of Jesus the Lord and for making the disciples have faith in him. In fact, this is the conclusion of every story and history. Jesus in his glory must be at the center of every tale so that we have faith in the Lord. When our eyes are captured by problems, we cannot see beyond them. If we are problem-oriented, our stories end with the settlement of the problems, and go no more. The master of the banquet and the bridegroom enjoyed the choice wine and exchanged good words. They might thank God for blessing their wedding with such good wine. But they did not know where the wine had come from. Although the problem was solved in such a wonderful way, they failed to see the glory of Jesus. This means that they gained nothing. We may think Jesus is here with us in order to solve our problems. It is not. The truth is that problems are here with us in order to glorify Jesus the Lord and lead us to have faith in him. Actually, the only thing that is a true problem to us is that we do not know Jesus the Lord. And Jesus saves us from this problem by revealing his eternal glory through all kinds of trials we experience in this world. Whatever problem we are faced with, let us confess Jesus is the Lord, and look forward to seeing his glory. Problem, whatever it is, is not the lord. Jesus is the Lord!