21st January 2026

21st January 2026


Pray (ACts)


Read (John 2:1-11 focus v1-5)


Message (Alan Burke)


Normally when I conduct a wedding I say to the couple not to invite me to the reception. In large part it is because my day is ruined if at the evening do there is a Ceilidh. Some people love them but to me it is just torture. Of course the meal can ruin the whole thing but a few years back I conducted a wedding and against my better judgement I agreed to go to the reception. With the wedding ceremony over everyone was invited back to the reception. The wedding was at 11am and the food wasn’t until 5pm but my heart sank when I arrived and found out that it was an open bar because I knew that this was going to be carnage. Anyway we stayed for until the meal was over, as the minister I was asked to say grace and then to avoid the Ceilidh we headed home. You can guess how things went with no food and people at the bar from 1pm, well in the days later I was more relieved that ever that I left after the meal because the ambulance had to be called and the police, a fun end to an evening I’m sure.


Well the wedding that Jesus was at in Cana had food and wine in abundance, the master of the banquet (v8) would have been like a fancy wine waiter who would have made sure that the carnage of that wedding I was at didn’t happen while he was in charge. The fact that they ran out of wine would have been inexcusable especially in a culture that hospitality was seen as so important, and the wine itself seen in Jewish thought as a symbol of joy and celebration as the Psalmist declares, that God gave wine to gladden the heart of man, they understood it as a gift (Ps 104:15 and Ecc 10:19 also see Talmud (Pesachim: 109a).


The fact that wine had run out at this wedding would have been a disaster. You might think that the wine running out would do none of them any harm, but for the bridegroom this would have been a big, big thing. It was his duty as the bridegroom to make provisions for the wedding feast for all of his guests, during the entirety of the celebration at the time such a failure could have resulted in a lawsuit, you could have been sued by the brides family. Jesus then is told by his mother about the situation and he gently rebukes her. Why do you involve me, my time has not yet come. Yes Jesus will go on to intervene, he determines to act for his glory, to reveal his divinity. In doing so he meets the needs of that hour by preforming a miracle, a miracle that for many causes consternation. In what Mary has said to Jesus we see that she believes that Jesus is able to do something, whether he would do it or not that was for him to decide, she has merely mentioned it to him. 


We also learn that Jesus in all that was taking place that Jesus was living in the shadow of the cross. We’ll see the phase “my time has not yet come” repeated throughout the gospel of John, a literal rendition of it would be “the hour has not yet come”. We know what is coming but John wants his readers to be coming to this gospel account and expectantly looking to that hour. John wants us to ask the question what is this hour that is to come, what is so significance of it. The hour to come was that Jesus would be crucified for the sins of many (see Jn 12:27). Everything Jesus did, his entire earthly ministry was lived in the shadow of the hour to come, all his actions were to bring glory to the Father, to live his life as a ransom for many (Mk 10:45).


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q77 What is required in the ninth commandment?
A. The ninth commandment requireth the maintaining and promoting of truth between man and man, and of our own and our neighbor’s good name, especially in witness bearing.
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