Everyone knows you are supposed to bring a gift to a wedding. But no one ever gave a gift like this one!
This is Scripture for Students. I’m Steve Whitacre, president of Trinity College and a pastor at Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville. I want to help students build a daily habit for life-long Bible reading. Today is March 12, 2025 and this episode of Scripture for Students is called The Life of the Party. Grab your Bible and let’s get started.
Our readings for today are Exodus 23, John 2, and Job 41.
Please open your Bibles to John 2.
I am useless at remembering wedding details. There have been more than a few times when I’ve been to a wedding without my wife and daughters and when I get home, they want to know all about it. What were decorations like? Tell us about the flowers. Dunno. Don’t really remember. What color did the bridesmaids wear? No idea. What about the bride, what was she like? Pretty sure she had a white dress on.
We pay attention to things that are important to us, so what I can tell you all about what they had to eat at the reception. What a spread! Some great meatballs. The fruit was really fresh. And the shrimp cocktail was en pointe, plus they had that spicy cocktail sauce that you know I like. We all pay attention to what is important to us.
In today’s Scripture for Students, John tells us about a wedding in a town called Cana. He doesn’t seem to remember much about it either, except for one key detail.
Follow along with me as I read John 2:1–12 and see if you can spot what it is,
1 On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.
2 Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.
3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”
4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”
5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
6 Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.
7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim.
8 And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it.
9 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
10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.”
11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.
12 After this he went down to Capernaum, with his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there for a few days.
May the Lord bless the reading and the hearing and the keeping of his Word.
Jesus and his disciples go to a wedding. I’m sure there are many interesting things that John could tell us about this wedding, but he passes on just this one thing: at the wedding reception, they ran out of wine. This is not good. It’s hard for us to imagine today, but this is a culture that prized hospitality as one of the highest priorities in human relations.
So running out of wine was a major social faux pas. We don’t know a ton about weddings and receptions in the ancient world but it does seem that there were a lot of similarities with how we do it today: music and dancing, lots of food, and plenty of wine.
This happy couple was either popular and had more guests than they expected or they were poor and had less wine than they needed, or both, because they ran out of wine.
This is so bad, I’m not even sure how to compare it. Maybe if you didn’t save a seat for the mother of the bride or ran out of wedding cake and grandma didn’t get any. But this isn’t just one guest, it’s rude to all the wedding guests. Not long ago, I heard a story about a couple in Houston who tried to charge their friends $450 each to attend their wedding. We’re getting closer; it’s that level of cringy and offensive.
So Jesus’s mom gets involved: “They have no wine.” She obviously expects him to be able to handle it. This raises more questions than it answers. Jesus is about 30 years old at this point and we know very little about what his childhood and young adulthood were like. Maybe she expected he would do a miracle or maybe she was just embarrassed on behalf of the newly married couple and wanted to do something.
Either way, Jesus is reluctant. He calls her “Woman,” which doesn’t sound very respectful to our ears, but actually is. It would be kind of like calling her “ma’am” today. Jesus doesn’t want to get involved. He says, “Ma’am, my hour has not yet come.”
This makes it sound like Jesus knows that there is going to be some miracle-working in his future, but he doesn’t want people to think that he’s only good for party tricks. Can you imagine how many weddings Jesus will get invited to if he pulls this off? It’s kind of like a man buying a pickup truck; you just know you’re going to spend the rest of your life helping people move.
Mary doesn’t give up so easily. She just flanks Jesus and goes right to the servers at this wedding: “He’ll take care of it, just do whatever he says.” And so despite his reluctance, Jesus takes action. Jesus never sinned so I’m really not sure if he ever rolled his eyes, but if he ever did, this was the time for it: Ahh, Mom!
Nearby were six stone jars. These jars normally would hold water from which Jewish people would draw water to bathe for ritual cleansings. They had to do this a lot so you needed a lot of water on hand. It says they hold 20–30 gallons each. To put this in perspective, your average kitchen trash can holds about 12 gallons. So picture a stone jar about as tall and about twice as big around as a kitchen trash can. Jesus tells them: fill it to the brim with water, then scoop out a glass of wine and take it to the wedding planner. See what he thinks. The guy is stunned. Where did this wine come from? And why did you save it for last?
John doesn’t tell us what happened next. I’m sure it was an excellent party. Did the bride and groom even know what happened about the wine? Did people party it up? Were there leftovers—maybe the bride and groom could sell extra wine to pay for their honeymoon? Don’t know. But John does give us a critical detail about why he is telling us this story.
John is like any other dude at a wedding, he notices the things he cares about and here is what he cares about: at the very end of verse 11, his disciples have seen this whole thing go down, and it says, “And his disciples believed in him.”
This is the intended effect of Jesus’ life and ministry. As we read about Jesus and the miracles that he did, the people that he healed, the sermons that he taught, all this is meant to build our faith. So as we are reading, ask yourself: how does this story help me to know and love Jesus even more?
That’s all for today. If you enjoyed this episode please share it with a friend and follow us on Apple Podcasts.
This content is sponsored by Trinity College of Louisville. We shape young men and young women for Christ and for the church. Learn more at TrinityCollegeLou.com. Until next time, keep growing!