# Water into Wine

- **Series:** The light shines in the darkness
- **Passage:** John 2:1-12
- **Preacher:** Bart Erlebach
- **Date:** 25th October 2026
- **Duration:** 36 min

Passage: John 2v1-12
Preacher: Bart Erlebach
Title: Water into Wine
Series: The light shines in the darkness
Date: 25-10-2026

## Resources

- [Listen to the audio](https://assets.mychurch.media/audio/5464/water-into-wine.mp3)
- [Watch the video](https://youtube.com/live/1ukMyGOp4xs?feature=share)
- [View on the website](https://hopechurchtolworth.org/sermons/5464/water-into-wine)

## Chapters

- 00:00 — Bible Reading
- 02:12 — Sermon

## Scripture — John 2:1-12

2:1 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.
(ESV)

## Transcript

*This transcript has been automatically generated and may contain inaccuracies.*

Today's reading is taken from John chapter two verses one to 12, which you can find on page one zero six four of the Bibles. On the third day, a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, they have no more wine. Woman, why do you involve me?

Jesus replied. My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you. Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from 80 to a 120 liters. Jesus said to the servants, fill the jars with water.

So they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet. They did so, and the masters of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheapest wine after the guests have had too much to drink, but you have saved the best till now.

What Jesus did here in Cana Of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory and his disciples believed in him. After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days. Thank you, John, for reading that. Please keep the passage open in front of you.

So John chapter two verses one to 12. It's page ten sixty four. As we're gonna be looking at that, we're gonna be, going through that passage, so it's helpful if you've got it in front of you. Let me just pray for us. Heavenly Father, we, pray please that you would help us now as we look at this wonderful miracle.

Help us Father to understand it, not just to understand it with our heads, but would it change our hearts and would you change our lives as we keep coming back to your word week by week. Amen. So we come to the beginning of what feels like the main body of Jesus' ministry. We've had the introductions in chapter one and chapter two starts with an incredible miracle, wonderful miracle, the turning of water into wine. It's a famous miracle, maybe you've heard of it, before, lots of people have.

We as a family, at Christmas or family occasion, sometimes we've played a game called herd mentality. You guys heard of that? Herd mentality is a good game, fun game. What you do in the game is there's a question that's read out and you have to try to guess, you've to write down what you think is going to be the most popular answer in the room, what most people are going to answer and one of the questions that it asks, one of the questions was, if you had the power to do any of Jesus' miracles, which one would you choose to be able to do? By far and away, the most common answer was turn water into wine.

It could have gone for healing the sick, raising the dead, but no, the group we were with went for water into wine. Now, that's kind of funny partly because it feels like this miracle maybe feels like the least significant miracle, it's kind of the most fun, but maybe the least deep. And yet, at the end of this, miracle, at the end of this account, John says, John the writer says, what Jesus did here Canaan Of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory. There is glory being revealed here and his disciples believed as a result, and at the end of John's gospel, he tells us that there were many signs, many signs that Jesus had done, lots of miracles, but he selected these ones, he says, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God and by believing may have life in his name. So John chose this miracle to put it in his book because he's saying it's really significant.

So our question this morning as we look at it is going to be how does this reveal Jesus' glory? What's so significant about this miracle? Now, of course, it is just significant that Jesus can turn water into wine. That in and of itself is amazing. None of us here can do that and we should be in awe of that and that does bring Jesus glory.

That is part of his glory, that he has the power to transform one thing from one thing into another thing. I mean, that that is just incredible, but there's more going on here. There's more happening and in order to see that more, what's going on here, I want us first to go to the weird conversation that Jesus had with his mother because whenever it's read, I think people... It just comes across as odd, doesn't it? Have a look down.

So Jesus and his mother are both at this wedding as are Jesus' disciples. Verse three, when the wine had gone, now that's a big deal, weddings in those days would have gone on for a long time, they typically lasted for days and days, you think weddings feel like they go on a long time, but here they really did, they went on for days and it was the groom's responsibility to provide for the festivities, for the celebrations, and if they run out of wine, that can bring shame on him. So it's a big deal that they've run out of wine. When the wine was gone though, Jesus' mother said to him, they have no more wine, and we don't know what she was expecting at this point, but clearly Jesus knows she is expecting him to do something because he then says, woman, why do you involve me? Jesus replied, my hour has not yet come.

Now that feels like, you know when you have a conversation with someone and and they've clearly been thinking about something else, really thinking about something else deeply, and you ask them a question and their response is just doesn't make any sense at all. They they're clearly thinking about that something else. It feels like that's what's going on here, that Jesus responds in a way where you're going, Jesus, what are you thinking about? What's going on here? And in a way he is, he's thinking about something else, but that doesn't mean it's irrelevant to what's going on, but we're gonna have to see how.

Jesus says to her, woman, now that could come across as being rude, it's not rude, but it's not very close either, It's not very familial. It's not very warm and friendly towards her. He says, woman, why do you involve me? Why are getting me involved in this? My hour has not yet come.

Now the first thing we need to think about therefore is the hour because Jesus is saying very... Something very significant there, which maybe you don't pick up on first time you read through John's gospel. Go, what's he talking about? The hour has not yet come. My hour.

Now in John's gospel, the hour is very, very significant. As you go through, you keep hearing Jesus saying, you know, my hour has not yet come or John saying, Jesus' hour had not yet come. The hour is a particular thing in John's gospel, and as you go through, you see Jesus says the hour is the hour of His death, but more than that, his resurrection and ascension. Now if you're new to Christian things, you need to know these are really significant events in the life of Jesus. These are the main events are Jesus' death that he was crucified, nailed to a cross, criminal's death, that he died, he really did die, he was buried, then three days later he rose to life again, he was raised to life, and then forty days after that, he ascended into heaven.

And all of that, those all of those events are considered in John as being Jesus' hour. It all begins with his death, but that's when the hour begins. Okay, go back to the miracle, back to John two, and you're still going, that makes no sense. I still don't get it. She says to him, they've run out of wine.

He says, my hour, the hour of my death, resurrection, ascension has not yet come. Okay, we're going need to think more about it, but at least at least at this point, just notice that right from the start of Jesus' ministry, his death and resurrection and ascension are in the forefront of his mind. He knows that is where he's heading, that is his goal, that is his mission is to die and to rise again. It's not just an accident, it's not something that just comes up later on in his ministry where he goes, oh, I think this is what's going to happen. No, he goes, right from the start, he knows that's where he's heading.

That's significant, isn't it? But also notice that by Jesus saying, my hour has not yet come, He is saying that what follows, what's about to happen at the wedding, Jesus getting involved, Jesus providing wine would somehow be appropriate at the hour or after the hour, but it's too early now. Do you see that? So Jesus is saying, why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come.

Seems to be saying if the hour had come, that would be appropriate to do something at this wedding. He's sort of saying what's about to follow is it is anachronistic. Yeah. So... Okay.

It... You know what I mean? If you've got a period drama or a film or something like that, and the producers and the director accidentally put something in the period drama which isn't appropriate for that time, they didn't have those things at that time. So for instance, I gather Braveheart, the film Braveheart, they wear kilts. Apparently that wouldn't have been true at that time, they wouldn't have been kilts, they hadn't been invented, created.

They didn't have kilts. Or Pirates of the Caribbean, Apparently, they have Granny Smith apples in there and bananas, and they shouldn't have had them because they wouldn't have had them at that time. Now, okay, if you're going for realism, probably Pirates of the Caribbean is not the film for you, but apparently that is anachronistic, that it's out of time, they had them too early, and I think what Jesus is saying here is if I do something at this wedding, if I provide wine, it will be too early. It'll be an anachronism. So what is it that follows that would be appropriate at the hour when Jesus dies, rises, ascends?

What would be... What is there in what follows that would be appropriate then, but it's kind of out of time now? What can we spot that's out of place? Let's go on. So somehow from what Jesus says, Mary gets the impression that he is going to do something.

I still don't understand how, but she then says to the servants do whatever he tells you And then we're told, nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from 80 to a 120 litres. Jesus said to the servants, fill the jars with water, so they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet. They did so and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. Now we're gonna just pause on those water jars.

Now the water jars themselves are not an anachronism. They're not out of time, but what Jesus does with them is he tells them to fill the jars up and they do. He says right to the brim and couldn't get any more in, and then he turns the water into wine. Why is that significant? Okay.

Those stone water jars, what does it say about them? They were used by the Jews for ceremonial washing. Now Don Carson, who's a Bible scholar, really good Bible scholar, he he says, he makes a really good case for this section of John's gospel from the beginning of chapter two to the end of chapter four, having a theme running through it, which is that Jesus takes the Old Testament rituals and structures and does away with them and replaces them. So next passage, have a look down. The next passage it says the title in the NIV is Jesus clears the temple courts, so he goes to the temple Old Testament structure, and he kind of does away with that, replaces it with himself, and then a little bit later, you've got Nicodemus, who's a Pharisee, a Jewish leader, and he says to him, you know, you need to be born again, and there's more as you go through this section, where it seems like Jesus is taking these Old Testament structures and rituals and things, and he is saying, I am replacing them with something else.

Okay, back to these water jars. What do they symbolize? What are they about? These water jars are about getting clean. He says the Jews used them for ceremonial cleansing.

When did they use them? Well, used... They must have used them a lot. We learn from elsewhere in the New Testament in Mark chapter seven that they it says they didn't eat without first washing. Now that's not just washing their hands just to get rid of dirt, that's a kind of ceremonial washing, so every time they would have their meals, they would wash their hands in a ceremonial kind of way, presumably using water, like from these jars, to wash their hands, and they...

It says they would wash when they came in from the marketplace, which again isn't just physical dirt, it's sort of saying, no, there's spiritual uncleanness out there we need to wash as we come in from the market, and it says they would wash their cups and pitchers, in other words, jugs, and kettles. They would do all kinds of ceremonial washings to try to purify things, make them clean for them to use, and these jars, these stone jars filled with water would have been used for that. Now I think what Jesus is doing here, if you see that in the context of all these other old testament things that are used and replaced by Jesus, what he's saying is that way of being made clean, of being made pure, I'm replacing that. I'm doing away with that. After all, what does he do?

He says fill them up, fill them, and they fill them to the brim, and he turns them into wine. In other words, you now can't use them. If they went to try and wash their hands, what they got? They got the best wine. What are they gonna do?

Wash their hands in it? They now can't use it, and right at this early stage, Jesus is I think saying, you know that way of doing things, that doesn't actually work, you're not going to need it. Now we need to hear that as well, there are religions have ways of getting clean, have ways of dealing with impurity, dealing with either the impurities out there in the world or impurities inside. You might have ritual cleansings that they do, maybe going to a sacred river and saying actually if you go wash in that river then you'll be clean or other rituals that you might do. I know there'll be people in this area who will say, yeah those rituals, I do those maybe daily or weekly or when I get round to them, I'll do those things, taking maybe bits from different religions and saying, I'll do those in a way to try to get myself clean, and sometimes even in in some forms of Christianity, there are ways that people have rituals or things where they go, yeah maybe these help me to get clean inside or outside, maybe it's through confession to a priest or maybe it's other rituals or going on a pilgrimage or whatever it might be that you do them in order to feel, yeah, maybe I'm dealing with either shielding myself, getting rid of the badness out there or dealing with the uncleanness inside, and even if it's not a religious way, there are ways that we try to deal with things that make us feel unclean.

Wonder how you might do it if you maybe have done something that you're ashamed of, something you feel that defiles you, makes you makes you unclean, how do you deal with that? It could be all kinds of things that we might do. Maybe it's just trying to block them out, trying to shut them out, but maybe it's I'll try and do some really good things. Maybe I can atone for them, maybe I can deal with them, I can cleanse myself by doing even better things than the bad thing that I did and we need to see in this symbolism of what's going on here with Jesus and these water jars is to say, you know, those ways of making yourself clean, they really don't work. Now Jesus is not just saying you don't need to get clean, he's not just using these water jars making them kind of unusable to say oh yeah, don't need to be made clean.

Don't forget he's saying that the hour needs to come. He says my hour has not yet come. Why? Because it's through his death and resurrection and ascension. Through that, we can be made clean, not through other rituals but through his death.

Hebrews, there's a quote in the book of Hebrews, which is this, Hebrews chapter nine verse 14. He says, How much more then will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God. Now all I want you to get from that is just it's saying that it's the blood of Christ that can cleanse our consciences. It's the blood of Jesus, not the physical blood of Jesus that you've got to somehow put on you but it's his death and his death can clean you completely. It has the power to clean right down deep inside to cleanse our consciences.

Therefore, if you're not a Christian yet, if you're not yet following Jesus, can I urge you, those other ways of dealing with uncleanness, we do need to be made clean, but nothing else will do it? Only Jesus can make us clean, only his death, and if you are a Christian, in a few minutes we're going to take communion, I want you in your minds to think back to what Jesus did and to remember the cross and to think because of him, I am clean. You are clean and you might think, yeah, but I did that bad thing again last week and I struggled and I want to put it to death and I want to stop doing it but I did it again. Am I really clean? The answer is through Jesus, yes.

You are fully, totally clean, completely cleansed. So that's the jars, the kind of anachronism that there is there that Jesus kind of does away with them in a sense because he says but he says actually that would be appropriate when the hour comes, But that's not all and Christianity is not just about being made pure although it is that. There's one more thing to spot and in a way I think this is the main thing. Alright, so if you've been drifting off... Okay.

This is the main thing. Alright? And it's the wine. The wine. It's significant, isn't it?

So, Jesus gets them to fill the jars up with water. They fill them to the brim, he says draw some out, take it to the master of the banquet, they draw some out and the water is turned into wine, but you'll notice it's not just any wine. The master of the banquet then goes to the groom having sampled the wine and says verse 10, everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink, but you've saved the best till now. What's the significance of this? What's the significance of the fact that Jesus doesn't just make wine?

It's not just anything, it's not just, you know, some rubbishy wine, he makes the best wine. What's the significance of that? Well, like I said, I think there's more going on here than just transformation. You know, if you've a wedding, you've been a wedding, if you've been invited, if you've gone along and you've seen at a wedding that there's a couple there, a young couple, who are going to get married in a year's time, they've been invited to the wedding, but they're there you know, they're there as a couple, they're they're gonna get married in a year's time. You you know what they're thinking about through the wedding, don't you?

Oh, yeah. They're there to celebrate with the couple, but they're not thinking about just that, are they? They're thinking about their own wedding day and they're thinking what will it be like in a year's time? What will it be like when I'm up at the front? What will it be like when I'm making those vows?

When this is our celebration? What's it gonna be like when we're the ones having the the the feast, having the the wedding, having the wedding and all that goes with it? What's it gonna be like? Now I want to suggest to you that's what Jesus is thinking, that he's thinking something similar, and you might think, but Jesus never got married, And the answer is, he does get married. He will get married.

The bible does say there will be a wedding day for Jesus. John, who wrote this, also wrote another book called the book of... Called Revelation, and those two books, at the beginning of one, at the beginning of this gospel, you've got a wedding, and at the end of Revelation, you've got a wedding, and people point out that actually what John is doing there is he's bookending the two as it were, he's sort of saying, you've got a wedding at the start and a wedding at the end. The wedding at the start is this one, where Jesus turns water into wine, and then the wedding at the end of Revelation is what's called the wedding feast of the lamb and Jesus is the lamb. It's his wedding day, is at the end of the book of Revelation and for us that is still future, Jesus' wedding.

And I want to suggest to you, as he is at this wedding and as his mom says to him they've run out of wine, that he is thinking about his wedding day and he's kind of saying, actually this is not the right time, this is not the right time for me to be providing wine. There will be a time in the future, but it's not yet and yet he produces wine and it is the very best wine and therefore I want to suggest to you that those who are at this wedding were getting a foretaste, a sample of the wine from Jesus' wedding day, and that's why it is the best wine. Now don't forget, Jesus says, but my hour has not yet come. Now you might be thinking, Bart, you seem to be putting a lot in Jesus' mind at the moment. He's thinking about the hour.

He's thinking about his wedding day. Is he really thinking about all those things? Now I think we need to remember that those two things are linked. The hour and the Jesus' wedding day are linked. How are they linked?

Who's the bride at Jesus' wedding at the end of Revelation? The bride in that wedding is God's people, it's the church, The people people from all around the world, from every tribe and every nation who put their trust in Jesus, that is the bride. That's who Jesus is looking forward to marrying. That's the wedding day, but in order for there to be a wedding day for Jesus, he has to go through the hour. He has to go through his death, resurrection and ascension because if he doesn't, no one's going to be made pure.

There won't be a church. We need him to come, die for his people, rise to life again, for us to be made pure, for there to be any bride at his wedding day. So it's all connected. He's at the beginning of this going, oh, they've run out of wine, yet my hour hasn't come and I've got to go through the hour to get to my wedding day for there to be a bride there, so it just wouldn't be appropriate quite yet to provide the wine, and yet he does so. Now because this is a foretaste of Jesus' wedding day and because the church is going be the bride, can you therefore see this isn't just a foretaste of Jesus' wedding, this is a foretaste of our wedding because it's a wedding of Jesus and the church coming together.

So, they're sampling our wedding day wine. Now I think this should get us really excited about that future, about that future wedding feast because where is it if you read the book of Revelation, you get to the end and you go, well, yeah, there's this wedding feast, but the whole book is quite symbolic, and it's slightly hard to get your head around. And you go, well, yeah, it's all symbolic, so it's slightly hard to imagine that it's real. Whereas this wedding, the wedding at the beginning of John's gospel, you can look at that and go, that was a real concrete physical wedding with wine that they were drinking and they were going this is great and this should make us think, yeah, that future wedding that we're looking forward to, that feast we are looking forward to, being with Jesus, that great celebration, it will be real. The wine will be amazing and if the wine is amazing, everything else is going to be amazing too and so we can look forward to that.

So this sign points us forward to the future wedding day and what we need to do now, what we need to do here is to let that future feast shape the way we live now. The excitement of that future glory to change us now. You know, if you've got something exciting coming up, it changes the way you are beforehand, and the bigger and more exciting that thing is, the more it changes you. Like, if you know that you're going out for dinner that evening, you know, with friends and it's gonna be great, you look forward to it that day, during the day, and you think, oh yeah, that'll be good, that'll be nice. You're not thinking about it a month in advance, but on the day you think, yeah, that'll be fun, but if you've got a big holiday, I mean, like once in a lifetime holiday planned, you're gonna think about that a month before, two months before.

If you've got a wedding, your wedding maybe, that that you're looking forward to, you're gonna think about that a year in advance. It's gonna be so exciting for you that you're gonna it shapes the way you are. This wedding that we are looking forward to is the fulfillment of all weddings, it is gonna be better than anything else in this life and we can let it then shape the way we live now. How? It can help us with things like disappointments and sorrows because we know that the greatest is yet to come, the future joy is so great, it can help us with disappointments now, that if we don't get the things in this life that we would really love to have, we know that that day, that future glory is yet to come and we can look forward to it and even in the sorrows we can look forward to that day, look forward to that feast.

There's another application which this point Tim Keller in his sermon gives, which I think is really helpful, he applies it as well to marriage because this that we're looking forward to is the great wedding, it's the great wedding, the great marriage that all marriages point to and Tim Keller says, you know, it may be that you're married and you're loving being married, it may be that you're not married and you would love to be married and you find that hard and it may be that some your marriage is, you're struggling, it's not all that you wanted it to be and there are disappointments there. Tim Keller says don't forget that future wedding, that future marriage, he says keep in mind there is only one person who can fulfil all your longings and that's Jesus. So don't look to another person to fix you and fulfil you and to meet all your needs because only Jesus can do that and we are looking forward to the day, to that future wedding. It doesn't mean we don't work on our marriages now, of course we do, but it takes the pressure off because Jesus is the one who can fulfil all our needs and therefore I hope you're excited about that future, that future wedding feast and when we take communion in a few minutes, I've already said one thing that you to do, I'd like you to do two things as we think, as we have communion.

Yes, to look back because the hour came, Jesus went to the cross and therefore forgiveness, purification, cleansing can be ours, so look back to the cross as we take communion and as you take that little bit of wine, which isn't wine anyway, it's grape juice, but as you sip that, look forward to that future feast it's just a little forte and the wine will be so much better but as you sip it just remember it will be a reality that we will sip and we will drink that wine at that future feast with all God's people and most importantly with the groom, with Jesus and that is how this miracle points to Jesus' glory. Let me pray first. Heavenly father, we thank you for this sign, this wonderful sign of Jesus turning water into wine. We are here in awe of him and we thank you that it points us to his hour of his death and resurrection and ascension and to the purification that that can bring, the cleansing that we can have because of Jesus and we thank you it points us forward to the feast, the great wedding feast in the future and help us to let that change the way we live now.

Father, take these truths we pray and knead them into our hearts, into every bit of our hearts. Change us through these truths, we pray. Amen.