Water Made into Wine

Sermon for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany

John 2:1-11

January 18th, 2026

And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”

On the third day there was a wedding. Jesus was invited. The third day. This should immediately take our minds to the Cross and Jesus death and then His resurrection from the grave three days later. We are always looking for the Cross and Jesus and His suffering and His blood shed and His death and then His resurrection.

It is the heart of Scripture and our salvation. It is this work of Jesus that is our justification on which the Church stands or falls. Without the Cross and Jesus and His suffering and His blood shed and His death we have nothing. We have no baptism, no absolution, no body and blood to eat and drink for the forgiveness of sins. We have no resurrection from the dead to look forward to without this.

It is the way God reconciled the world to Himself even when we were His hostile enemies. In Christ God reconciled the world to Himself through the Cross killing the hostility that we deserved and not counting our trespasses against us. In the Church is found the ministry of reconciliation through Jesus death and blood shed on the Cross. We are always looking for the Cross and Jesus death and the blood that cleanses and purifies. In finding that, we find eternal life and salvation.

Under the Old Testament law almost everything was purified with blood. Because without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. But the blood of goats and bulls was not the blood that would ultimately make atonement and reconcile and bring justification before God. Only the blood of Christ which all the sacrifices pointed forward to. That was the blood that was needed. This blood is found only in the suffering and death of Jesus.

In some Gospel readings it’s easier than others to find the Cross of Jesus and the blood that brings reconciliation and justification. This Gospel reading from John puts it on our minds right from the beginning by mentioning the third day. This puts our focus in the right place as we hear the next 10 verses.

Mary said to Jesus, “They have no wine.” What does Mary know? Does she really think Jesus can fix the problem? Save the wedding? Or is Mary looking for something greater than wine? Is Mary looking for the blood? Mary knows things about her Son that no one else knows. Imagine the things Mary knows. The things Mary has seen.

We don’t know about the other miracles Jesus performed, or things Jesus taught or did if they are not recorded in Scripture. John wrote towards the end of His Gospel that, “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

So if it is written in the Gospel, it is written that we might see and believe and be saved. Salvation is only through faith in Jesus who shed His blood and died that we might be forgiven and reconciled to God. What we must ultimately find and see at the center of all of Scripture is the Cross and the blood shed and the death and the reconciliation in Christ. At the heart of this miracle, the first of Jesus signs, is the Cross and the blood of Jesus that reconciles, cleanses and forgives us.

Jesus said, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” What hour is Jesus talking about? Jesus is not talking about the hour to begin His miracles or His earthly ministry. Jesus is talking about the Cross. The Cross is Jesus hour of glory. Mary doesn’t know about this hour and the Cross, yet. But she will.

She will see it; she will stand at the foot of it as Jesus is lifted up from the earth for His hour of glory where His life is given into death as His blood is shed to forgive our sins and to save us.

After the wedding at Cana (with the exception of John 2:12) we don’t hear about Mary in the Gospel of John until she is standing at the Cross watching her Son shedding His blood and dying for the sins of the world. At the Cross Mary watches the reconciliation in Christ as it happens. The Cross is the place where Jesus glory is manifest in a way that is scandalous to the eyes of flesh. To the flesh it is a stumbling stone and rock of offense. Yet to the eyes of faith it is glorious and beautiful because it is our salvation.

Imagine Mary’s thoughts at the Cross. Her indescribable sadness and yet a peace that passes all understanding at the sight of God’s love manifest in its fullness in God’s Son, her Son, as His blood spills to the earth. Certainly all of her memories of Jesus flood her mind at the Cross. The angel. The conception in her womb, the manger, the tiny infant. Simeon and Anna. The 12 year old child in the temple learning and growing. The man, gentle and lowly yet one who spoke with authority about the things of God. The signs He did and His glory manifest for the crowds.

Certainly at the Cross she remembered the wedding and His Words about His hour. And as His blood flowed from His body surely she thought of the water changed into wine.

They have no wine. They need the blood. The blood of the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. The hour has come.

The cross is scandalous. The body crucified and the blood shed is offensive. The bodily eating and drinking of the bread and the wine which is the true body and true blood of Jesus offends so many Christians because it just doesn’t make sense to their minds of flesh.

Well neither should changing water into wine for a bunch of wedding goers who’ve already had a little too much to drink. But it happened. And the wine was a sign pointing to the blood that would be shed when His hour of glory would come. The water of purification in the six jars could not cleanse, purify or save the sinner. But the blood of Jesus could. And it continues to cleanse, even today.

Today you take the blood that was shed during that hour of glory on the Cross, into your body along with His Body that died and rose, all of it taken into you, and it cleanses you from all of your sin. Today at the rail we find peace as we look forward to the great marriage feast, the supper of the Lamb of God, in the life of the world to come.

So many Christians journey through this life without feasting on the fullness of Jesus. But you don’t. You are not offended by the true body and true blood of Jesus. You are here today. Today is a wedding feast. A foretaste of the great feast to come in Paradise.

Today Jesus our groom unites Himself to us as one as we His bride the Church come and receive His fullness into ourselves and it forgives, cleanses and purifies us as He continues to sanctify us His body the Church. Having already cleansed us by the washing of water with the word at the font, so that he might present us, the Church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. That we the church might be holy and without blemish unto life everlasting. Thanks be to Jesus. In Jesus name. Amen.