The days and weeks after Christmas are often a real downer. The excitement of the holidays is over. The festive decorations are packed away for another year and we are back to the daily routines of life under the gray skies of a Minnesota January. The bright lights whose color adds cheer to the night have vanished and we face the more mundane things like the beginning of classes and paying income taxes. Christmas has come and gone.

For Mary, the Mother of our Lord, Christmas was also over. It had been over for some thirty years now. Yes, she pondered in her heart all that she had seen and heard. She remembered the strange visit from the angel Gabriel as he announced to her that she would conceive and give birth to the Son of God. The memories of the shepherds' visit to the stable in Bethlehem and awesome gifts of the wisemen would be forever etched on her mind. But where is the fulfillment of her Spirit-inspired words in the Magnificat as she sang of the Lord God, "the Mighty One who has done great things for me....who has done mighty deeds with His arm....who has filled the hungry with good things." Mary's "after Christmas let down," if you want to call it that, lasted more than the month of January.

For thirty years Mary had watched and waited. She had watched as her little boy grew up, went to school, played, and matured into manhood. Now He is an adult. Where is the fulfillment of all that the angel had told her concerning her Son? Our text gives us the impression that Mary is anxious, maybe even impatient, with her Son at this wedding feast. Her words to Jesus, "they have no wine" - while not a direct request - surely imply that Jesus should do something about it. Perhaps Mary thought of some of the Old Testament prophecies that used wine to represent the blessings of the Messiah. Maybe she remembered the words of Genesis 49 which told of Messiah washing His garments in wine. Or maybe she recalled the words of Jeremiah who proclaimed that the nations would flock to Jerusalem to the Lord's new wine of goodness. Amos had prophesied that the mountains would drip sweet wine and the hills would flow with it. Isaiah had looked forward to that day when God would destroy death and prepare a feast for all people complete with well-refined wines. Is it not time for Jesus to make it clear that He is the Messiah who has come to fulfill these promises of God?

Jesus responds to Mary: "Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come." Mary was concerned about the lack of wine and the embarrassment that it would surely cause for bridal couple. Indeed, Jesus will momentarily provide wine for this wedding feast, but His concern reaches beyond this wedding to the Marriage Feast of the Lamb, the marriage which will be formed by His death on the cross. That is the hour "which has not yet come." It is for that "hour" that Mary must wait.

But, in the meantime, Jesus does act. He tells the servants to fill six stone pots with water. Then He tells them to draw out a sample and take it to the steward of the feast. They do as Jesus says. And the steward is surprised. So surprised that he calls the bridegroom in and says to him, "Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then that which is inferior; but you have kept the good wine until now." This seems all backwards. The usual practice is to serve the fine wine first, and then after the taste buds have been dulled with the good stuff, pull out the cheap wine. Never was there wine like this wine!

The Messiah is at this wedding and the wine which He gives indicates His presence. John concludes today's Holy Gospel saying, "This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him." Now this final verse is actually the key to understanding our text.

This is the "beginning of signs." That is, there would be more. The sick would be healed. The blind would see. The dead would be raised. And finally the One who does these signs will be lifted up on the cross to die and on the third day be raised again. None of the miracles or "signs" as John calls them in his Gospel can be understood apart from Jesus' cross and resurrection. Signs point away from themselves to that which they signify. Jesus' signs point to who He is and the work that He has come to do.

It is not coincidental that Jesus performs His first "sign" at a wedding feast. Throughout the Bible God describes His relationship with His Church in terms of marriage. In Isaiah God says, "as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so I will rejoice over you." Many of our Lord's parables compare His kingdom to a marriage feast. The Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 5 that the marriage of man and woman is a picture of the love that our Heavenly Bridegroom, Christ Jesus, has for His holy bride, the Church. The Bridegroom came to marry us to Himself. He did not divorce us on account of our sin. He came to shed His blood for us. He came to take away our sin and dress us in the wedding gown of His perfect righteousness, that, as Paul says, "He might present her (His bride, the church) to Himself a glorious church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish."

Our Lord has done it. The hour of His glory was Good Friday. There on the cross He suffered and died to divorce us from our sins and make us His for time and eternity. So the miracle at Cana anticipates the cross as there the Messiah pours out His own blood as the new wine of forgiveness, life, and salvation. By that blood He has made us to be His holy bride and called us to the marriage feast of the Lamb. The marriage feast at Cana points to the salvation which our Lord won for us by His suffering and death. It points to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Listen to the Book of Revelation: "Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage feast of the Lamb has come."

The glory made manifest at Cana's wedding feast, the glory of our Lord's blood shed for the forgiveness of sins at Calvary, and the glory to be revealed when our Bridegroom comes to take His bride to Himself is given us today in His Supper. Hidden under bread and wine, Jesus gives us His body to eat and His blood to drink. The wedding at Cana prefigured salvation. In the Lord's Supper Jesus gives us the fruits of salvation to eat and to drink - His body and His blood. Here in Word and Supper the Son of God still shows forth His glory and His disciples believe in Him. Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.