Timothy Keller: A wedding party encounters Jesus

what we've been doing each night this week is we're looking at a set of big questions that everybody has to have working answers for in order to live so questions like what are we human beings and what's wrong with us and what if anything could improve us and what what would put us right Luke Valle who's done a book called a brief history of thought it's got an English translation so I'm able to read it now and he mentions the fact that most of us have these working ideas you might say a sort of a

working philosophy of life but he says we have a tendency to be optimistic about how original we are he says basically there's been four five or maybe six systems of thought in history from which almost all of our basic ideas of how to live come Christianity is one of them and therefore if we're going to live a thoughtful life we need to know something about Christians Christianity's answers to those questions so that's what we're doing and we're looking at some of this every night many people say well I live in Britain or some other part

of the West so I know about Christianity we we don't know as much as we think and that's one of the things I'm trying to show you in these evenings we're looking at the Gospel of John it's a New Testament book a book in the New Testament it's actually been it's there on your on your receipt and each night we're looking at something some individual or individuals that Jesus has an encounter with and we're answering those questions tonight we're looking at what will put us right what did Jesus come to do see the answer to

who we are what is wrong with us who can put us right and what has he done to put us right we're going through the Christian answers is the big philosophical questions we now come tonight to ask the question what has Jesus come to do and how will that put us right now I'd like to read you an incident it's on page 7 it starts at the top it's only about 11 versus long the little super scripts the little numbers between the sentences are verse verse marks versification z' it's a way of measuring where we

are in the text it's about a wedding feast the wedding feast was a very very big deal in ancient times it was the biggest event of your life your wedding but there's a great disaster here socially they run out of wine in the middle of the feast the feast always lasted for a number of days and that's what this incident is about so at the top of page seven I read this 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 hundred and twenty 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 master of the banquet tasted the wine 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 cheaper 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 now the key to understanding this event is at the very end verse 11 where this is not just called a miracle though of course it was it's called a sign a sign a symbol a signifier a sign is a signifier of something else if your this is the beginning of Jesus career the beginning of his public ministry and when you are let's just say you're a candidate for office or a business person and you're launching a brand or you're launching a campaign hoping that you'll be elected the very first presentation is going

to be carefully controlled so that every single thing you say everything about the environment everything is getting across what you're about you want everything to be conveying the message or what you're all about look at this nobody's dying nobody's demon-possessed nobody's sick nobody's starving and yet this is Jesus first miracle why would Jesus decide that the quintessential signifier of what he's all about would be to keep a party going to bring in great wine by the way notice great wine to keep a party going why in the world would he do that a Reynolds Price

who was a very prominent professor of English literature at Duke University for many years wrote a book in which he analyzed three of the Gospels literally he you know he looked at well he actually looked at Mark John and then he wrote his own versions a very interesting book it's called three Gospels but when he was I just has a an expert in literature reading through the Gospel of John he said something remarkable about this basically he says this is not fiction and he says quote if you were inventing a biography of Jesus Christ who

would invent for his inaugural sign of Jesus career a miraculous solution to a mere social embarrassment or put it this way Jesus Christ uses all of his almighty power to wipe egg the faces of two befuddled teenagers because the bridegroom and the bride would have been teenagers why in the world would this be the inaugural sign and who would have thought it up and Reynolds price makes the case to sign of it being an eyewitness account that this really happened you wouldn't make something like this up now I'm going to show you in a second

that price is actually exaggerating a little bit this is more than a social embarrassment but do you see the question we need to understand all of this passage as a symbol of what Jesus was about what did he come to bring why did he have to bring it and how does he bring it what did he come to bring why did he come to bring it and how does he bring it first what did he come to bring the master of the banquet see in verse 8 and 9 master the banquet is a hard word

to translate it's a single Greek word we would translate it master ceremonies emcee presider he was really a person who it was his job to make the party great and when Jesus turns water into wine and saves the day you know what Jesus is saying let's get right to the point here Jesus is saying I'm the true master of the banquet I am Lord of the feast I come to bring festival joy yes I'm going to do I'm going to suffer yes there's gonna be self-denial yes there's going to be there's going to be a

sacrifice and my followers will have self-denial and suffering and sacrifice but those are means to an end this is the end I come to bring festival joy that's why this is my first sign let's not forget that Jesus is saying you know all those Dionysian kinds of myths and legends about the the forests running with and flowing with wine and dancing and music kids stuff compared to what I'm going to do that's what he's saying now why does the Bible so often use sensory language Psalm 34 says taste and see that the Lord is good

well don't they already know that the Lord is good I mean you know the psalmist is writing to believers Israelites certainly they the Lord is good he does he says of course I know that you know the Lord is good I want you to taste it what's that mean I want you to experience it some of you know some of you don't I'll tell all of you that I'm a presbyterian minister and for a presbyterian minister would be up here saying that Jesus Christ comes to bring joy joy not only in the future ultimate joy

but actual experience of joy deep heart fulfillment right now it's weird for me to be saying that but the Bible forces me to do it do you know what the Bible says about the last day what's going to happen at the end of time I think Jesus is he's thinking about this isaiah 25 at the end of time in that day the lord of hosts will make for his people a feast of the finest meats and well refined and on this mountain he will swallow up death forever and the Lord God will wipe away tears

from all faces and your reproach and shame will be taken away forever for the Lord God has spoken in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings when Sam wise Gamgee wakes up having been you know rescued from the fires of Mount Doom and he wakes up and he sees Gandil still alive and he realizes what's happened and he says Gandalf I thought you were dead but then I thought I was dead is everything sad going to come untrue sweet huh but Jesus the Bible the New Testament says that that's ultimately what he's going to do he's going

to bring us to a place where every tear is wiped away where there's a new heavens and new earth that this work we're not just we're not just being taken out of this world into heaven but heaven is going to come down at the end of time to renew this world that everything sad is going to come untrue that's what he ultimately is here to do that's what he came to do you know in the Brothers Karamazov at one place where they're talking about suffering there's this absolutely remarkable passage and I think it's Ivan Karamazov

who's saying this but it really doesn't matter big because it's so astonishing and it's talking about well is there anything that's going to ever make suffering make sense of suffering and here's what his what he says I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small euclidean mind of man that in the world's finale at the moment of eternal harmony something so precious will come to pass that it

will suffice for all hearts for the comforting of all resentment so the atonement of all the crimes of humanity of all the blood that they've shed that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened that's those jet skis Christianity coming through but he says I believe at the end there is going to be something so astonishing so the joy will be so incredible the the fulfillment was so amazing that all the suffering of history will look like a couple of bad nights or on the other hand if

you want you could actually think about joy now it's intermittent it's nothing like the joy in the future but there was a Baptist preacher in London in the middle of the nineteenth century named Charles Spurgeon Baptists are a little more likely to talk like this in Presbyterians but not a whole lot and yet because this is what he experienced at one place he said some of us know what it is like to be too happy to live the love of God has been so overpoweringly been experienced by us talking about himself on some occasions that

we almost had to ask God to stop the delight for we could endure it no more if God had not veiled his love and glory a bit more we would have died for joy I don't want to give anybody the impression that that's a normal experience of a Christian in prayer but the fact of the matter it's possible in fact the matter is to some degree it's inevitable Jesus Christ says I am Lord of the feast in the end I come to bring joy that's the reason why my calling card my first miracle is to

set everyone laughing secondly that's what he came to bring why did he have to bring it now when Jesus starts to do his miracle he very deliberately chooses vessels in which he's going to do his miracle he's going to rescue these young teenagers from their problem and how does he do it he does it as you can see by filling up jars used by the Jews for ceremonial washing now we'll get back to this but here's what you have to keep in mind Judaism the Old Testament had this great set of rights and regulations and

those rights and regulations all got across the idea that God is holy and that we are flawed there's something wrong with us spiritually and therefore we need to be purified we need to be cleansed our sin needs to be atoned for so there's the purification rites there were the clean laws above all there were the sacrifices blood sacrifices we'll get back to all that in a minute but the whole idea was the Old Testament always said because God is holy and righteous and because we are flawed we cannot just walk right in something has to

be done about what's wrong with us and by the way in this case we got to keep this in mind these teenagers that here's what Reynolds price is probably wrong when he says this is a mere social embarrassment we're forgetting we in the West do not live at a shame in honor culture some of you because I know it spoken to some of you after these uh meetings here tonight some of you have grown up it's shame in honor cultures non-western cultures you know how deep the shame can be if you've let your family down

if you brought embarrassment to your family it's not something we in the individualistic West understand very well but these these young people actually had a very serious problem a very serious problem and they had shame they had guilt or at least was coming and Jesus Christ rescues them from that redeems them from that by showing us that he is going to cleanse them you see he's replacing the old idea that we have to use water we have to eat certain things we have to sacrifice animals he's actually hinting that he's coming to do what all

of those regulations used to signify now what we are at and I'm only going to take another couple of minutes on this two or two nights ago we talked about this whole idea of sin I know that the term sin grates on us but we can't understand the joy Jesus is going to bring unless we understand sin unless you understand that there is actually according to the Bible what we're stained we need to be purified we've got guilt and shame that we need to be we need to be rescued from now I know people just

really really a squirm when I talk about this so let me be pretty direct you actually do know I believe all of you take my life in my hands here that something is really wrong why are you working so hard why are you working so hard why is it so important to look good what why do you worry so much about how you look why do you not only physically but why why do you why is it so important to you know to achieve you know I believe there's something wrong and you're trying to purify

yourself you're trying to cover up you're trying to deal with it you're trying to prove yourself you know the first and I think I'm safe to say you've probably seen us remember the first rocky film the only good one where he's in bed with Adrienne and she's you know talking to him and suddenly he says you know I don't really even want to win the fight I just want to go the distance and she says why she says if I just go the distance he says then I'll no I'm not a bum now that's a

Philadelphia American phrase but I would love for you to at least ponder this that one of the reasons why you're so excited that you got into Oxford and one of the reasons why you really have all these dreams and you're working so hard to look good and to do well in the cheap is because you're trying to prove to yourself and everybody else that you're not a bum remember Harold Abraham's what was driving him to be you known in Chariots of Fire it's depicted what was driving him to be this the Sprinter to do back

then the 100-yard dash okay and at one point he says when the gun goes off I've got ten seconds to justify my existence and he's just being candid about something that a lot of us don't want to be candid about we don't just want to do well we don't want to just make a contribution to society we don't want to just make our mark deep down inside we feel there's something wrong and we've got to prove that we're right we fear that we're a bum we fear that we're staying we feel there's something wrong and

we've got to prove to other people that we're okay another way to put it if you want to get biblical and go back to Genesis 3 where it talks about Adam and Eve the human race turning away from God and immediately feeling naked and feeling they had a cover-up and they couldn't let people on the outside see what they were like so they put themselves they put fig leaves on themselves consider the possibility that your oxford education is a fig leaf a big fig leaf and I want you to consider the fact that afterwards it

won't be enough it will never be enough please think about that one more thing about this before getting on which to where we have to go Jesus Christ came to bring joy he had to come to bring it because deep inside we don't have that we know there's something wrong with us we know we need to be purified we know we need to be washed even those of us who actually don't even love the idea of sin but let me just consider there's more depths of self-centeredness and sent in you then you want to believe

I'm concerned for almost almost any young person I see I'm concerned there's stuff in you that you would like to deny theologically philosophically you're a humanist you don't believe that human beings are innately evil or anything like that I'm very concerned there's stuff in your heart that will bite you it will spring out in the future and you'll see I didn't know I was capable of that but you are years ago 1961 Adolf Eichmann was one of the the Nazi architects of the Holocaust who got away after World War two and went to South America

was caught and he was arrested he was taken back to Israel for a trial 1961 and he was tried and found guilty and executed but there was a very interesting incident that happens what they had to do of course as you may know is they had to find witnesses people who saw him do it who were in the death camps and saw what happened in the death camps they had to come in and be witnesses material witnesses one of them was a man named you healed DeNooyer and when he came in and testified he walked

into the room the courtroom he saw Eichmann in the glass booth and he immediately broke down fell to the ground sobbing crying out it was pandemonium you know the judge was hammering to get order is very very dramatic sometime later yielding or it was being interviewed by Mike Wallace on 60 minutes which is a TV magazine news show in America and Mike Wallace asked that you heal the door he showed him the tape of himself himself following falling down and said why did it happen what what was upsetting you at the time and then he

asking these questions where you overcome with hatred is that why he collapsed was it post-traumatic stress syndrome and the Nohr said oh no no and then he said something that absolutely shake shocked Mike Wallace and should shock almost all secular Western people he said no no when I walked in and saw him I suddenly realized he was no demon or Superman he was an ordinary being exactly like me and I suddenly became terrified about myself I saw that I am capable of the very same things look you can either say the Nazis were subhumans not

like us we could never do anything like that and of course don't you remember that's how they became Nazis by thinking certain people were subhumans or you can say I am the same there must be stuff down there in me if I'm capable of that and I am there must be stuff down in me I don't want to see and there is it be cleansed from it you need to be purified from it it's point-three how did he come to do it now now we get into the narrative heart of the passage did you not

notice you probably noticed what looked like an emotional non sequitur and you probably didn't notice an additional how do I say it logical non sequitur Mary comes up to Jesus and said it's been a disaster they're out of wine verse for woman why do you involve me that's pretty cold did you notice it sometimes you wonder a bit about the translation maybe that's just the way the translation comes out no the translators will tell you this is an unusually cold way for for Jesus to be addressing his mother especially in that kind of society that

family oriented society something's bothering him something he's pressed he's under pressure he's stressed and then he says my hour has not yet come now if you would read the whole book of John and I would love it if you did and you're a very very careful reader you will find out that every place Jesus speaks about his hour he's talking about his death the hour of his death John chapter 7 John chapter 8 John chapter 13 on and on it talks about my hour my hour and we'll get there it's the hour of his death

now do you see the non-sequitur she comes up and says what a disaster they've run out of wine and Jesus says woman why are you telling me this I'm not to die it's possible by the way that Mary knew maybe not exactly who Jesus was but that he wasn't normal because if you notice he she goes to the servants and says whatever he does tell you do it you know he does she doesn't get upset with him she doesn't go nuts I have no idea what's going on in her mind but I do know this

he is saying oh really you want me to do something about their shame you want me to bring joy to them see this is a sign it's all a symbol and therefore I believe gee well I know pretty much if you study this text Jesus is looking past his mom and he's looking past the bridegroom and the bride he's looking past the wedding party and he's looking at something else and he's saying I have come to deal with their shame I have come to bring joy but I'm gonna have to die to do it and

I actually think there's something else happening in his mind and by the way I do believe that John means us to think about this just maybe just maybe he's even thinking of something else in the Old Testament the point is this is a wedding feast the first miracle the first sign is a wedding feast in the Old Testament God depicts himself as the bridegroom of his people which shows that God in the Bible doesn't just want a relationship with us as kings to subjects he wants a love relationship to us to you as profound as

the love relationship between a husband and a wife so he calls himself the bridegroom in the Old Testament Jesus comes along and in this gospel and anut the other Gospels he says things like this at one point his disciples are being criticized for not fasting and he says why should the Friends of the bridegroom fast when the bridegroom is still with them and I won't get into what he's talking about there but don't here's the point he calls himself the bridegroom the bridegroom fully knowing who that is according to the Bible and John the Gospel

writer understands this theme because if you get to the end of the New Testament to the book of Revelation written by the gospel but by John he depicts the end of all things the same way actually as Isaiah 25 he depicts the end of all things as what this is what it says at the end then I saw the holy city Jerusalem come out of heaven prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband and I heard a voice saying blessed are those invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb in other words at the

end of time there's going to be a feast but it's not just going to be a general feasts it's gonna be a wedding feast because all the things that Jesus Christ his trucks ought to accomplish all the things he came to accomplish will be accomplished and therefore may be what John wants us to think about is this Cathy actually my wife Cathy brought this up years ago she said maybe the reason why Jesus is sort of grumpy with his mother he's he's thinking of something else and I told you what I'm pretty sure he's thinking

about but here's another possibility what to single people think about at weddings why do sometimes single people sit at wedding receptions with this kind of funny faraway look in their eyes they're thinking about what their wedding day might be like and maybe Jesus is thinking just maybe saying mother for my people to fall into my arms and for us to drink of the rivers of God's delight I'm gonna have to die for my people to drink the cup of joy and festival blessing I'm gonna have to drink the cup of justice and a punishment and

of death do you see Jesus is always thinking about his death many people say who cares about doctrine don't worry about the church in fact much of Christianity I reject but I like Jesus I think if people just imitated the life of Jesus if that's the important thing look at how he loves people look at how he gives to people he cares to the poor he feeds people if you just forget about everything else just imitate his life that's what you should do I've heard many people say to me that that is absolutely wrong because

even because Jesus did not come primarily to live he came primarily to die we saw last night everything when he's raising Lazarus he's thinking about his own death when he's had a wedding feast he's thinking about his own death mark chapter 8 I am gonna have to die the disciples don't understand what he means mark chapter 9 by the way everybody I'm gonna die they don't understand mark 10 by the way guys I'm gonna die the disciples were focused on his life they felt like here's a messiah he's gonna get on a horse he's gonna

throw off the boot of the Roman oppressors great as long as they were focused only on his life and thinking I'm just gonna follow him in his life I'm gonna be like Jesus go read the Gospels you'll see the apostles were fools they were always acting in foolish ways they were always clueless it was until he died and after his death and his resurrection which we'll talk about tomorrow night that changed them completely why here's the thing you need to see if Jesus came primarily to live he's an example and then I guess we're supposed

to find God by trying to be like Jesus but if Jesus came primarily to die he doesn't come as an example he comes primarily as a savior he became as an example he would be like every other founder of every other major religion they all came to show you how to live and to say that's the way to salvation that's the way to God but Jesus Christ comes and says no I'm God come to find you I don't come to show you how to save yourself I come to save you and do what you should

be doing I come to live a life you should have lived yes but then died the death you should have died in your place so see the centrality of his desperate the death but then lastly but most importantly the modality of his death by choosing the ceremonial jars Jesus was signifying something he will say much more directly later on and the book of Hebrews will say it very very it's in the in the New Testament very directly and that is he came to replace all the things that the Old Testament sacrificial system the tabernacle then

the temple the veiled Holy of Holies the blood sacrifices at the heart of the system of religion was a blood sacrifice why because I'm a sinner and I have sinned needs to be punished but something atones for my sin something dies in my place and of course over the years there were all these animals being slaughtered and yet when John the Baptist saw Jesus the first time revelation from God he looks at him and says behold the lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world and you know what he's saying he says

all the other lambs all the other animals all the other things that they were just symbols of here's the one who's going to do it and Jesus Christ therefore has come to die in our place and take our punishment right away people say that's awful here we are back to the primitive bloodthirsty gods of old look at the the Iliad Agamemnon trying to get to Troy he can't get there so he sacrifices his daughter to the gods and the guys say oh okay that thatis wage is our wrath against you Agamemnon now I'll give you

fair winds and then they hear about this idea of Jesus Christ coming and dying andis waging the wrath of God oh my goodness here we have this primitive religion again why didn't Christianity die out with all the rest how awful except the gospel is not talking about that it's not talking about God asking one of us to sacrifice one of our children if Jesus Christ is who he said he is and we talked about this last night if he's God come in the flesh and what we have is God actually coming to earth and paying

the price himself and if you think that is just so illogical let me tell you let me appeal first your brain then to your emotions and then I'll stop first your brain if someone knocks over your light your lamp and let's just say it's a 50-pound lamp it cost 50 pounds to replace they knock it over they break it and they say oh I'm so so sorry let me repay you let me replace it now you have two things you can do you can say yes thank you you can make them pay or you can

say oh no no no you can forgive them but when you forgive them you know what that means either you have to replace the lamp or you have to go without in other words either that person pays or you pay but the debt doesn't go off into the air somebody always pays a debt you say well that's of course that's monetary and that's physical well think about this if someone hurts your reputation really really wrongs you what are you going to do one of the ways you could do it by the way is go around

all the people who that person slandered you with and actually ruin that person's reputation do you know what he did you know what she did other words you could make them pay or you can forgive them and if you forgive them you absorb that debt you lose that face with certain people but you don't pay them back you don't harm them back don't you see you cannot forgive without suffering you cannot forgive a debt without taking it on yourself God can't just look down at us and say oh look at you ruining each other's lives

look at you destroying the create my creation look at you destroying each other look at the self-centered is your heart I forgive you though I want you to see that God we're made the image of God the Bible says which means there which means if we have trouble forgiving it's because we're like him that he can't just say no it's not because he doesn't want to love you my goodness by coming to earth in the form of Jesus Christ g-god is so holy he had to come and die and pay that debt because that's the

way it is but he's so loving he was glad to come and die he's so holy he had to he's so loving he he was glad to now let me talk to you about your mightier emotions is there anything offensive about the idea of substitutionary sacrifice no I don't think so there is no more moving narrative there is no more I don't know how to say it if there's no narrative that brings more joy than to know that someone has substitute has sacrificed for you you know Sydney Carton Tale of Two Cities as Charles Darnay

loved the same girl but the girl marries Charles that's first part of the book but at the end of the book Charles Darnay because it's happening by the way of course as you know in 18th century France Charles Darnay is arrested he's put in the Bastille I I think it Bastille he's in the dungeon he's a and he's going to be executed tomorrow he's got a wife he's got a child he's gonna be executed tomorrow Sydney Carton steals into the prison he looks a lot like Charles Darnay so he steals into the prison knocks Charles

Darnay out has his friends take Charles Darnay out to safety puts on darnay's clothes and stays there to die in his place at the very very end of the book there's a little seamstress who walks up and she's also a prisoner and she's going to die too she walks up to what she thinks is Charles Darnay starts talking to him until she realizes it's not Charles Darnay and her eyes get really big and she says are you dying for him and he says yes and for his wife and child and then she says something is

a paraphrase but then she basically says that she says sir I am so frightened I don't think I can face my own death but of a brave heroic man like you would hold my hand maybe I can face it and he says all right she was moved she was transformed by the substitutionary sacrifice of that man and it wasn't even for her how would you be transformed if you came to believe that Jesus Christ did it for you that's what he come came to bring that's why he had to come to bring it and that's

how he brought it through his substitutionary sacrifice to bring you into not just freedom from guilt but eventually to fall into his arms at the end of time be his spouse love you and perfect you will say a little bit more afterwards but that's all for right now what we're going to do at this point is have Tom come back up and tell you introduce you