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As a diamond is to a cubic zirconium, so is the Bible to all other books. While one is the genuine article, and the others may be helpful, they are not of the same value. A knowledge of the Bible means an acquaintance with the God of eternity. HOWEVER – a mere intellectual knowledge of God is not much better than a knowledge of math. An understanding of trigonometry or geometry doesn’t impress the God who established laws of math.

And speaking about math, I read an article which talked about the importance of two numbers: The first was: 1out of 10 to the 123rd power. This is a tiny, tiny number; the sort of number only a mathematician can grasp. It is the number which Stephen Hawking describes as the chances of our universe being accidentally put together the way that it is today. But an even smaller number – 1 out of 10 to the 162nd power is what mathematician William Dembski says it would take a single cell organism to make a mere thousand positive mutations. Let’s say that the smartest man in the world can explain each of these numbers – that doesn’t make him a child of God. To help me with those two numbers, I may ask my computer for an explanation. Just because my computer may understand them, that knowledge doesn’t give it an eternal soul. “Though I gain the wisdom of a hundred universities and don’t know the love of God, I am but a fool.” The Bible is unique among all books, because it provides even a child with the means of leaving the ranks of the fools. It takes us behind the numbers – to the One who created those numbers and can explain them.

Among the many books of the Bible, the Book of John is in some ways unique among them. John gives us a look into the nature of the Lord Jesus – unlike any other book of the Bible. The Book of Hebrews has a special purpose, and so do Revelation, Genesis and Romans. Psalms reveals things to the Christian which he can’t get anywhere else, and so does Isaiah. But the Book of John lets us look into the heart of Christ in ways that we don’t have in any other book.

And to accomplish that, John, inspired by the Spirit, recorded a series of special events from Jesus’ life. Each one of them contained one or more important clues about the nature of the Saviour. They are like individual colors in a rainbow, and each is incomplete without the others. For example, there are the seven great “I am” statements which Christ Jesus makes in this book: “I am the bread of life;” “I am the water of life;” and “before Abraham was I am.” These statements emphasize special things about the Lord, and declare Him to be Jehovah. In the Old Testament Jehovah God described Himself as the Great “I am.” In this book we see a few very special miracles which are not touched in the other Gospels. For example this miracle in chapter two, shows us things which are not emphasized anywhere else. God’s purpose in Cana of Galilee was not to fill the wine bowl at the marriage feast. This was an informational road-sign telling us how to find the best that eternity has to offer. Verse 11 says that this was a step to manifesting Jesus’ glory before the disciples, and before us.

We have here a revelation of the Saviour’s CREATIVE POWER.

Atheistic evolution says that all life, including human life, arose from a one-celled organism. But to get from a one celled amoeba to a human being with a trillion cells there would have to be millions of positive changes – evolutionary steps. And remember William Dembski says it would take 1 out of 10 to the 162nd power to make a mere a thousand positive mutations.

Evolution says that these changes all occurred at random. But for them to all work together, they would have to come in the right order. So it was not just a million mutations, they would have to come in sequence – or simultaneously. That increases the miracle another billion times. It doesn’t do any good to have a leg, if there isn’t a nervous system to operate that leg. Legs have hundreds of parts which all have to work together properly – bones, muscles, tendons, etc. For that leg to work for the very first time, all those hundreds of parts would have to come together at precisely the same moment. The eye would be no good if not at the time that it randomly mutated into existence there was the additional accidental mutation of the optic nerve and parts of the brain to understand its impulses. According to that article, even if we limit the number of necessary mutations to a thousand and argue that half of these mutations are beneficial, the odds against getting a thousand beneficial mutations is about 1 out of 10 to the 301st power. 10 to the 301st is a number so large according to standard evolutionary time, it would have had to take twelve quadrillion years to take place. Even if they all occurred at the smallest unit of time man has been able to calculate – Planck time – there hasn’t been enough time for all those calculations. Dr. Planck came up with the infinitesimal amount of time it takes two protons to pass each other. The blink of an eye would be like a century in comparison to a unit of Planck time.

\What I’m trying to say is that evolution is a mathematical impossibility. It is a joy to my heart to know that God, through Christ, personally created this universe. This leads me to go on into the understanding that He is personally interested in the events of this world. It tells me that He has ability to accomplish anything necessary to maintain or upgrade this universe.

But how do I know that JESUS CHRIST is the Creator? That is no problem for anyone who believes the Bible, because it is abundantly declared. In speaking about Christ, it says, “All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth.” There are a half dozen other verses, which directly and unmistakably declare that Jesus is the Creator. BUT they come primarily from later chapters in the Word of God. What about the people who were living before the New Testament was completed? They could have known it as easily as we can, perhaps even more easily. The Lord Jesus proved, time and again, several wonderful things. First, He proved that He had the power and authority to make and create things. And He proved again and again, that it was His joy to create those things in order to bless us. A case in point is the miracle before us.

It is significant that the whole operation of this miracle was somewhat veiled. What was the method that Jesus used? Did He throw some herbs into the water; did He speak some significant miraculous word? Did He breathe on the water, spit into the water or pray over the water? Did He squeeze a grape over the bowl of water? It appears that He did none of these things. The servants simply dipped their ladles into water, and when they came out there was wine in its bowl. This tells us there were no external means employed by the Saviour. At other times, other miracles involved tools and substances, even as lowly as spit and mud. But not in this case. This miracle simply illustrates deity in motion.

And that leads us to the question: What exactly is a miracle? Isn’t a miracle is the divine interruption of established natural laws. It is not a miracle to catch a fish. But it MIGHT be a miracle to catch a fish with a piece of money in its mouth. The laws of probability for such a thing say that you will never do that. A fish might see a silver coin falling through the water and chomp on it as if it was a fishing lure. That is not particularly miraculous, but it would be exceedingly rare. The miracle is that it didn’t swallow the coin and Peter caught it at precisely the place and time that the Creator told him. It is a miracle that a disease, which is almost always fatal, is instantaneously healed. It is a miracle when bones and muscles which haven’t worked in decades are able to instantly function as if they had been exercised by an athlete every day for years. It is a miracle that some man could command the wind to stop blowing and have those winds obey. And if a miracle is the interruption of natural and common laws, then what is a creation but a miracle? Creation is God doing something which only God can do; ie. to bring something out of nothing. It is beyond your ability to make an apple into an orange, which is not really creating anything. And not even Satan can change a cat into a cow. To take plain water and instantly have its essence change into fruit juice is a miracle.

It wasn’t perhaps a purely a creation miracle, but it most definitely something only God could do. It would have been an act of creation, if the Lord produced wine in a barrel when it was empty. But on this occasion there was water, then as someone said years ago: “The water blushed at the presence of its God.” Only the power of deity could do such a thing as this. The world was forced to look upon this as a sign of the Creator – Jesus Christ is the Creator.

We also have here a revelation of a WONDERFUL HEART – Jesus wanted to be a blessing to these people.

There were a lot of preconceived Jewish ideas about the Messiah as He first came on the scene. For example, it was expected that He’d be a king with a military background. It was expected that He’d be full of vengeance toward the enemies of Israel. They expect the Son of David to be a man like David – with blood on his hands. Yet toward Israel, the Messiah would be regal and respectable – full of pomp and glory. So those who followed John Baptist were confused because Jesus was not more than John’s cousin. The unbelieving Jews pointed to Christ, noting that He took meals and fellowshipped with sinners. Comparing Jesus with Jeremiah or Elijah made Him look out of place in their opinion. And now, here was the God of universe, the Messiah, visiting a common wedding.

There are as many foolish notions about Christ today as there were 2,000 years ago. Look at the popularity of the ridiculous “Da Vinci Code,” or the so-called Gospel of Judas.” Among the foolish ideas is the one that the God of Bible knows nothing about love and has no consideration for the agony of man. Christ Jesus cares more about your pain than your mother or your spouse is capable of caring. Because the Son of God knows that sorrow and suffering can be traced back to sin. And He was around before the existence of sin. Your mother and spouse are as much sinners as you are, and therefore their perspective of the effects of sin is entirely different from Christ’s.

But then, positively, the God who gave man the complicated series of muscles necessary to smile…. The Creator who gave us the ability to laugh, thus making us different from the animal world…. Jesus Christ who came into this world that we might have His joy and His peace… You can be absolutely sure that this God is very interested in whether or not you have that joy. And He who instituted marriage in the first place, is definitely not out of place at a wedding. The Creator of joy is at home in the most joyful house in town. It is not unworthy of God to want to share in the rejoicing of His creatures. There is no finer place to begin Jesus’ ministry than at the marriage of this unnamed Jewish couple.

And by Jesus’ presence there, He put the stamp of approval on the beginning of a new home and family. He didn’t take part in the ceremony, because the people in charge were ignorant of His true nature. But by His attendance He intimated His joy in the proceedings. This is exactly the opposite to what Jesus did in the temple just a few verses later in this chapter. The Lord approves of proper human joy, but He hates human corruption and sin.

So Jesus approved of these people’s happiness, and He also sanctified it. Christ came into this world for the specific purpose of rescuing sinful people – like that couple. Humanity is not just one aspect – an higher aspect – of the animal world or ordinary creation. Despite some of the stupid fictions that have been around for a thousand years, the Lord Jesus’ relationship to the animal was never like it was toward humanity. Yes, he sanctified the donkey, by permitting it once to carry Him into Jerusalem. But that animal was a servant to its Master. However in this miracle we see the Master becoming a kind of servant to the sinner. Christ came to elevate the sinful and vulgar out of its wickedness and banality. He hallowed every corner of human life, except that which has been completely destroyed by sin. I know that it sounds stupid even to say it, but this was not a homosexual couple. The Lord would have never entered that house if that were the case. He never condones or approves of that which His Father has thoroughly condemned. But even though the pair being married, and their parents, and all the guests were sinners, what they were doing was proper and Biblical. And by His presence Christ Jesus approved the festivities and He sanctified the marriage.

We have in this miracle a revelation of JESUS’ GLORY.

How uniquely appropriate are John’s words in chapter one, in the light of this miracle. He said, “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”

When the average Christian pictures the glory of Christ he thinks of the transfiguration or of the ascension of the Lord. But He is glorified in a multitude of other ways as well. There is the glory of the Creator in the brilliance of the sun in the Spring and the snow in the Winter. There’s glory to Christ in all the marvelous pictures being collected by the Hubble Space Telescope. The Lord is glorified by our praise; He is glorified in our service. And He is made glorious in bringing beauty and joy to the lives of others.

Wine, especially as seen in the Old Testament, is a symbol of gladness and blessing. When the grape crop failed or enemies plundered it, it was considered a great calamity. But an abundant fruit crop marked the special blessing of God. So when Christ multiplied the “oinos,” it was considered to be a symbol of His pleasure in that wedding.

But it was also a symbol of His shed blood. Mark 14:22-25 – “And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body. And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it. And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many. Verily I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” There has never been a greater gift given by God than Christ Jesus’ saving blood. If you have never been washed by that sacred blood, then you are of all God’s creatures most miserable. You are worse off than a gazelle slaughtered by a lion; a squirrel plucked from a branch by an owl. You are worse off than any animal, because when they are dead, they are dead. You, on the other hand, are an eternal soul that will spend eternity in Hell without the Lord.

It is interesting to note that verse 11 says that this was the “BEGINNING of Jesus miracles.” The wine of the blood of Christ is the starting point for all the other eternal blessing of God. And in no other way has He been glorified any higher.

Finally this morning, here is also a sign of Christ’s ABILITY TO SUPPLY.

Mary, Jesus’ mother, spoke to the Lord and said, “They have no wine.” No matter how well people plan and prepare, the world cannot supply all our needs. No matter how well you build your house, it will not be your residence in eternity. No matter how much money you invest for retirement, it will not buy your way into Heaven. And even when we go from week to week, trying to plan and prepare, we often end up in confusion.

But when all the world fails and falls apart, Christ is ever there. He is the Christ eternal. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” He has all authority. “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.” “For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son.” His word is sure. “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.” This globe continues to exist by Christ’s sustaining hand. No matter what need you might have, Christ can supply what you lack.

The governor of the feast was amazed that the best was saved until last. The world often serves the best at first and then things deteriorate, until we find ourselves in Hell itself. But Christ makes life better and better and better. The longer we serve him the sweeter we know Him to be.

Have you ever seen Jesus as John chapter 2 describes Him? Look at His love and care for those people. See him as the Creator, the One who hallows of that which is lowly and common. And then look beyond these few words and see Him as the Saviour of sinners like us. This miracle proves His ability to great things, even greater things than these. And in His crucifixion we see His ability and authority to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.