Where the Wine Never Runs Out: A Lutheran Wedding Sermon on John 2:1-11 and Ephesians 5:21-33
Friends, we have gathered in this place because a wedding is happening. And if that sounds too simple, consider what the Gospel of John tells us about the last time God showed up at a wedding. He brought more wine than anyone expected.
The story in John 2 is brief and strange and wonderful. Jesus and his disciples have been invited to a wedding in Cana of Galilee. His mother is there. At some point in the celebration, the wine runs out. Mary tells Jesus. Jesus responds in a way that sounds, at first, almost reluctant. Then he tells the servants to fill six stone water jars to the brim, and when the master of the feast tastes what comes out of those jars, he pulls the bridegroom aside and says, "You have kept the good wine until now." John tells us this was the first of Jesus' signs, and that through it he revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
That is the scene. Now let us sit inside it for a moment, because it has something to say to every person in this room, and especially to the two of you.
The Wine Runs Out
The first thing to notice is that the wine ran out at a real wedding. Not a parable. Not an illustration. A real celebration with real people who ran short of something they needed. John records this detail without embarrassment. The wine ran out. The party was in trouble. The joy was threatened.
Marriage is like that. Not because marriage is a failure, but because marriage is real. You are two real people, with real limitations, real weariness, real moments when the thing you thought you had plenty of turns out to be running low. Patience runs out. Energy runs out. Words of kindness can feel scarce. This is not a warning meant to frighten you on your wedding day. It is simply the honest shape of human life together. Every married couple who has walked faithfully through decades will tell you the same thing. The wine runs out.
The Law of God tells us something harder still. It is not only our resources that run short. We ourselves fall short. We are people who love imperfectly, who forgive reluctantly, who serve our own interests when we promised to serve another. The Apostle Paul, writing to the church in Ephesus, describes a vision of marriage so high and so holy that it can only make us aware of how far we fall from it. Husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Wives and husbands are called to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. This is not a low standard. This is a standard that exposes us. None of us loves like that by nature. None of us gives like that on our own.
So the wine runs out. And we need someone to fill the jars.
What Jesus Does At Weddings
Here is the gospel in this story. Jesus came to the wedding. He was invited, and he came. And when the need arose, he did not lecture the servants about the importance of better planning. He did not turn away because the situation was too ordinary. He acted. He provided. He gave not merely enough, but abundantly. One hundred and twenty gallons of the finest wine, saved for the moment of greatest need.
This is who Jesus is. He is not distant from ordinary life. He is not too holy for the everyday struggles of a household. He is the Lord who enters into the common and the creaturely and transforms it by his presence. Martin Luther understood this well. The Lutheran tradition has always insisted that God meets us not in mystical escape from daily life but precisely in the middle of it, through Word and Sacrament, through vocation, through the ordinary means by which he has promised to be present.
Your marriage is a vocation. That word means a calling. It is not merely a legal arrangement or a social custom. It is a place where God has called you to love and serve another person in his name, and where God has promised to be present with you. When Paul writes that the love of a husband for his wife is to mirror the love of Christ for the church, he is not giving you an impossible assignment and walking away. He is pointing you to the source. Christ loved the church by giving himself for her. Christ sanctifies and cleanses his bride. Christ nourishes and cherishes her. This is the love that has already been poured out for you in baptism, in the word of absolution, in the bread and cup of the Lord's Supper. You do not generate this love from within yourselves. You receive it. And what you receive, you are freed to give.
The Good Wine Kept Until Now
The master of the feast did not know where the wine came from. The servants knew. They had filled the jars. They had seen what Jesus did. And John tells us the disciples believed.
You are standing at the beginning of something. The years ahead will hold more than you can see from here. There will be ordinary Tuesdays and extraordinary griefs and quiet joys and hard conversations and long seasons of faithfulness that no one else will ever notice. In all of it, Christ is present. He has not given you his best blessing at the start and left you to manage the rest alone. He keeps good wine for every season. His mercies are new every morning. His grace is sufficient for whatever the two of you will face.
So here is the charge that Scripture gives you, and that this congregation witnesses today. Love one another as Christ has loved you. Forgive one another as Christ has forgiven you. Serve one another out of reverence for him. Return again and again to the means of grace where he has promised to meet you. And when the wine runs out, as it will, bring your need to the one who fills jars to the brim.
He came to the wedding at Cana. He is here today. And the good wine he keeps is better than anything you could have arranged on your own.
Go in joy. Go in faith. Go in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Sources Consulted
The Holy Bible, Christian Standard Bible. Holman Bible Publishers, 2017. John 2:1-11; Ephesians 5:21-33.
Köstenberger, Andreas J. God, Marriage, and Family: Rebuilding the Biblical Foundation. Crossway, 2010.
Luther, Martin. "The Estate of Marriage." Luther's Works, Vol. 45. Edited by Walther I. Brandt. Fortress Press, 1962.
The Lutheran Study Bible. Concordia Publishing House, 2009. Notes on John 2 and Ephesians 5.
Wingren, Gustaf. Luther on Vocation. Translated by Carl C. Rasmussen. Muhlenberg Press, 1957.
Before preaching: verify every biblical reference, replace general language only with couple-approved details, and revise the message in your own Christian tradition and pastoral voice.