Wedding at Cana: Psalm 138; John 2: 1-11
A man was driving down the roadway late one evening. Behind him was a police officer who was noticing every time the man swerved, crossed the center line, or reacted slowly to a road sign. It took very little time for the officer to figure out the driver was impaired or something was wrong, so he pulled the guy over. The officer could tell the guy had been drinking and smelled what seemed like wine coming from the man and the car. So the officer asked, “Sir, have you been drinking?”
The man replied, “Why no, officer.” I have not been drinking at all. All I have is my water. And sure enough the man produced a Dasani bottle about half full. Now, the officer was still rather suspicious because, clearly there was a smell, and the guy was still acting intoxicated. The officer looked closely at the water bottle and said, “Sir, um, you have wine in this bottle, not water.” The shocked driver said, “Oh my goodness! Jesus did it again!”
In John 2, we hear the story of the wedding at Cana, which is typically regarded as the first of Jesus’s miracles, and the one which established who he is and his glory to the people. But most people ask: why this? Of all the things Jesus could do, why would he turn water into wine? That seems a little bit insignificant or even magic-trick-ish compared to helping the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the disabled to walk, and raising the dead. Why not start off big—make a splash? But you have to put this into the context of that society.
Weddings were huge ordeals, often lasting for severn days of feasts and celebrations. The entire town would be invited, even those the families did not like, to force them into submitting and accepting an invitation. The wedding feasts were so important that people would often be excused from religious observances to finish these wedding celebrations. And having good wine and food was essential to the event. Two reasons they would have wine: first the water sources of that time might be contaminated and dangerous to drink from, especially with a large group of people. The idea was not to give folks an infection. The other reason is that, well, it’s a party, so there’s going to be some wine.
But at this party, the wine runs out. And the original text makes clear that it didn’t just run out, but there was no more to be had or bought in the town. It was all used up. This would have been a huge social disgrace. In our day and time, it would have been akin to accidentally knocking the wedding party into a pool or lake right before the ceremony…almost unforgivably humiliating. So, Jesus’s mother goes to him for help.
Why would Jesus’s mother intervene? We have no idea, to be totally honest. It could be this was a family friend, a relative, some more fringe scholars suggest this was Jesus’s own wedding, but there’s nothing scripturally to support that. We are not even sure what transpires causing Jesus to go from, “Mom, stay out of it,” to working the miraculous But Jesus turns water into wine, and it is the best wine they’ve had so far. There’s a bit of metaphor here.
All that had come before was good, it was sufficient, but Christ brought the best. In this wedding, Christ acted with grace and hospitality to the family nearing shame, but Christ also showed that the best was saved for the last and yet to come. We hear those celebrations echoed in Psalm 138: “Yes, they will sing about the Lord’s ways, for the glory of the Lord is very great. Though the Lord is great, he cares for the humble, but he keeps distance from the proud.” There is no grace so wonderful as what Christ gives. It is completely free, wide and expansive, offered even to those completely undeserving, and wholly and completely life-changing for the better.
That idea makes people uncomfortable because there’s a feeling that some explanation, demonstrations, understanding is needed for what this grace is, how it works, and when it happens. But that’s not how grace works, is it? Think of when you’ve seen grace in the little things in life. You spill your drink everywhere, and your friend quickly mops it up, makes sure you’re clean, and orders you another drink before you can even recover from the shock. Or, you argue deeply and forcefully with a family member, perhaps to the point of not speaking for some time. But eventually, there is forgiveness for what was said and done. Grace, in the spiritual sense, and grace in our daily actions defies logic and explanation. It comes, not from the intellect, but in our love for one another.
If we think too hard about grace, we tend to come up with Jesus’s first response, “Dear woman, that’s not our problem,” Stay out of it…mind your own business…and for goodness sake, don’t look at them or they’ll come over here. The miracle at Cana was truly very simple, but it shows us that Jesus offers us grace in things both large and small, that even in something such as a social faux pax at a party, Jesus saved the hosts from humiliation in front of the guests.
But there’s a foreshadowing as well. When Jesus talks about giving his life for us, it’s presented in terms of a cup of wine poured out for us: the body of Christ broken, the blood of Christ poured out. Though grace is free as a gift to us, grace is not always completely and totally free. Someone, somewhere, had to pay some cost. For Christ, that was the greatest miracle of death, burial, and resurrection. Christ had to give up himself for us to have grace. Think of it in simpler terms. If your friend’s drink spills, you have to give up your napkin to clean it up. If you are at odds and not speaking, someone has to give up their pride and be humbled. There is always a cost to grace in the holy sense, but it is never a price we pay, for God wanted to make sure grace was as free to us as those six jars of wine were free to the wedding host.
There was some final and powerful significance in this miracle, though. Jesus had called disciples, but he had not yet proven himself to them. The lesson wraps up by telling us, “This miraculous sign at Cana in Galilee was the first time Jesus revealed his glory. And his disciples believed in him.” We, too, may believe in Jesus to offer hope when our strength has run out, to offer grace when we most need it. Now, you may not be able to say that God turned your Dasani water into wine if pulled over by a police officer, but there is a significance here in Christ’s first miracle. Even in the smallest things in life, Christ’s grace and love are still there. Christ still turns water into wine and refashions us in his grace and in his glory.