On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.
The Gospel of John is dedicated to proving the deity of Jesus. Even so, it, along with the other Gospels, clearly presents Jesus’ humanity. This scene, early in Jesus’ ministry, prominently includes Jesus’ mother, Mary. Jesus was born to a Jewish mother. The crèches remind us of this every Christmas, but somehow we manage to forget. Some people think Christianity is an anti-Jewish religion.
We are brought into the story just as there is a minor crisis strikes a wedding. Weddings are for celebrating the beginning of a relational commitment, important not only to the marrying couple but to their extended families and to their presumed children to come. But the purpose of weddings has a way of being pushed aside for the sake of wedding scripts, which have a lot to do with making good impressions. The host is running out of wine! Augh! Wine makes the heart glad, according to Psalm 104.15. It lowers inhibitions, enabling people to cut loose from their ordinary reserve. It makes dumb behavior and lame remarks seem clever. Failure to provide this is a bad reflection on the host. No one wants to be a bum on his own wedding day. The text suggests that blame will fall to the groom.
It is not clear what Mary’s responsibilities are to the wedding party. The text merely says that she was there and was sympathetic to those in distress. We have no record of Jesus performing a miracle up to this point but the fact that Mary sees Jesus as a potential solution to the problem implies that she is aware of Jesus’ powers. Mary, after all, became pregnant with Jesus without having intercourse. In the book of Luke, when Jesus was born and lying in a manger, shepherds came to tell of the host of angels who had announced Jesus’ birth. Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. (Luke 2.19). There can be no doubt that Mary and Joseph had kept a careful eye on Jesus, routinely amazed at his ordinariness, and routinely amazed at his extraordinariness.
Jesus’ answer to Mary seems rude. Perhaps what John records is a truncated version of the conversation. Or maybe Jesus and Mary are so tuned in to each other that they communicate in a kind of shorthand. In any case, Mary says to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you,” as if Jesus had just said, “I’ll take care of this, Mother,” instead of, “What does this have to do with me?”
Jesus is willing to act because, apparently, it does have something to do with him. This event is often cited as evidence of God’s ongoing endorsement of the institution of marriage. From the beginning God saw that it was not good for Adam to be alone, so he created Eve. The relationship between husband and wife has been the fundamental relationship in all cultures ever since. Marriage is not free of troubles and conflicts, certainly. Adam was quick to blame Eve when the two of them trusted Satan instead of their Maker. Even so, marriage remains the core of society. And that relationship is the key to child welfare. The evidence is overwhelming that children fare far better when they are raised by their biological parents in a peaceful, loving environment than in any other arrangement. Jesus contributed to the wedding, providing his blessing in a very practical way.
His second remark, “My time has not yet come,” seems like a non-sequitur. He was making a point to his mother, however, that it was not yet time for him to reveal his full identity. She wanted him to perform a miracle; to do so did not fit in with the time-table revealed to Jesus by his heavenly Father. The dilemma was addressed, I believe, by Jesus performing his miracle on the sly. This was no demonstration to wow the crowd. Only the servants were involved. The master of the feast, who came to taste the wine, did not know where it came from.
In all likelihood the wedding guests would have undergone the ritual of purification because it was common practice in devout Jewish homes prior to the breaking of bread. The wedding would certainly have incorporated feasting. Judaism was full of rituals that impressed on its adherents the need for cleanliness. The fundamental point of the rituals was to remind the people of their need for inward, spiritual purity. Running water or “living water” was required for the cleansing act. Even today we use the phrase, “My hands are clean,” to express guiltlessness over a matter, regardless of whether hands were involved. To have clean hands metaphorically means to have a clean heart.
The living water would be stored in large stone water jars in order to make it readily available. But the ritual did not make use of the stone jars directly. A smaller bowl would have been used. In each guest’s case, a small amount of water would have been poured onto both hands, which would have then been dried with a towel.
The stone jars, quite large, seem to have been kept out of the way in some sort of storage room. They may have had some water in them but Jesus instructed the servants to fill them, which they did, following his instruction to the letter, filling the jars to their brims. Jesus’ miracle was not some sort of trick. Since the servants would have used only “living water” from a stream or river, they knew very well that the water they had put in the stone jars was not the wine that came out of them.
Perhaps even Mary, once she was satisfied that Jesus was on the case, returned to the party and did not know the particulars of the solution Jesus was providing. But “the servants who had drawn the water knew.” Thus, this event continues the theme of the humble Messiah. The King of kings was born in a manger and his first witnesses were smelly shepherds. At the wedding of Cana, those who testified to Jesus’ first miracle were unnamed servants.
We ought not to race past the obedience of the servants, either. It was one thing for them to fill the water jars. They moved a significant amount of water and did it in a short period of time. The wedding guests were sobering up. They were drumming their fingers on the tables, so the servants hustled. The servants didn’t know why they were filling the purification jars but drawing water was not dangerous nor was it out of the ordinary. Then, while they were still huffing and puffing, Jesus told them to take some to the master of the feast. What? No way! They glanced at each other. They stared at the floor. This command of Jesus made no sense. Bring water to the master of the wedding? At best there would be a severe dressing-down. They didn’t want to think of the more likely consequences. Apparently, at least one brave soul stepped forward, though. Perhaps this servant knew Jesus at some level and, so, trusted him. Considering the circumstances the servant’s action here was a real act of faith.
There is a lesson for us in this. Sometimes the commands of Jesus do not make sense to us, either. There are times when it is necessary to obey him in order to understand. This is what is meant by acting in faith. Faith is not acting on the basis of what one deeply longs for; it is trusting the word of someone who is trustworthy, even when his words are puzzling and/or dangerous. This is an important concept to embrace through the vicissitudes of life. Some acts of obedience seem to go nowhere. The servants had no idea why they were doing what they were told to do until the master of the feast tasted the water. That is, until the master of the feast tasted the wine. At that point all apprehension turned to joy. Sometimes obedience to God makes sense to us before we obey. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense until after we obey. Sometimes obedience is a series of acts, and we may go even a lifetime before we understand how our obedience is doing any good. Sometimes all we feel is the huffing and puffing…and immanent danger, or maybe what we feel is weariness from nothing good happening. But Jesus reminds us here that we need to be patient and trusting. We will come to understand how our obedience brings about good.
Sometimes I find myself wondering about parts left out of a passage. In this account John shares the comment from the master of the feast with the groom: “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” John does not record any response from the groom. What was the groom thinking? What did he say? “Well, you know, a man can’t be too extravagant at his own wedding, can he? It’s just the kind of guy I am.” Was he thinking, “Who flipped the serving order without my say-so?” or “This is really good stuff! I know I didn’t buy it!” Based on his lack of response in the narrative, it seems he was happy to keep his thoughts to himself. I wonder how long he puzzled about it before he finally learned the truth. I wonder if he ever found the truth believable.
It’s hard to know what God can or cannot do or, more to the point, what he will or will not do. Could he have made wine out of a stack of nearby bricks, for example? I have no idea. What we see around us, though, are miracles that God does every day. I am amazed when I watch the fig tree in my back yard grow each year. My wife, a gardener, prunes it to sticks. The tree looks like nothing at the beginning of spring. It wouldn’t qualify as a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. By late summer numerous branches have been added and the sticks have turned into a bountiful bush. Great, leaves flutter in the sun. Figs sprout everywhere in bunches for weeks on end. A little water, sunlight, a few nutrients from the soil explain all this growth? I shake my head in wonder. This is much like what happens with grape vines. God had blessed the people of Israel for centuries with wine from grapevines. He sent the sun and the rain. Like he has done throughout human history, God provided nourishment and joy through the elements of his creation. Fundamentally, then, this miracle is a demonstration that Jesus is God, making wine out of the elements.
Perhaps the fact that he makes high quality wine should not be overlooked. He made humans out of the dust of the earth. His work on earth is to make holy, everlasting god-like creatures out of those in bondage to sin and death. There is something in God that is always in the business of making things better.
There also may be a message about Jesus replacing the water of Jewish ritual cleansing with the new and fully effective cleansing that comes through the blood of his sacrifice, as represented in the wine of Christian communion. This connection seems like a stretch except for the fact that John identifies this miracle as the first of seven signs performed by Jesus. Jesus performed more than seven signs and/or miracles but John wants us to focus on seven of them. The focusing is related to his purpose for writing the Gospel, which is distilled in chapter 20, verse 31: These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. It’s clear to John that each of the seven signs is more significant than what meets the eye. They are more than amazing demonstrations; they speak in particular ways about the deity of Jesus. With this in mind, the concept of moving from an old order of cleansing to a new order of cleansing becomes a very likely interpretation of the miracle.
We will look more closely at the seven signs as we encounter them in the book but, for now, it’s important to be aware of John’s structure. After this first sign, John identifies six others: the cleansing of the temple (2.12-17), the healing of the nobleman’s son (4.46-54), the healing of the lame man (5.1-15), feeding the multitude (6.1-15), the healing of a blind man (9), and the raising Lazarus (11).
The passage concludes by saying “the disciples believed in him”. This seems to confirm that the party as a whole was unaware of the miracle because John does not remark on their reaction. The disciples believed, which means they were brought in on the secret. And the disciples reacted appropriately to the miracle. This may have only been Jesus’ first miracle but already they believed. John says to us, this miracle alone was enough for the disciples. Even so, there is much more evidence to come.
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