If I were to ask you to tell me what
was one of your favorite gospel stories, I am confident that several of you would mention to me the story of Jesus changing
the water to wine. The story is so well known to music fans that Johnny Cash
several years ago even wrote a song in which he sang, “He turned the water into wine. He
turned the water into wine. In the little Cana town the word went all around that he turned the water into wine.” We even remember this story in the marriage service from the Book
of Common Prayer when we declare, “…which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified by his presence and first
miracle that he wrought in Cana of Galilee...”
Like the movie, “My
Big Fat Greek Wedding,” this story is about a small-town family wedding. The wedding took place in Cana, about nine miles from Jesus’ hometown
of Nazareth. Nathaniel, one of Jesus’ new disciples was from there. Jesus had visited there several times, and he might even have had relatives that lived there.
Everyone was there for the
wedding—the parents, brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts, and cousins. Moreover, being a small town, the families had
not left off the guest list any family friends and neighbors. Most likely, that
wedding was the social occasion of the season. Jesus was there as a member of
the extended family.
Of course, weddings always
are accidents ready to happen. Something always goes wrong at a wedding. Moreover, in time, something will go wrong at this wedding. In those days, the bride
and the groom did not go off on a honeymoon. Instead, they went to the groom’s
home, and there they celebrated with their family and friends for seven days. Yet
the party was in trouble—the wine is giving out before the party was over. John
does not tell us why the wine was running out. Jesus may even have contributed
to the wine shortage by bringing his four disciples with him.
Mary, by temperament, must
have been one of those extraverted persons that want for a party to “go-well.” Therefore,
she noticed that the wine was running low. She was embarrassed for the family.
She wished that she could do something so that the family would not be embarrassed.
She therefore turned to Jesus and said, “They have no wine!” Jesus replied to his mother, “Woman, what concern is that to you or me? My hour has not yet come.”
As I have read this passage,
I have asked myself, why did Jesus reply to his mother, “My hour has not yet come?” Perhaps John was telling us more in this story than meets the eye.
Throughout John’s gospel, Jesus would keep declaring, “My hour has not yet come.” Finally, in chapter 17, Jesus would declare that his “hour has come.” I think that Jesus said, “My hour has not yet come,” because his ministry was just beginning.
From the beginning of his ministry, Jesus had known that he would die on a cross. However, Jesus also wanted to take the time
to gradually help people to understood who he was—and more importantly, he wanted to have the time, so that faith could
take root in the hearts of his disciples. Therefore, Jesus was reluctant to reveal
who he was too early—and especially to these half-drunk wedding guests who simply wanted to continue “to party.”
Despite Jesus’ protest,
Mary was not going to take “no” for an answer from her son. She was
determined for Jesus to do something about the potentially embarrassing situation. Therefore,
she told the servants to do whatever Jesus was about to tell them to do. There
were six stone jars nearby. The servants had filled these jars with water in
order to wash peoples’ hands and feet during the wedding. Each jar normally
contained some 20-30 gallons of waters. The total water capacity was 120-180
gallons of water. Jesus then told the servants “Fill them to the brim.”
After the servants had finished
filling the jars with water, Jesus told them to draw some of the water out of the jars, and take it to the headwaiter for
his approval. To the servants’ shock, they withdrew not water but wine
from the jars. Moreover, this was not cheap wine, but this was fine wine. It
was not just a little fine wine, but rather this was 180 gallons of fine wine. It
was more wine than they could drink during the wedding party. The headwaiter,
not knowing the origin of the wine, tasted it and then complimented the groom on his saving the best wine until all the guests
had arrived. John then concluded the story by commenting, “Jesus did this,
the first of his signs in Cana of Galilee. It revealed his glory, and his disciples
believed him.”
In reading John’s gospel,
we have to remember that it was written some 50-60 years after the resurrection. John’s
agenda was to elicit faith in Jesus Christ. Therefore, throughout the beginning
of his gospel, John has been very careful to ensure that his readers know who this Jesus is. In
the first chapter, John has written about Jesus being the Word, who was with God at the beginning of all beginnings—of
Jesus being the Lord of whom the Prophet Isaiah spoke—of Jesus being the Lamb of God—of Jesus being the Son of
God—of Jesus being the promised Messiah—of Jesus being the promised King of Israel—of Jesus being the promised
Son of Man.
Then John began chapter two
by telling us this story of a wedding that took place “on the third day.” That
same phrase has been used for 2000 years by the Christian Church to describe the day on which Jesus was raised from the dead. In writing that phrase, which also is
used to refer to the resurrection day, I believe that John was reminding us that Christ’s resurrection inaugurated a
new age. Further, in telling us how Jesus changed water to wine, he has recalled
the Old Testament prophesies in Amos 9:13 and Joel 3:18, that the abundance of good wine would be a symbol of the joyous arrival
of God’s new age. Therefore,
in telling the story of Jesus changing the water into fine wine, John was declaring that God’s new age had arrived in
the person of Jesus.
In addition, before we leave
this passage, I believe that there is more to be mined here. In that era, people understood dead as a gradual process. When someone died—people thought
that the soul lingered about the body for two days, and during those two days, the person still might be revived. However, by the “third day” people thought that the soul had left the area of the body for the
designated place of the dead. “By the third day,” there was not any
hope that the person might be revived.
I believe that in writing
that phrase, “By the third day,” John was telling us about the implication of Christ’s resurrection on our
lives and on the life of the Church. I think that John was writing about those
“third-day-times” in our lives. Those “third-day-times”
are those times when all hope seems lost; those times when we have tried our best to be faithful stewards of life, and yet
we have exhausted all of our resources; those times, when we have hit bottom and we don’t know any way out of the mess
that we have created; those times when we are feeling not just depression, but rather utter-despair over the way our life
is going. We all know what those “third-day-times” feel like.
God certainly does not remove
life’s daily challenges from our lives. The old issues are still there—the
fears, the insecurities, the anxieties that rear their head in our nightmares—they all are still there. However, as we face those challenges, we can face them as transformed people. As transformed people, “water to wine people,” God can help us to see life in a clearer perspective,
and to respond to life’s challenges differently. We can discover joy in the midst of life’s hardships—we
can discover kindness in the midst of despair—we can discover love in the midst of hatred—and we can experience
small signs of God’s grace in our daily lives. Moreover, as we experience
life as full of grace-filled opportunities, we can move in creative ways in meeting the daily challenges of our lives.
Dr. Scott Peck in one of
his books reminded us that there are two very different forms of depression. There is “Clinical Depression” that
is caused by a chemical imbalance in our bodies, which most of the time can be relieved through taking certain medications.
At the same time, there also is “Situational Depression.” Situational
Depression is somewhat like the red light flashing on the dashboards of our cars telling us that something is not working
right. Situational Depression is our bodies’ way of telling us that the old ways in which we have looked at life no
longer work as they once did. It is telling us that the ways we have related
to our spouse, friends, and work are just no longer working. The old cherished
notions, assumptions, and patterns of our lives do not fit reality any longer. Like
the flashing red light on our car’s dashboard. Situational Depression is telling us that we need to reassess how we
are looking at life—and we need to assess how we are acting toward other people. It is telling us that we need to allow
ourselves to be transformed from being “water people” to being “wine people.”
There is the story about
a women living out in Galveston, Texas.
One day she was cleaning out her birdcage with her vacuum cleaner. The phone
rang. She reached for the phone, while with the other hand continuing her vacuuming
of the birdcage. Some terrible happened! “Whoosh”—her
pet parakeet was sucked into the vacuum. Terrified at what she would fine, she
tore open the vacuum bag. After
what seemed an eternity—after digging through the dust, and bird feathers—she finally found her parakeet. He was alive, but bruised and stunned. She
dusted him off, and placed him back in his cage. She thought that in time he
would recover and come to his senses. But he never did. Weeks later she told her neighbor, “He doesn’t sing anymore. He
just sits and stares.”
Likewise, there are some
people in life, and even some congregations, that just keep letting life vacuum them up and beat them to a pulp. They refuse to learn from their experiences, and they keep trying repeatedly to make life fit their personal
agendas. Moreover, the crazy thing is, they keep expecting different results each time. Then
over time, something happens to them. They get bitter and they draw inward. They stop loving life. They forget how
to sing anymore. They simply sit and stare. However,
life does not have to be that way. Jesus still is turning ‘water people’
into ‘wine people’. That is the implication of Christ’s resurrection.
Dr. William dePrater
