Speaking for myself in these days as we anticipate the inauguration of the 47th president as well as honor the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I’ve always been partial to this first miracle or sign – this first miracle of Jesus, which seems so different from his other miracles: this changing of water into wine in the midst of a community-wide celebration. I’ve heard of it referred to as a “frivolous miracle,” if there is such a thing, but I disagree with this designation. I think that Jesus’ changing of water into wine is anything but frivolous. Even so, this is one of Scripture’s most popular and well-known miracles, and so we shouldn’t be surprised that whether frivolous or not, it gets parodied from time to time. My own favorite variation on it comes from Garrison Keillor and the people of Lake Woebegon, Minnesota.
Keillor tells of a time when Pastor Dave, the town’s Lutheran pastor, wanted to get closer to his flock, and so one evening he went down to the local watering hole, the Side Track Tap. Once there, Pastor Dave sat at the bar and ordered a Wendy’s Beer…and then he began to think about Jesus. What would Jesus do, here at the Side Track Tap? Would Jesus order a Wendy’s, like he did? Or would Jesus maybe order a Perrier, and then turn it into a Wendy’s?
Alas, we’ll never know!
We do tend to be intrigued, or amused, or disturbed, of perhaps even offended by this story about jars filled with water becoming jars filled with wine, but we need to be careful that we don’t over focus, that we don’t get stuck in the physical action of the beverage change; “curiosity wallowing in the unusual,” as one commentator has put it – because if we get stuck here in the unusual, we may find ourselves assuming that the simple – or not so simple – change of one liquid into another and the resulting social rescue of a bride and bridegroom, that these are the sum total to this piece of Scripture, even if the change does come through the power of the Holy Spirit. We might assume, in the words of the old song, that this is all there is to the miracle. However, the problem is that if we do make this assumption, then we stay forever on the surface of the event and we completely miss John’s point in including it in his Gospel – and of the four Gospels, John’s is the only one that DOES include it.
We also miss John’s point if we try to explain the process of the change, if we try to tame the miracle, try to domesticate it so that we don’t have to deal with improbables; so that we don’t have to adjust or retool any of our convictions about the world or set aside anything that we already KNOW to be fact. But again, there’s a problem here: if we opt out of wrestling with the miracle, opt out of wresting with the impossible, we do end up the poorer for it.
This is an extraordinary happening in Cana, and because it’s extraordinary, it does create difficulties for us, intellectual and spiritual difficulties; because generally speaking, on a day to day basis, water just doesn’t sit there and turn into wine. Wine into vinegar maybe, but not water into wine. It just doesn’t do that; but here, through the action of Jesus, it does.
Now, Jesus says that whoever has seen him has seen God. Therefore, whoever has seen Jesus’ miracle has seen God at work. This being the case, then I think we need to ask ourselves what this particular work of God tells us about God. We need to ask ourselves what, in this season after the Epiphany, this season of revealings, what does this miracle reveal about the nature of God?
For one thing, and somewhat obviously, I think the wedding at Cana in Galilee reveals that God is in favor of marriage as a form of relationship and of personal intimacy as a degree of relationship. In our traditional Prayer Book marriage liturgy we say that “our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by his presence and first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee.” We go on to say that the marriage of two committed individuals “signifies to us the mystery of the union between Christ and his Church.” As two lovers become spiritually and physically intimate through marriage, so Christ and the Church are married and are intimately joined, the one to the other…for better or for worse – which is Good News for the Church, at least!
I think this miracle at Cana also reveals God’s positive embrace of creation and of the fruits of all the vines of the physical world. This isn’t a radical statement today because of our culture’s longstanding embrace of environmental awareness – but things were different in John’s time. John’s first century world was familiar with classic Greek and other early belief systems that exalted the spiritual aspects of life while completely degrading the physical or material. Spiritual was good, physical was bad and corrupt. In this miracle at Cana, however, God counters this viewpoint and clearly says, “My creation is good. My physical world is good.”
And not only is physical life in the physical world good in God’s eyes, celebrating this physical life with food and drink and fellowship is good too. Jesus himself insists on more than one occasion that the kingdom of heaven is like this morning’s wedding banquet; and first century wedding banquets lasted for days and days, and whole towns were invited to join in the festivities – so when Isaiah says that God will rejoice over Jerusalem as a bridegroom rejoices over the bride, he’s talking about God planning to host a very big party; a very big party that all of God’s people, including all of us, are invited to so that we can all celebrate and share our joy with God and with each other.
You say the Prodigal’s back? Let’s have a party! You have the lost sheep? You found the lost coin? Let’s have a party! College football championship tomorrow? Let’s have a party! (What can I say? Ohio State Buckeyes fan.)
Now, all this celebration, all this joy, all this physicality, is revealed and affirmed by this miracle at Cana, but even so we’re still skating around on the miracle’s surface. Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann has said that “The God of the Bible is too lively, too engaged, too rich and full of dramatic power ever to be channeled into neat systematic formulations.” Instead, Brueggemann says, God is “endlessly disturbing and problematic.” God is “endlessly disturbing and problematic”… so let’s look at Cana again.
Now, I can’t remember whether I’m thinking of a movie plot or maybe the reversal of the old pencil-and-paper game Mad Libs, but I do remember something that involved a message that was hidden word by word throughout a completed page of writing. The message was revealed when another piece of paper was placed on top of the first, a piece of paper that had holes cut in it, holes that were spaced according to the message. Now, take another look at the Gospel reading in our service bulletin: if I had a piece of paper with holes in it, this is where the holes would be. These are the phrases that would show through the holes, the phrases that reveal John’s essential message for the faithful who have the eyes to see: “on the third day;” “the first of his signs;” “revealed his glory;” “his disciples believed in him.”
“On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee;” “the Son of Man will be killed and on the third day be raised;” “on the third day he rose again.” For us as Christians, the third day is a day of new life, a day of the inbreaking of God’s kingdom. It’s a day of promise and of assurance, a day that’s a down payment on the fulfillment of our salvation.
Until now, first at the visit of the wise men and then again at Jesus’ baptism, God has been the one to reveal Jesus’ glory as the Beloved Son. With this first miracle after his baptism however, Jesus is now the one who reveals. By telling us that the wedding is on the third day and that on this third day Jesus reveals his glory, John very clearly links this initial miracle and glorification with the ultimate miracle and glorification of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Always the one in control of the action in John, Jesus’ statement here to his mother, “My hour has not yet come,” is balanced by his pronouncement from the cross that “It is finished.” In between Cana and the cross lie Jesus’ earthly ministry and his signs, and this way of the cross is the path his followers will tread. This revelation, the way of the cross, is “the first of his signs.”
Following from this, the Greek word that John uses for “first” here is arche. Arche does mean “the first in a series,” number 1 of however many, but it also means “the beginning.” This miracle is the beginning of that which will end, and begin again, at Calvary. And what is this beginning? Nothing less than the miraculous provision of such a quantity of wine freely given that it would probably take a parish this size a minimum of two years of social events to consume it all. I mean, we’re talking about 180 gallons here.
Abundant, abundant, and even more abundant wine flowing on the hilltops is a powerful Old Testament image of fulfillment, of God’s deliverance and the salvation of the righteous; and here God makes that image of Old Testament fulfillment new, as it becomes Jesus’ first action in ministry, the first revealing of his power and his radiance; and as he provides wine in abundance at the wedding, Jesus soon provides bread in abundance in the feeding of the 5,000, showing forth as he does “the power of an energy” that has been called “the heart, core, and cohesive force of the universe.”
“And his disciples believed in him.” Philosopher and mystic Simone Weil once said that of course God does the impossible. It’s the only thing left to God, she continued, because God has already given the things that are possible to do, to us. The disciples saw the impossibility and the glory of God in Jesus, and here, at the beginning, with the first of his signs, they believed in him. The rest of John, the purpose of everything that follows in John’s Gospel is, in John’s words, “so that [we] [like the disciples] may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God, and that through believing [we] may have life in his name.”
This life, this believing; this is the point of the miracle at Cana, the point we can’t afford to miss: this is the jumping off point of our salvation, and it’s salvation that comes through the God of a love that crackles and sparks; the God of abundance who gives and gives and gives for the sheer joy of giving; the God of graciousness who calls and reaches out and feeds, asking only that we too believe in Jesus and follow.
Remember Brueggemann’s words: God is “endlessly disturbing and problematic.” God is “endlessly disturbing and problematic” simply because, and especially because, God insists on being in relationship with us. God asks us to open ourselves, asks us to trust God with everything, and to hide nothing in ourselves from God. God asks us to risk being transformed for good.
How we respond to God’s invitation, how much we’re willing to trust and to give is up to each one of us – but think about it for a moment. Do we really want to reach the end of our days, to look back at our path and our life and our choices and find ourselves saying, “Oh man – I could have had the wine!”
Is this a frivolous miracle? I think not. All these things, including the miracle at Cana, are written and attested to so that we may have life in the name of Jesus, and may have it abundantly.
Amen.