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If we focus only on the miracle of water becoming wine, we miss what is perhaps the most
important point of todays gospel.
Whenever I encounter this text, it causes me to think about what it is that I believe
about miracles.
This morning, I would ask you to once again enter this familiar story and see what we
might find together.
Now, to begin with, it is important to remember that the event of the Wedding
at Cana is recorded only in the Gospel of John. More importantly, it is the first
public miracle that this gospel records.
Jesus has just been baptized, and called disciples, and now he is attending a
very common event with them and his mother: a wedding.
A wedding in those days was a multi-day celebration that would involve the
whole community, and wine was very much a part of the celebration.
For when it would run out, it was certainly a signal that the end of the
celebration was at hand.
And it was this disturbing news that Jesus own mother brings to himthere
was no more wine.
Now, you might ask yourself, Why does Mary care?
And perhaps even more curiously, what does she think Jesus can do
about it?
And so we witness a kind of odd exchange between Jesus and his mother.
After Mary tells him there is no more wine, Jesus, in a rather cryptic and
short manner, replies to his beloved Mother, What does that have to do
with you and me? My hour has not yet come.
Yet despite these words, Jesus goes ahead and remedies the situation by
having large jars filled with water, jars that would normally by used only
for purification before worship.
He then turns this water into wine, but not just any wine, rather it is the
best wine of the entire wedding celebration.
So of all the miracles that Jesus could have performed such as healing the blind
or the lame, or even the raising someone from the dead, Jesus first miracle as he
begins his public ministry is to turn water into an alcoholic beverage.
At the end, there was little left but the most mundane events of
Jesus life and the most cryptic sayings of Jesus that they figured
must have been true.
For the scholars of the Jesus Seminar, they had removed what seemed
unnecessary.
In a way, they were trying to save Jesus, to save God from superstition.
But in the end, they ended up with not a more pure and holy gospel, but
rather a gospel full of holes.
Now up to this point, we have focused on the miracle of water becoming wine, but if
this is our only focus then we miss what is perhaps the most important point of our
gospel: in the beginning the jars are empty.
The jars are not simply full of water, waiting for Jesus to turn this water into
something else.
There is nothing in the jars. They are dry and parched.
If we are honest with ourselves, we would recognize ourselves in the story.
We are those empty jars in Cana.
And there are times in our life when we recognize this truth.
Perhaps after the breakup of a relationship.
Or the loss of a loved one.
Laid off from a job.
Caught in cycle of an addiction that never quite satisfies.
We spend a lifetime trying to fill these jars with stuff, with careers and
possessions and relationships, but in the end there is only one person who can fill
our emptiness.
It is the one who created us and who loved us enough to die for us.
It is the living God, our Lord.
A God who not only fills us with life, but miraculously creates us anew.
John 1:1-5
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the
beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came
into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.The light
shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
If we start with a cross and a resurrection, then we are forced into a few things.
If Christ was raised from the dead, what is it to God to turn water into wine?
If Christ was raised from the dead, what is it to God to turn you and me from
our addictions, our destructive behavior, our lack of love for those around us?
What is it to God to raise us to new life in him and at the last trumpet raise us
all from the dead?
The same God, creator of the universe is still at work.
The same spirit that hovered over the waters of an uncreated world hovers over
us now.
Water into wine.
Unbelief into faith.
Death into life.
Indifference into love.
Jesus is the Word, the instigator, the change-agent that re-creates creation.
In Gods image.