the miracle of wine from water

No doubt Jesus had a huge impact on the wedding after-party in Cana.

No one much likes it when the alcohol runs out, least of all the host. In those days, running out of wine at your wedding was more than a letdown. It was embarrassing to the point of humiliation. Some even say that the party was a reflection on the married life to come; a party that runs out of wine signifies a bitter and disappointing future.

I’ve come to believe that the miracle here is not so much that Jesus produced 750+ bottles of wine out of thin air, but that he produced abundance from scarcity for the sake of his friend. The real miracle is that Jesus cared what the community had to say about the bridegroom and he cared what the bridegroom thought about himself.

God cares about our reputations, both the way others talk about us and the way we think and talk about ourselves.

Jesus wasn’t about to let his friend be cast as stingy, or let the party end in social humiliation. He produced wine from water so that his friend would be seen as generous.

This is the way Jesus begins his ministry in John, which goes a very long way in telling us what Jesus is doing in the fourth Gospel. Jesus is out for our personal and social redemption. In other words, he cares about our relationships with God and one another. And he cares about the relationships that we have with ourselves.

Jesus displays a tenderness and compassion for his friends that he passes on to us. He cares about the problems of ordinary, every day people, and page by page in this gospel, he teaches us all how to grow closer to God and one another.

He leaves the wedding and cleanses the temple, restoring the sanctity of our holy places; then talks about being born from above to the religious leader Nicodemus. He talks with a Samaritan woman and heals the son of a royal official. He heals a man who cannot walk and feeds 5000, all the while giving glory to the God who makes us one.

Jesus isn’t secretive in this gospel. Straight up, he says he’s come from God and that God has given him his power and exhorts us to be one. He changing our names as we read, moving us from selfishness to unity. Want more? Click here to read John 2:1-11.

who do you say I am?

It’s interesting that Jesus asks his disciples: “Who do people say I am?”

Is he really interested in the local gossip? Is he taking the political temperature? Does he want to know if his messages are clear enough?

I’ll never know his reasoning, but it does make me think about how I do the same thing.

I wonder what people are saying about me when I’m not around, and whether it’s flattering or not.  I wonder what people take away from my conversation. I wonder if people hear in my sermons what I mean for them to hear.

I wonder what people think of me; whether I’m a good pastor, wife, mother, sister, daughter, aunt, daughter-in-law, friend. Sometimes I ask them, too. Then when they tell me, I wonder, "Are they telling me the truth?"

There’s nothing unusual in that. Perhaps we all wonder.

The danger comes in using that wondering and feedback as a determination for my own self-worth, or worse yet, my identity.  Dangerous because my sense of myself becomes dependent upon what others think or say about me, or even what I think about myself. If people say positive things I’m up, and if they say negative things, I’m down. If I’m having a “bad day,” I feel worthless.

I don’t know why Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?,” but I do know that he didn’t use that feedback to build himself up or to tear himself down.  He didn’t talk to himself with the same kind of self-doubt I’m prone to. Rather, he went away to quiet places to pray and reconnect himself with the God of the vast universe.  He listened to the still, small voice that spoke his identity at his baptism, “You are my son, my beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Scripture tells us that’s our identity, too.  We’ve been grafted onto the tree of life and given the genealogy of the beloved son.  Does it matter what others say about you? Not so much. Draw your strength from the rock from which you were hewn. 
Want more? Click here to read Isaiah 51.