The Wedding and the Wine

It's funny what happens when you come back to a story that you haven't read in a while. This morning I read the story of the wedding at Cana, the site of Jesus' first act of power, in John 2. I have a very different viewpoint on this story, and the bible in general, than I had years ago.

A brief synopsis: Jesus and his disciples are at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee. When the wine runs out, Jesus' mother brings the issue to his attention, drawing what seems to be an irritated response from Jesus. In an interesting little exchange, Jesus' mother, ignoring his vexation, turns to the servants and instructs them to do whatever Jesus tells them to do. Doesn't that sound like something a mother would do? He has the servants fill six stone jugs, which were intended to be used for the Jewish purification rites, with water. Jesus then has the Chief Steward, the person in charge of making this wedding go off properly (kind of a 1st century wedding planner), sample the wine. The Chief Steward, unaware of the source of the wine, remarks to the bridegroom (whose honor was on the line if the wedding feast didn't meet expectations) that the best wine had been saved till last.

What's fascinating to me is the way Jesus re-purposes vessels intended for use in the Jewish purification rituals, filling them up with new wine that was better than the guests had received until that point. Even the bit about the way the inferior wine was usually served last adds to the meaning. The implication is that the Chief Steward *had* been serving the best that was available; what Jesus created was even better than that. Judaism was the best that was available until Jesus came; he created new wine, a new opportunity, something better and more like what God had intended since Abraham. There would be no use for purification rituals; Jesus would be, himself, the purifying act, who would fill empty stone vessels. One could even connect this image to Ezekiel 36, in which God promises to remove from us our hearts of stone and replace them with hearts of flesh.

The wedding feast was in danger of failing, of not being what it was supposed to be. Jesus rescues it with an act of creative power. Wedding imagery is a crucial lens through which the bible views our relationship with God, for bad (e.g., the wife of Hosea in the book that bears his name) or for good (e.g., Isaiah 62 or Matthew 22.1-14). It's so very appropriate that Jesus performs this miracle at this time in this place. The wedding God has always planned, where he would take us to be his bride forever, was on the brink of failure. Things were not as God had intended them, but Jesus changed everything with one act of creative power. What we have now is better than the best that was available then.

Of course, this all may be the merest coincidence. John may not have meant to convey all of the things I'm writing about. There's really no solid evidence that he did. I might be making all of this up, casting back into the story the things I believe to be true in retrospect. Maybe God does mean for us to know all of these things though, and it may be that he doesn't much care where they come from so long as they come.

It may just be me though. I'm prone to these kind of thoughts, here in this dark room early in the morning.