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One of the nagging questions that many people have about God is, does God care about my daily grind? Are my struggles and dilemmas and questions things that touch God? They seem big to me, but do they matter to God? Will God enter into my life to make my life different, better, effective? Today’s Bible story says yes.
In the first chapter of John, it says that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. God, who spoke the world into being, became a human being and bumped elbows with people like you and me. God is here, with us, in Jesus.
In the succeeding chapters of his Gospel, John begins to explain how Jesus’ presence in the world changes things. His presence is transforming. It brings light in the darkness and life where there is death. Hope in the midst of hopelessness. He does this in the midst of some of the most ordinary experiences of life. Today, we will see Jesus doing all of these things at a wedding.
Summer at the Shore: A Wedding
Well, let’s talk about marriage a bit, since that is the theme of the day.
Here are some random thoughts that I encountered this week:
Marriage is when a man and a woman become as one. The trouble starts when they try to decide which one. (story file 18.7.6)
Mae West once said, “Marriage is a great institution, but I’m not ready for an institution yet!” (story file, 18.7.3)
The honeymoon is over when the husband calls home to say he’ll be late for dinner, and the answering machine says it is in the microwave. (story file, 18.7.4)
I recently read that the average American wedding costs over $20,000. The wedding puts many couples, or their parents, in debt. In some cases, the couple is divorced before the wedding is paid off.
Even in the best of situations, marriage is hard work. A lot of people say that marriage is a 50-50 proposition, but I don’t agree with that a bit. For a marriage to work, it’s got to be each partner putting in 100%. And one more thing. Do what the couple at Cana did. Invite Jesus. Invite Jesus to be present not only at the wedding, but in the marriage and in the home. In the decisions and dilemmas, in the celebrations and in the struggles. It will make all the difference in the world.
Jesus was invited to a wedding in Cana. And he went. That is true to his character. Jesus wants to be involved in the events of our lives. He wants to be invited. And if we invite him, he will do for us what he did for the wedding at Cana. He will turn the insipid water of our lives into the wine of new life.
Having brought up the subject of wine, I need to quickly say that this story is not about wine. It’s not about whether you should drink wine or not. Nor is it about marriage, either. Both the wine and the wedding are symbols for us. The story is about what happens when you invite Jesus to be an active part of your life. The wine is a symbol of life and celebration and hope and possibility. The wedding is a symbol of God’s relationship with people. Throughout the Bible, the wedding is used as an illustration of the intimate relationship that God has with the people of God. In First Century Israel, weddings were an even bigger deal than they are for us. A wedding celebration would often last a whole week. And the entire town would be involved. Sometime during the festivities the groom would go to the bride’s house, and escort her to their new home. Jesus’ presence at the wedding was an announcement. God has come to claim his bride.
This story turns on two important comments about the wine. “They have no more wine,” Jesus’ mother complains. And then, “you have saved the best wine till now.”
They have no more wine. For the couple getting married in Cana, this was more than just an embarrassing moment. This was a genuine crisis, because in that culture, certain social customs had to be followed to the T, and if they were not, that brought shame on the couple, and in fact, it could bring legal proceedings as well. So, you don’t want to run out of wine at a wedding. Yet, someone had miscalculated. The wine ran out. The party was in danger of dying an early death, and the couple instead of going off on a wonderful honeymoon, would have to hide their faces in shame and face a lawsuit.
For that couple, it’s devastating, but there is a deeper theological statement being made here. Jesus is entering the world, coming to claim his people. Yet the people of God have, in essence, lost their faith. The life of the Spirit has drained right out of them. Their so-called spiritual life was really just a human institution. God had been voted out. They have no more wine.
It is so easy for faith to turn into ritual. What begins as a lively relationship of trust gets fossilized into certain habits that become more important than the main point, which is simply being with God, following where God leads. There might be lots of ways to illustrate that point, but my favorite is the old story about the man who had a habit of having his prayer time early in the morning. It was very important to him to spend time with God, but the problem was that he had a cat. And the cat was very social, and would interrupt the prayer time. So the man got into a habit of tying the cat to the bedpost, so that he could have his prayer time in peace. Well, this man was old, and one day he died. His house and his cat went to his daughter. The daughter knew nothing about prayer, nor did she care, but every morning she faithfully tied the cat to the bed, because that was what her father had done.
They have no more wine was a statement about the world into which Jesus was entering. And it could be a statement that fits our lives in different areas. Maybe your marriage has lost its spark. Maybe you no longer have the eagerness you once had for your occupation. Maybe your kids have worn you out. Or, the problems of your life just have worn you down.
If the wine has run out in some area of your life, consider this: Jesus is not limited to the way things are. Jesus is not limited to what we see with our eyes or perceive with our minds. Jesus’ presence in the world and in our lives can transform the dull lifeless realities into something completely new and alive and full of hope. In the process, he will also challenge the habits and priorities that we think are so valuable, but which do nothing for our spiritual life and growth.
When Jesus turned the water into wine, the water was in six big stone water pots. Each one held 20-30 gallons of water. These weren’t any old water pots. They were there for a specific religious ritual—washing of hands. This was a ritual of the “tying the cat to the bed” variety. It was something people insisted on doing, but it did nothing in terms of connecting people to God. The stone water pots stood as symbols of the fossilized faith of the people of God. To say it in terms I think will make sense to you, they thought they were following God, but in fact they were just doing their own thing. Their faith had become simply a set of habits that did nothing for them.
But when Jesus is invited to the wedding, all sorts of possibilities abound, don’t they? And when Jesus turns the water into wine, he is doing more than saving a bride and groom from embarrassment. He is announcing to the world that he is replacing the old dead useless forms of religion, with his very self.
You have saved the best wine till now, the steward said. And notice that it is also an abundance of the best wine. When Jesus comes, he brings the best and the most. There is no lack. With Jesus, you can always say with confidence, the best is yet to come.
The challenge of the story of the wedding at Cana is simply this: invite Jesus into the events of your life. The celebrations, the sorrows, the drudgery, the problems. Invite him everywhere in your life. Expect him to do some amazing things there. And expect to feel some dissonance, too, because he will challenge you to grow and to change. He won’t just come in and sit around doing nothing when the wine has run out. He is here to replace the old ineffective systems of our lives with his very life and grace and abundance.