Wedding at Cana

It was the wedding of the year.

Months of preparation were finally culminating in a huge celebration.

No expense had been spared. The father of the bride had been saving for this day since his daughter was born.

The reception was at the new Crown Plaza hotel in downtown Memphis. The bride: a full-blooded Italian and also Catholic. My mom was her maid of honor.

At midnight, the concierge came to the father of the bride and said they had reached their cap on the wine.They had way more guests than expected and everything he purchased and everything he brought with him was running out.

The father of the bride looked at the man and with s big grin said “let it flow.”

Until 2 in the morning, the band played, the people sang, everyone danced the tarantella over and over, and they let it flow.

In the gospel of John, Jesus began his ministry at a similar wedding party. This wasn’t just a one-night event,but often lasted several days. There was feasting and dancing and singing and the best wine flowing.

That is, until it didn’t.

We don’t know whose wedding this is. We don’t know whether or not this is a friend or relative or someone else entirely. But here at the reception we see Mary, only referenced in John’s gospel as the mother of Jesus, notice that the wine is about to run out.

That would have been a scandal. An embarrassment. A faux pas. A poor reflection on the hospitality of the bride and groom.

Mary goes and gives Jesus a nudge in saying “hey, they’re almost out of wine.” As in, if you don’t do something, then this celebration, this banquet, is about to end. Surely you’ve been there. You are at a party and you have run out of ice. You are at church on Communion Sunday and you run out of bread and find yourself saying “the body of Christ, broken for you” over donuts. Or maybe you are out of resources, coming up short, or running on empty. The good wine is gone. Party’s over. Time to go home.

Why does Mary go to Jesus? Has she seen miracles of her own? Is she expecting something greater?

And then Jesus answers in what seems to be a callous way saying “what concern is that of mine? It isn’t my time yet.” Jesus isn’t saying this in a derogatory way like “woman” but more in a way of saying “I’m not ready yet. It isn’t time.”

If this isn’t his time, then what is?

Mary doesn’t respond to Jesus. She doesn’t answer him. She instead turns to the servants and out of her persistence says, “whatever he tells you, do it.” Elise says “And we love this Mary. She's gone from the “handmaid of the Lord” to “come on, Jesus.” Almost as if she's mothered him all this time and knows his heart. We can imagine her saying within herself, “Look, Jesus. From the day you were conceived, I knew you were different and you've been waiting and waiting for the perfect moment to be ready. And if you keep waiting, the readiness will still be just out of reach.” In the gospel of John we don’t get Jesus tempted in the wilderness but instead get Mary tugging at Jesus’s sleeve saying “they’re out of wine.” What does it look like for us in the midst of our own crisis or witnessing the crisis of others to nudge and tug at Jesus saying “can’t you see they’re almost out of wine.”

Six stoneware water pots were there. These water pots were empty but would have been used for Jewish ritual cleansing. They weren’t exactly what you might have used for wine at a wedding reception, but these ritual water pots were huge. A friend of mine shared photos from his trip to the Holy Land a few years ago. They went to the church of the site where they believed this miracle to have occured. Inside in a glass case sits one of the jars found there that was supposed to have been involved in this miracle. It isn’t a small jug or even the size of a large planter. Standing next to it, it would come up to your waist. We are told that each one held up to 20-30 gallons of water. That’s enough for 180 gallons.

That’s enough to let it flow.

Jesus looks at the empty water jars and instructs the servants to fill the jars with water. They do it. He then instructs them to draw some into the pitchers and take it to the host. And so they do. Don’t you wish you could have seen their faces as they dipped their pitchers into the water and watched the wine pour in?

And not just any wine we are told.

As the host takes the first sip, he calls out to the bridegroom and says “Everybody I know begins with their finest wines and after the guests have had their fill brings in the cheap stuff. But you’ve saved the best till now!” They thought the party was about to end. That their resources had run out. Jesus could have turned water into the cheap wine as everyone expected, but instead, Jesus makes it even better. He breaks out the good stuff and lets it flow.

This water-to-wine conversion is only mentioned in John’s gospel, and is mentioned as the first of the signs or miracles intended to reveal who Jesus is. Why would John bother placing Jesus’s first miracle at a wedding feast?

Wedding imagery is rich in Jewish tradition, pointing to the time of God’s deliverance and blessing for Israel (Isaiah 61:10; see also Revelation 19:7–9; 21:2). Revelation 19 refers to Jerusalem as a bride adorned for her husband and “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the lamb. Alongside the bridegrooom and wedding feast imagery, abundant wine is part of how that promised day of celebration is imagined (Joel 3:18; Isaiah 25:6). Isaiah 25:6 says On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine—the best of meats and the finest of wines.” Joel 3:18 begins with “on that day the mountains will drip with sweet wine.”

A wedding feast and abundant wine carried with it long-held imagery of what we call messianic hope, hope for the arrival of the Messiah. But on the outside looking in, the miracle seems a bit underrated. The only ones who know it even happens are Jesus, Mary, and the servants behind the scenes. Once again it seems, Jesus reveals himself not to the host of the party or even the bride and groom but to those serving everyone else. The One who came to serve reveals his power to the ones who are serving.

So what does all of this tell us about Jesus. Jesus happens to be an excellent winemaker, but what complexities and notes and richness lie beneath this first sign?

This abundance of wine is a sign of God’s own abundance, of kingdom abundance, and of overflowing grace. James McBride Dabbs says “ The sign at Cana tells us that Jesus served a God who puts joy into life, who thinks it is worth a miracle to keep the party going as we celebrate people...Jesus of Nazareth celebrated people—people getting married, people being healed of disease and deformity, people enjoying meals together. He carried a spirit of celebration with him wherever he went as he proclaimed a God of mercy and peace and joy. This joyous feast at Cana is still a sign to the church that we are to rejoice in the people of God and to toast the world with the amazing good news of grace.” David Steele, a Christian pastor and author, refers to this spirit of celebration as “Cana-Grace,” the grace of radical hospitality and generous celebration. Grace that saves the best for last.

Jesus used something that wine didn’t even belong in and chose to make wine there. An old vessel became the carrier of the first miracle and sign. I wonder in our lives if there are metaphorical water pitchers sitting around. We don’t think God can do much with them. Sometimes our homes can feel like an empty water pitcher. Our offices. Empty spaces. Old materials. Maybe we need that “come on Jesus” faith of Mary and the excitement over watching God do something wonderful with something we have had just lying around. Might Jesus turn all of our vessels of not enough into abundant, delicious, overflowing wine. Might there be miracles that evolve in ways we didn’t anticipate or expect.

*I came to you a year and a half ago friends thinking I didn’t have much to give. I of course was eager to serve, but felt like I had been poured out. Ever been there? And then in God’s goodness, I was filled with grace of God in and through you. And I learned that indeed there is a wellspring, there is new wine that can happen in this old vessel of mine. That’s what God’s Cana grace does with our lives. As we draw nearer and nearer to God, we draw out something new, something fresh, something sweet.

As Jan Richardson shares in her blessing,

“You thought you had learned to live with the empty, the hollow.

You could place your ear against the rim of the vessel of your life and hear its ringing echo with equanimity, not expecting any more not even bothered (almost) to be a bystander at the feast— if not delighting in the celebration at least not despairing in it.

When the water rushed into the emptiness you were surprised that you were surprised, that you could even feel the sudden wellspring when you thought all had been poured out.

And then suddenly the sweetness that stuns you that tells you this was not all, this was not the end

that this blessing was saving the best for last.”

This year, may the vessels of our lives overflow with Cana grace, with the sweet goodness of God appearing when and where we least expect it.

Let you grace flow O God, so that we too may believe.