Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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We begin a wedding by reminding the congregation, the "dearly beloved" (most of whom are married), that marriage is an honorable estate, instituted of God and adorned and beautified by Christ when he attended a wedding at Cana of Galilee. And here we are, today, in Cana. This is the inaugural event of Jesus' ministry, his first miracle: turning water into wine at a wedding feast.

Thank God Even for Little Miracles

The caterer, who was responsible for the party (and obviously embarrassed because the only wine he knew of was gone) tasted the wine that had suddenly appeared, and drew a perfectly reasonable conclusion -- that the groom was so generous, so gracious a host, that (contrary to custom) he had hidden his best wine and saved it for last. The disciples, on the other hand, came to a different conclusion: John says, simply, "they believed." Different explanations for the same event provide a lesson for us. If our hearts are prepared to see miracles -- if we have what Peter Marshall called "the spectacles of faith" -- we see wonders everywhere. If not, we will find other explanations. Two people are healed of serious illnesses. One will thank God; the other thanks only the doctor. Two live rich, with fancy cars and lots of gravy on their plates. One will acknowledge that such things come by God's grace, and will be generous. The other will take the credit, and be selfish. Our outward circumstances are important, but how we see our outward circumstances (how we interpret what happens) is even more important.

Life is a Precious Miracle

So Jesus turns water into wine, something immediately open to interpretation -- as is all life. To talk of miracles today is atonal, dissonant. Like someone singing off key. Miracle talk troubles us because it is at odds with our conventional ways of explaining things. But without a sense of miracle, where is hope? Is life merely food, and the body merely clothing? Without the miracle of resurrection, life becomes a long, weary march to oblivion. Without the miracle of love, all human relationships are manipulative, using others for our own satisfaction. Without the miracle of atonement we are lost in sin and guilt. Without the miracle of conversion, we are condemned always to be what we were. Life itself is a miracle, or else we are only chemicals and pipes and wires. To speak of miracles may seem strange, but where are we without them?

Aren't you amazed to what heights life can rise and to what depths it can sink? Some rise on eagles' wings while others sink in whirlpools of despair. Life is abundant for some, destitute for others. Some wish to live forever, while others cannot bear to live out even the years God gives them. The difference is hope -- Dante was right with his sign over the gates of Hell. The difference is a sense of miracle, of expectation, of tomorrow. The difference is the belief that water can become wine, that sinners can become saints, that the dead are but asleep and will wake someday.

The New Wine of the Gospel is a Wonderous Miracle

Of course, John is a great writer, so a story is never just a story for him, nor is a miracle only a miracle. For John, Jesus' miracles (beginning here in Cana) are the solemn and sacred seals of his doctrine. That is: Why should we believe what Jesus said? Why should we live as he told us to live? Because, anyone who can turn water to wine (and make the lame walk and the blind see, and all the rest), needs to be listened to, that's why! But there's more: this miracle has a little bit of communion in it, so that at the beginning and again at the end of Jesus' ministry he does something wonderful with wine. John tells us Jesus was an invitee to this party -- not there as one of the family -- with the clear suggestion that we should invite Jesus into our marriages, and he will make them enjoyable. The story hints of the new wine of the Gospel which burst the old wineskins of Judaism. There is a lot here.

But, to me, the most interesting thing about the Cana story, as John tells it, is the quantity of wine involved: six stone jars of twenty or thirty gallons each. Maybe a hundred and fifty gallons of wine! ("A fool and his money are some party!") Every commentator on this story notices it. This is not simply a miracle of transformation -- one glass of wine would have been enough for that. It is a miracle of abundance, of extravagance, of new and unlimited possibilities. Jesus said, "I am come that ye might have life, and that ye might have it more abundantly." And here we come to a great paradox of our faith: for the one who wrote this gospel, and those who first read it, were enduring difficult lives which we would consider anything but abundant: poor, powerless, persecuted for their faith, hiding, always in fear for their lives. Yet there was a new wine in them. They had found a joy, an abundance of life, which they attributed to Jesus. And that joy became a contagion.

Disciples of Christ Enjoy Abundant, Eternal Life

We should not think of the early Christians as "cockeyed optimists," silly people as corny as Kansas in August. They were flesh and blood men and women, like us, who did not like to suffer, who grieved the loss of loved ones, who feared the lions and the gladiators and the wild dogs as much as we would. But there was life in them. Abundant life, eternal life. And it showed. It always shows. One fine person, who was a strong spiritual influence on me when I was young, told of the days before God found him. He was close to becoming an alcoholic, and lived most of his days in despair. All joy had gone out of him. But he came to our church one Sunday, at his wife's insistence, and attended an adult Sunday School class with her. Now this was a fun class, where members shared each others joys and sorrows, and enjoyed each other's fellowship. He said to us, years later, "It opened my eyes. I never knew Christians could have so much fun." What was it that converted him? A sermon? No. A Bible verse. No. It was the laughter of those Christian people, who obviously had some kind of wine in them that he didn't know about. Jesus is the source of that wine.

A B-29 pilot of World War II tells of limping back to England one night, over enemy territory, after a bombing raid on Germany. "Our plane had been hit, and the engines kept stopping and starting. They would run for a minute or two, then sputter and die, then start up again. In the darkness we listened intently for their sound. It's trite, I know, but for us it was literally a matter of life and death." So often we are flying in the dark, in enemy territory, and listening hopefully, faithfully for the sounds of our spiritual engines, so that we will not crash and be lost. That is the stark choice before us: life or death. Life abundant with Christ, or an empty life without him. A party with plenty of good wine, or a lot of people in a big room with nothing to make life good. Life at the foot of the table with the hope of being asked to move forward, or life at the head of the table with no place to go. Life whose treasure is here on earth (where moth and rust doth corrupt, and thieves break in and steal), or life whose treasure is in heaven. When we invite Jesus to our lives, he makes life better -- abundantly, extravagantly better.

Now Jesus lived and gave his love
To make our life and loving new.
So celebrate with him today,
And drink the joy he offers you.
That makes the simple moment shine,
And changes water into wine.