Water into Wine

The Wedding in Cana is possibly the most famous story about the gift that is wine. For a long while I read this intro passage of John 2, with not much care, or thought. It is often quoted by fellow believers around me, when I begin some tangent about Gavi, or the Regent plantings in Sweden. It’s an obvious tale that seems very straight forward, but I’d long since assumed there was deeper meaning. I’d just never bothered to investigate, and left it at the surface level thought, “Jesus loved wine so much, he made it from water,” which of course is a total admonishment of any proper exegesis this story deserves.

Our Savior on many occasions uses miracles to demonstrate not only his power, but things to come, even things we might not yet understand. I’m not a pastor, or proper theologian, but I’ve decided to study this story in-depth because I have a clear reason to do it for this editorial: It’s wine related.

I skipped this story in my article about Wine and its Folly, which you can read here, mostly because it wasn’t really relevant to the paper which discussed proper Christian consumption, and thought about wine. However, some use this passage as an excuse to drink, the rationale being, “Well Jesus turned water into wine, that means I can drink it.” And for some, as discussed in the prior article, that’s just not wise. As Solomon writes in Proverbs, “Who has woe, who has sorrow,… Those who tarry over much wine… it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder…”

From John 2:1 (ESV), “On the third day, there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus was also invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine,’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

So let me take moment to focus on this first part. The wine had run out, and in Hebrew custom, as it is today, wine was a huge part of festivities like weddings and feasts. For the wine to run out is essentially embarrassing to the wedding party, and a killjoy to the guests, nonetheless, not a major concern for Jesus’ ministry.

We get the sense without background information that this was a wedding of some friends of Mary, as the text states that Mary was invited, and in a latter sentence, Jesus was as well. They may not have even known that they were both going to be at the wedding as Jesus had been away calling the first disciples, which we can see in the last passage, John 1. Mary clearly felt in her heart a desire to help the wedding party save face amidst this predicament, and called on Jesus in whom she knew could help.

Jesus replies, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” The hour Jesus is referencing is the one which he continues to reference thought the Gospels. It is unbeknownst to Mary and the disciples what he means. We can see this time he is referencing in Luke 9:22, as well as Matthew 17:22 (ESV), “The son of man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him and he will be raised from the dead on the third day.”

Mary likely has heard Jesus reference his time before, and persists, believing him capable of remedying the situation, regardless of how insignificant. She tells the servants to do as Jesus asks. Jesus then commands the servants to retrieve the six purification buckets, and fill them with water, then take them to the Master of the Feast.

“Now there were six stone water jars there for the rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the Servants, ‘Fill the Jars with water.’ And they filled them to the brim. And he said to them, ‘Now draw some out and take it to the Master of the Feast.”

I would like to now draw your attention to the passage at Luke 22:10, this is much later in Jesus’ ministry where he is instructing the setup of the passover.

“Behold when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jug of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters, and tell the Master of the House, ‘The teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat passover with my disciples? And he will show you a large upper room.”

Very similar to the wedding in Cana, Jesus’ first miracle, that according to scripture, showed the disciples his glory, we now see Jesus directing Peter and John to find a man holding a jug of water for passover. Now the disciples are commanded to follow the man with the water jug into a room, where they will consume the wine of the Last Supper. And if we recall what passover represents in scripture via Luke 22:20, “…’This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.’”

We know that the wine represents Jesus’ covenant of blood, and we see him commanding the servants to pour a cup for the Master of the Feast, similarly the cup that is poured out for the disciples to receive.

“So they took it. When the Master of the Feast tasted the water, now become wine, and did not know where it came from, (Though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom, and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.”

This is one of my favorite verses in the Bible, “You have kept the good wine until now.” But what is until now? I think Jesus answers this with his disciples in Luke 22:18, “For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God comes.”

The water represents the lives we live now in faith, Jesus is the way to salvation, and the wine represents Jesus' blood poured out for us. If you look even deeper, these were purification vats at the wedding, symbolic of a life purified in Jesus Christ, that through his promise we may be able to start as empty containers, be filled by the holy spirit, and receive the promise of wine to come.

If we look at the Parable of the Feast in Luke 14, we see the man inviting the many, and receiving excuses, and asking his servant to go to the streets gather the crippled, the lame, the blind and the weak, lest those who were invited shall never taste the feast. One must be humble, and meek to enter the kingdom of God, for anyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and anyone who humbles himself will be exalted. Otherwise we will never enjoy the feast on the last day.

Just as Mary called on Jesus, or the disciples obeyed Jesus’s command to follow the man with the water jug, we must call upon Jesus, and obey his commands, walking in his ways as solemn believers do, with contrite hearts in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, and the feast, and wine that awaits us at the table of God.

Thus, the Wedding in Cana has much deeper meaning than simply, “Jesus liked wine so much he turned water into it.” Jesus turned water into wine to demonstrate the power of his blood in the transformation of the wicked into the saints, and the ushering in of the promise of eternal life. As the servant said, everyone else serves the good wine fist, but the Lord has kept the good wine to come.

That’s all,

~K