As a progressive Christian, I believe there are many names for God and many ways to a loving God; this article reflects one of those ways. Take from here what works for you. Celebrate life with joy and peace!
I love love! I love to celebrate love! And one of the best places for that is a wedding! I’m so lucky; I get the best seat in the house! There are times when I’ve had to fight back the tears as the love being expressed was so profound and palpable. And there are other times when funny things can happen, that maybe aren’t so funny at the moment, but later, looking back, get a good laugh!
In the Gospel of John, Jesus attended a wedding at Cana in Galilee and at that wedding there was a crisis, and it was not so funny – they ran out of wine! Now, in that culture, a wedding feast was the biggest event in village life, with the newlyweds treated like royalty for several days of ritual and festivities. It was the host’s responsibility to provide everything for the festivities and to ever run out of anything would be an insult to your neighbors and a big embarrassment for yourself.
John’s gospel is called the “metaphorical gospel” by Biblical Scholars meaning that John wrote in such a way that intentionally invited the reader to look deeper than the literal story and to interpret the stories metaphorically. So, the stories in John’s Gospel, and many other places in the Bible, have multiple layers of meaning into which we can go deeper and deeper. For John’s community of faith, the meaning of Jesus is revealed by unpacking the metaphors and exploring the deeper layers of meaning.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus is presented as what some call the creative energy of God taking expression in a human life. John begins his gospel by speaking of the Divine Word or “Logos” in Greek. Many of you will recognize this passage: “In the beginning was the Word. (The Word) was in the beginning with God … All things came into being through (the Word) … What has come into being was life, and the life was the light of all people … and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us …”
The “Logos” or the Word, was understood as God’s living creative energy through which authentic life came into being; not just biological life, but fullness of life, richness of life, quality of life. John’s Gospel affirms that this Divine creative energy was present in the person of Jesus.
John begins this story with the words, “the third day.” So, already in the first three words we get a glimpse at how John uses layers of meaning and metaphor. “The third day” on the one hand, could be a literal reference to the story that precedes it, like three days later. But on the other hand, if we go deeper, we see it also as a reference meant to remind us of the resurrection – “the third day.” This could be John’s way of telling his readers that the creative life-giving energy of God that the disciples personally experienced in the life of Jesus is also present in the risen Christ! The ongoing presence of Jesus that they continued to experience in their community of faith some six decades later when this gospel was written.
And Jesus, filled with this creative life-giving energy, changed the water into wine – and a lot of it! Let’s do the arithmetic: Six stone jars at about 30 gallons each comes to 180 gallons! That’s a lot of wine! That’s an abundance of wine!
And here at this point, we are again invited to explore the layers of metaphorical meaning. We can get all hung up on the literalness of the story. We can argue if this really happened or not, or if the wine was actually fermented, or, we can go deeper.
The six stone water jars were for the purpose of the rites and rituals of purification. Their function was ceremonial not hygienic. Let’s go deeper. In other words, the jars could metaphorically represent a religion that had, for some, become hardened by legalisms and rituals; a religion that God mired in its own dogma, a religion that was more concerned about correctness than compassion; exclusion than inclusion; self-satisfaction than social justice.
Jesus had them first fill the jars with water, which was their natural state and function for ceremonial ritual. And then the waters were transformed into wine; something radically new, unconventional and some would say wild and crazy!
In verse three, John says, “the wine ran out” which started the panic and crisis. Sometimes in life the wine just runs out. Somehow, somewhere, someplace, sometime and in some circumstance, the wine in your life and my life is going to run out. The wine runs out!
How do you know when your wine has run out? You know the wine has run out when your religion does more to separate you from others than to connect you with others.
You know your wine has run out when you face a crisis like sickness, great loss, failure, betrayal, divorce, estrangement, your own mortality and you are only filled with fear, regret, guilt, anger, depression or despair.
You know your wine has run out when you become aware, in a moment of honest clarity, that all of your hectic running around, all of your consuming, all of your busyness, all of your thrill-seeking is only a mechanism to cover up the muffled voice of anxiety whispering in the depths of your soul that you are feeling empty and hollow.
You know your wine has run out when you face profound disappointment, when things don’t work out like you expected and you feel as if the best days of your life are lost, never to come again.
You know your wine has run out when your life reaches a place where you are reduced to saying, “What happened? How did I get here?”
Several years ago I took a trip to Switzerland with my dad and stepmom. My stepmom’s family comes from there and we were trying to find some of the villages that her family came from generations ago. We got on a train and about 6 p.m. found ourselves at the end of the line, in a little village nestled in the mountains; it was picturesque and so peaceful. We were the only ones on that train, and the station was closed and so we carried our luggage and went to the police station across the street. The officer looked at us with curiosity and we were grateful he spoke some English as my German wasn’t very good. We told him we were looking for a place to stay and he said, “I’m sorry, nothing is open, nothing is available, and the train doesn’t leave until the morning.” We looked at each other and said, “What happened? How did we get here?” We were in a predicament. I think he could see the panic on our faces as we tried to remain calm and he said, “Hold on,” as he picked up the phone. This was a really small village and three minutes later he said the owner of the only hotel (three rooms) was willing to let us stay there, but there would be no amenities, just a bed to sleep in and a shower in the morning. We were grateful!
We walked there, and found the place to be quaint and beautiful, with a view of the snow-covered mountains, a church steeple, and you could hear the bells of the cows on the hillside. We showed him our gratitude and told him our story of why we were there and about 10 minutes later he knocked on our door and said the family was having fondue and would we want to join them for dinner – fabulous!
Metaphorically speaking, the wine ran out on our trip on that dead end and we were left in the mire of “what happened?” But when the wine did run out, to our great joy we encountered a generous and creative presence that gave us new hope, and revived our spirits and filled our souls. What could have been a very scary time turned out to be one of the best memories of that trip!
Could this be a huge part of John’s purpose for telling this story as the event that begins Jesus’ public ministry? For John’s community of faith, their old, narrow views and religious had left them in a dead-end state of “What happened? How did we get here?” Jesus turned them around to go a more life-giving way.
The wine will run out. But when it does, we are not alone. The creative energy of the risen Christ is there to fill our empty jars with sweet new wine, to bring new life, new hope and new direction. And like he kept the best for last, he invites us to “Love our enemies” “Forgive 70X7” “Turn the other cheek” “Do not judge” “Follow me!” and many, many more.
This invitation might seem counterintuitive, and I encourage you this morning to not only hear his invitation, but also hear the encouragement of his mother, “Do whatever he tells you.” If you do, you just might be surprised and even transformed beyond your wildest expectations and enjoy the taste of new life and new hope and new joy! Amen.
