There was a marriage at Cana. Jesus' mother asked him to do something about the
wine
shortage at the feast. Many have commented on his remark,
"Woman, what do I have to do with you?" but I will leave that
for some other time. The people needed more wine. Well, they
didn't exactly need the wine, water could have sufficed, or
milk, but this just is not the stuff marriage feasts are about.
They weren't starving or dying of thirst, either. Mary should
have asked her son to save all the starving people in Persia,
according to modern social gospels.So, we have a miracle, the first miracle, based around people having a good time. Plain and simple. John isn't afraid of recording this type of miracle. He puts it first chronologically and we should be proud of our Lord. If we aren't, maybe we're too busy being proud of ourselves and our wretched holiness.
Anyway, we do not know how Jesus turned the water into wine. And it is an important miracle or John wouldn't have recorded it. According to him, there are many more, but the ones he wrote down were for our benefit, for our faith. So why did he turn water into wine? I just read an explanation given in a children's picture book: "It showed his willingness to help people who are in need."
I don't think so. This was a party, not a homeless camp.
But, our Lord does care about the little things and things we care about, like wine for instance, but what we really need is faith. We need to believe that Jesus Christ can turn water into wine. Instantly. If we do not believe that, then we do not have faith.
The water in the urns was probably full of impurities that would not pass our stringent water control standards. So beer companies would not choose it. But even if it were pure spring water from the Rockies, the process of making fermented beverages takes a long time (compared to instantly). Oh yes, many of those religious types whose faith is based on not drinking some sorts of beverages will cry out that this was unfermented wine.
Supposing this were true, which it isn't, we are still talking about making grape juice from nothing but water and various impurities, instantly. Impossible. In case the reader knows nothing about the process of making wine, I'll give a brief rundown.
First, good wine has no added water to it. The only water it has comes from the crushed grapes. The water got there because it was drawn out of the earth by the living vine. In an extremely complex method that is so complex that most scientists believe in evolution (go figure), air molecules, sunlight, water, inorganic chemicals in the earth, bacteria, earthworms, and probably a hundred thousand other things we don't know about yet, all get together and grow a vine that grows a grape that a man picks, crushes and puts into a glass (usually after it ferments and people in 30 A.D. mideast could not stop fermentation, folks). That's wine-making in a nutshell.
Allowing for a few days either way, I figure it would have taken mother nature to evolve that wine from that water about 4 billion years. It took Jesus Christ a nanosecond. Clearly, he is the Lord of the Universe, capable of creating anything he chooses when he so chooses, or he is not. One of the two is correct.
So I believe the purpose of turning the water into wine was to show his divinity, that he is very Creator of this planet and has control over everything, even whether our dinner party goes well or not. Yes, he is good and kind and gives his rain upon the luxury alcohol crops (some people hate vineyards and this is what they call them), and upon the millet fields in a third world country. He also withholds the rain when he so chooses. If we believe in another Jesus, then we truly have no fear of God and I have to wonder, do we have his grace?
Yes, the earth is very young, and although it gives the appearance of being very old, we either believe Jesus turned the water into a nice, mellow dinner wine that had the appearance of being the product of 4 billion years, or we don't. If he can turn water into wine instantly, then he can also create the earth and the universe instantly. Of course, we know it took him six days, but that's another theological issue.
And this earth and its heavens are about to be done away with, with a new heavens and a new earth on the way. We either believe it or we don't. Jesus did many miracles to show, not that he cares about us, but that he is the Almighty One. The Father gave him these miracles so we would believe. If we don't know that, then we have no everlasting life, and we wither as branches cut from the living vine, and men gather them up and burn them.
Those who believe will join him in the marriage supper of the Lamb, where we will have that promised cup of wine. (Matthew 26:29, Revelation 19:9)
- Chris Simonson
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