Text: John 2:1-11
Every
Friday evening at sundown faithful Jewish families celebrate a meal
together to welcome the Sabbath, a day of rest which lasts until
sundown Saturday. At some point during the meal they will lift a cup
of wine and say the kiddush, a prayer: “Blessed art thou, O Lord
our G-d, creator of the fruit of the vine. Blessed art thou, O Lord
our G-d, king of the universe, who chose us from every people, and
exalted us among every tongue, and sanctified us by commandments and
favours us with the holy Sabbath, and lovingly and graciously
bestowed upon us your holy Sabbath. We praise you, O G-d, who
sanctifies Shabbat.”
Similarly,
on the night that they share their annual Passover meal, the Jews
drink four cups of wine (very small cups). Before they drink a cup
they say again: “Blessed art thou, O Lord our G-d, creator of the
fruit of the vine.” After the fourth cup they say: “Blessed art
thou, O Lord our G-d, king of the universe, for the vine and for the
fruit of the vine, for the yield of the field, and for the land,
pleasant, goodly and broad which thou favoured and gave as an
inheritance to our fathers, to eat of its fruit and be sated with its
goodness.”
It
would be rather short sighted of us not to notice the high regard
that Jews have for wine. In the Sabbath cup it represents the
goodness; I would say the apex, of goodness in God’s creation.
With the joy provided by the wine, they welcome their participation
in God’s Sabbath rest. In the sharing of wine on Passover they
commemorate the joy of God’s delivering them from Egypt and
blessing them with the abundance of Canaan. The most notable point,
though, in these prayers is that God is the Creator of the fruit of
the vine, the source of the wine.
To
put all this together maybe we should ask what Jesus was trying to
pronounce with turning water into wine. Obviously, there’s more to
it than him being some kind of a very talented alchemist at Hogwarts
Academy. This sign was a revelation that Jesus is the source of the
wine, which is the emblem of the abundant life. He is the one who
gives Sabbath rest. He is the one who delivers us from our
enslavements. He is the one who blesses with the abundance of life.
More over, in this act he’s making a very strong claim about his
relationship to God, the Creator of the universe. Later, in the
Gospel of John Jesus says: “The Father and I are one (10:30)...even
though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know
and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father
(10:38).” This mutually indwelling relationship that Jesus has
with the Father in the Holy Spirit, this love that they share and
are, is the unity of God. He is in the Father and the Father is in
him and the water of life is turned into wine of abundant life.
An
interesting point to make is that only a few people—Jesus, his
mother, his disciples, and the stewards who filled the jugs with
water and drew out the wine, knew what Jesus had done. This sign was
surgically directed so that Jesus might divulge his identity to his
disciples and John says his disciples believed in him. So we might
ask what exactly they believed for Jesus says at John 3:15 "whoever
believes will in Him have eternal life." Jesus clearly
demonstrated in this sign of turning water into wine that he is the
one who gives life of the eternal nature, abundant life that comes
from eternity and will keep us throughout eternity. Jesus also
remarks at John 17:3, "This is eternal life, that they may know
You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."
Jesus has life to give to us, life that comes through knowing who he
is and trusting him with our whole lives as the disciples.
Since
there is life eternal, life abundant in this Jesus, the life of
knowing Jesus and his Father, then how do we come to believe in him?
What made those first disciples believe? Now, I’m not one who
believes that coming to faith in Christ is something we just up and
do. We just don’t come about and say, “I believe. I've studied
the evidence that demands a verdict from me and I have decided to
follow Jesus." That’s not what faith is. Faith comes about
from knowing who Jesus is, and it’s not the "I read it in a
book” kind of knowing. Faith is knowing the personal presence of
Jesus in one's life, knowing the one who reveals himself to you and
communicates to you in very real ways with the exception that we just
can’t see him so I must simply trust that what I am experiencing is
really him. Jesus told Thomas the Doubter, “Have you believed
because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and
yet have come to believe (20:29).”
Just
as the full presence of God was with the disciples in Jesus so is God
with us in the Holy Spirit. God is Spirit. God is the love of the
mutual indwelling of Jesus and his Father in the Holy Spirit. We do
not see them, but the Holy Spirit brings us into their relationship
and enables us to know them in their unity of love for one another.
Our belief or faith or better our trust of God flows forth from the
foundation of being brought into the very life of God, the eternal
life of their communion of love. Though I wish everyone had this
life, it is not within my power to give it. All I can do is bear
witness that it is there. In fact it is here with us. Only God in
Christ through the Holy Spirit can give us the faith to believe and
he will. I can’t give it to you, but I can tell you how to start
looking.
It
is no chance occurrence that Jesus chose the waters of ritual washing
to convert into wine. The water here is very significant as well.
Around the first century the Jews were a people obsessed with ritual
bathing, with making or keeping oneself clean before God.
Archaeological digs from the period show that all over the place
outside and even inside of houses were little bathing pools for
dipping into as a ritual for keeping oneself religiously clean.
Moreover, John the Baptist was trying to make the Jews ready for the
coming of Christ by baptizing them in the Jordan River, cleansing
them. These water jars were there at the wedding so that the people
could ritually wash their hands and the utensils used in the meal so
that nothing going into them might make them wrong with God. We can
only guess why they were so obsessed with purity. Most likely they
felt cut off from God because of Roman oppression, a corrupted
priesthood, wars, and the “Greek-ness” of their culture. These
were some people who felt their only hope was to make themselves
right with God the only way they knew how. Wash it off and stay
clean.
This
sign of turning ritual purity water into wine as I see it can mean
two things. Either it is that Christ turns the waters of our efforts
at repentance into the new wine of eternal life or it is a
pronouncement that our shame, our need to wash, is healed. I’m
inclined to go with the later. In the first, it would appear that
God’s grace is only available to those who earn it through turning
and by their own efforts cleaning up their act. That’s not grace.
In the second case, it all depends on God’s grace. Jesus was
saying to his disciples that he was the way to eternal life and he is
here standing in our midst to give us eternal life, life in the very
life of God whether or not we’re clean.
We
should note and note with a bit of assumption that the jars probably
weren’t being used that day. In all likelihood they were sitting
unused and empty for they had to be filled with water so that Jesus
could use them for this revelation. I would venture that the folks
in Galilee had set aside their religion of ritual washing to get
God’s favour because it wasn’t working in the same way that our
attempts to please God don’t work either. Why should we try to
earn what he is willing to freely give? What works is knowing who
Jesus is, knowing personally that he is in the Father and the father
is in him and the life they share is in us through the work of the
Holy Spirit.
So,
what must we do to believe to live in the life of the Trinity? I’ll
tell you a mystery. We already are. We are in the Trinity and the
Trinity is in us because of the very fact that God became human in
Jesus the Christ. This means we can stop trying to trying to please
the Father and rather accept the fact that we, his broken children in
need of cleansing, are as a given fact his beloved children and he is
well pleased with us on account of Jesus, his faith and obedience,
and his praying for us. He lives. He stands before the Father to
pray for us. Did you know that?
If
we don’t have to please God to earn eternal life then what must we
do to have it? Well, just start hanging around him. Pray. Read and
meditate upon the Scriptures. Take interest in Jesus life, because
he already has taken the utmost interest in ours. Seek and you will
find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. He will reveal
himself to you. Amen.
