"The Good Wine"
Every Friday evening at sundown faithful
Jewish families share a meal together to welcome the Sabbath, a day of rest
which lasts until sundown Friday to 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. On the Sabbath, the wine 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. God is the source of the
wine.
To put all this together maybe we should ask
what Jesus was trying to reveal about himself 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 self-revelation by Jesus that
he 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 then 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.
The eternal life Jesus speaks of here is not
the “go to heaven when I die” that we in a “default go to” think it means. In John’s Gospel Jesus is quite clear about
what he means when he says eternal life and it is not our default go to. At chapter 17 verse three John quotes Jesus
saying, "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." Jesus has eternal life to give to us, life
made abundant through knowing God the Father through him, Jesus the Son. This real relationship with God in Jesus
present with us through the work of the Holy Spirit is the water of just plain
wonderful life turned into the Good Wine of eternal life.
Now there’s something else we need to look
at here – the jars. Archaeology tells us
that these jars, which were really quite big, were there for the purpose of
ritual washing, for symbolic hand washing and the symbolic washing of eating utensils. 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 ritually
clean, clean before God. This was a
major component of what John the Baptist was up to. He was trying to make the Jews ready for the
coming of the Messiah by baptizing them in the Jordan River, cleansing them. People were flocking to him out in the desert because
they knew they needed to be cleaned of sin and ready, but they didn’t believe that the ritual baths and the jars of dipping water had the power to do what the religious authorities claimed. 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, constant wars, and the
“Greek-ness” of their culture. These were a 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. These water jars were there
at this house in Cana because the people who lived there were faithful Jews who
believed the Messiah was coming and they needed to get clean and stay clean
before God to be ready.
But, something we might miss here is that
the jars were empty that day and set off to the side like a remnant of a religious
craze that had lost its zeal, like a family Bible tucked away in a corner
somewhere. The jars were empty for Jesus
tells the servants to fill them with water.
This likely means that the family that lived there no longer believed in
this washing stuff. I can imagine what
these servants are thinking. They don’t
know the need for wine so they’re probably thinking, “This young upstart of a
rabbi has come here and is going to tell everybody they need to get clean or
God will get them for their partying ways…oy, but he’s Cousin Mary’s son. Let’s just do what he says.” The next thing they know they’re serving
wine, and really good wine at that.
The relationship between Christianity and
Western Culture today looks a lot like this wedding feast. There are Christian symbols tucked in corners
all over the place reminding the culture of the day when the religious
authority of the Church held sway. Since
about the 400’s the Church because it had influence with kings because kings thought
the power of religion was useful for keeping a kingdom inline, since the 400’s the
Church like the religious authorities of Jesus’ day has been good at keeping
people obsessed with morality and purity before God and being good citizens so
you can go to heaven when you die because it gave the Church power. This power is the power of defining
boundaries: Who’s in? Who’s out? Who’s good? Who’s bad?
Who’s naughty? Who’s nice? Who believes right? Who’s a heretic? All this that we might keep our privileged
place of power with kings, the place that historians call Christendom. We largely ignored and nearly forgot Jesus
and his power to give the Good Wine of eternal life, the Good Wine of sharing
in his relationship with God the Father in the Holy Spirit and got drunk on the
cheap wine of religious authority. How
many wars were fought over that?
Today we are seeing a lot of empty jars of a
religious hay day gone by. We call them
vacant churches. We need the Good Wine
of the living relationship with God in Christ made possible by the Holy Spirit
present with us. We don’t need to get
ourselves morally right and pure to partake of this relationship. Jesus is our purity. The Holy Spirit living in us makes us pure. Prayer, Bible Study, worship, practising
charity, loving and fellowshipping with one another are the cups in which we
drink this Good Wine. Just drink the
Good Wine and you will find this living relationship with God and you will
wonderfully change. Amen.
