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Deutsche Version | Wiki Start | Topics Collection vi
Water to Wine ...
Tuesday, Mar 25, 2014. In the gospel of John the first miracle of Jesus is reported in Chapter 2. It is the story about the wedding at Cana in Galilee. It is a story about a miracle, but it is also a story about faith, and about Jesus.
The water of your life …
How do you feel with your life? How are things going along? Everything fine? The people in our story today are just like we are. They work. They live. They marry. Life seems to go along. But there are these small difficulties, which everyone of us has to encounter. During the wedding, they run out of wine - how embarrassing!
Now, these people are quite lucky, since they have both Jesus there on the wedding, and they have his mother there on the wedding. Both play a crucial role in the story which we find in John 2. They run out of wine, and Mary points them to Jesus: “Do whatever he tells you”!
What does Mary know? What does she think? What is she hoping for? Somehow she seems to know that Jesus can solve impossible problems. Did we not just mention that this was his first miracle? It cannot be. It might be the first one recorded in the Gospel of John. It might be the first one which became public and famous. But from the reaction of his mother Mary we know that it cannot be the first miracle, there must have been many others. Mary shows real faith, true trust in a difficult situation.
The miracle …
Let us read John 2:
1 On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. 3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6 Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.1 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. 9 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 10 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.” 11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.
Again and again I have been listening to this story over the past years. And it becomes better every time I hear it. It is not only that Jesus helps the bridegroom. It is not only that we find a miracle here. It is “the good wine” which he gives to these people. It is wine - as if Jesus wants us to celebrate and enjoy life. It is good wine, which the water is turned into. It is as if our ordinary life becomes something very special, when it is touched by Jesus.
I love this story of the water which is turned into wine by Jesus. I love the faith which Mary shows, a faith which brings Jesus into the wonder-mode, even though he first resists: “my hour has not yet come”. I wish we all would have this type of faith: it can change our world, it will make a real difference, and it will generate joy! (Roland Potthast) ... more texts