The Wine Speaks

“The conscious water saw its creator and blushed”---Richard Cranshaw

When we read the story of Jesus' first miracle we find him at a party. In John 2 there is a wedding party, Jesus and his friends and his mother are invited. During the party the wine runs out, and Jesus performs his first miracle by turning water into wine.

The amount of water turned into wine was large and many, many gallons of wine, good wine, were made by Jesus. There were, evidently, a lot of people at this wedding or Jesus wanted to go above and beyond in his demonstration and the result was an overkill of wine.

What I find interesting is that during this whole story the only dialogue that involves Jesus is his response to his mother and his command to the servants. He is seemingly unwilling to get involved in the matter initially and then he dives in full force by producing a massive amount of wine and having the servants take it to the master of the banquet.

Why is there no dialogue? There is certainly dialogue in other miracles. Jesus, in other miracles, commands faith, chastises people's lack of faith and blesses people because of their faith. But this story, this initial miracle has 2 components, seemingly at odds, Jesus initially not willing to involve himself and then involving himself in a powerful way that people noticed at once.

What was the conversation like after the wedding? Did people ask where the wine came from? Did people ask to take some home with them because it was so good? This is vintage wine from heaven, after all, there's none stored in any cellars today waiting for a special occasion to uncork.

Perhaps there was little dialogue because there was no need for words. Jesus' actions said everything there was to say. First there was no wine, now there was plenty. You can draw a lot out of that as far as principles go but maybe primarily we need to know that God is a god of plenty, God is a god of new wine and God is a god who acts.

May we be acting as God would act and remember that people are more inclined to open up in conversation when we are out in the community giving new wine to drink.