Gems in the Gospel of John
Part 11 - John 2:1-12
Extravagant Grace
Now we are into chapter 2 and we find that it contains two very remarkable and very different stories. The second must wait until next time, but this one is quite extraordinary by itself. Here it is:
“On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”
“Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”
His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.
Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.
Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”
They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”
What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.”
Jesus turned water into wine – and not just a reasonable amount, but about 600 litres or 150 gallons. Was it really such a good idea to produce so much extra booze halfway through the wedding celebrations? One gets a mental picture of many villagers reeling home thoroughly sozzled at the end of the day! Even if we guess, as we reasonably may, that this was a major wedding, that everyone in the village was invited, and so were many people from the surrounding villages (including Jesus, his mother and his disciples) so that there were hundreds of people there, this was still an amazing amount of wine.
All of which raises one huge question: why did John, who structured his Gospel so carefully, choose this story as the first to tell us about? OK, I know that he says this was the first one Jesus did. He says, “What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.” But that still does not answer the point. John did not have to start with this episode. Matthew, Mark and Luke didn’t start there. They all started with his temptation in the wilderness and then his teaching and healing ministry round the villages. The obvious conclusion we must draw is that John saw something very special in what happened in Cana and wants to make it a starting point for his whole Gospel. What was it?
I think he wanted to emphasize the generosity of Jesus. Nothing else he did was so unnecessarily generous. Nothing, that is, of the obvious things he was doing. But what about the gifts of new life, and of the Holy Spirit that he was going to give so liberally to everyone he met. You couldn’t see those, but you could see the wine. You could even drink it and it would cheer you up. Those great jars of wine stood for the extravagant generosity of Jesus, his extravagant grace to all he would meet in the rest of the story of the Gospel.
There is one other extravagant moment in the continuing story that we should perhaps link this one up with and that is the feeding of the vast crowd of people, 5000 men, plus women and children, by the Sea of Galilee. Remember that there were 12 baskets of pieces of bread left over when they had all finished. Extravagant bread, extravagant wine. Do they remind you of anything? Yes, of course: that so simple meal that Jesus told us to remember him by. In all probability you get only a small piece of bread or a thin wafer, and a small sip of wine, or perhaps not even that if you belong to the wrong church. Small bread, small wine, but from the same person who was so extravagantly generous on these two occasions. Remember that next time you take part in a communion service, breaking of bread, Eucharist or Mass.
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