In the documentary ‘The God Who Speaks,’ one of the speakers said that in Jewish culture, everyone in the village or town attends a wedding. Our culture is the same – you don’t need an invitation. If there’s a wedding in our village, you simply show up, bless the bride and groom, and join the families’ joy in the union.
It seems fitting that Yeshua’s first miracle was at a wedding, or as the King James version puts it – and which I prefer – marriage.
Scripture talks about the wedding supper of the Lamb, and in one of His parables, Yeshua talks about invitations to a wedding sent out but the invitees made excuses and didn’t attend.
A wedding or a marriage is an apt picture of the intimate relationship our Heavenly Father wants to have with us. This is why He created the world and us. And it’s why He sent His Son to save us.
Turning water into wine shows Yeshua’s power over natural elements and what He can do with us when we submit and allow Him to work His will in us and through us.
A time and place
King Solomon wrote that there’s a time and a season for everything under the sun. Perhaps that’s why John pointed out that marriage and subsequently our Lord’s first miracle happened ‘on the third day’.
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:…
Ecclesiastes 3:1 KJV
The third day is significant in Scripture. All sorts of interesting, world-changing events happened on the third day. God separated the waters and the dry land on the third day when creating Earth. Yeshua was resurrected on the third day – something He foretold at various times during His ministry and is also mentioned in this same chapter of John.
Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
John 2:19 KJV
The event
Everyone loves a wedding. It’s joyous, we get to meet people we haven’t seen in a while and there’s lots of good food. But the wedding is only the beginning, like a doorway to a new and, I suppose, a different way of life.
Perhaps that’s why Yeshua chose this event to manifest His glory. A wedding joins two people together for life, and the marriage is how they live out that life. It’s a wonderful picture of our relationship with God, first the wedding, at the wedding supper of the Lamb, and then the eternity of worshipping God as He deserves.
The need
Mary first recognized the need, the lack, and the opportunity for Yeshua to help. Isn’t that typical of us women, especially us introverts? I like to think that Mary was an introvert. Sitting there quietly enjoying the festivities she noticed that when her fellow guests asked for more wine, the servants began to whisper that there was none. She tells Yeshua, and, in true motherly fashion and despite Yeshua’s brushes aside His response and tells the servants to follow His instructions.
The response
Only God knows what those servants thought of Yeshua’s instructions to fill those six huge waterpots with water. Perhaps they doubted Him in their minds and hearts but I’m glad they obeyed.
Obedience is key and ought to be our response to our Lord. Yes, it might sound odd – like when I heard the Holy Spirit telling me to bring my umbrella work one morning; it was an odd request because we’d had weeks of sunny days and the forecast was more sun all through that week. I obeyed, and lo and behold, it rained that afternoon just as I was getting ready to leave work for home.
The Holy Spirit also guides us in the small, ordinary parts of our lives, not only the big events.
The elements
Water into wine. John’s narration makes it sound so simple. Yeshua’s instruction was clear enough, fill water into the waterpots and take a measure of it to the masters of ceremonies. Somehow between the time the water got into the pots and the time the MC tasted it, they’d turned into the best wine anyone there had ever tasted.
The lesson
I think the lesson here is that God can use anything, and can change anything or anyone, as long as we give that thing and ourselves to Him. We become better for it for He always has our good at heart.
When we quiet ourselves, submit ourselves to God, fall in love with Him, pour ourselves out to Him, and live under His caring protective eyes and allow ourselves to be changed by Him, He will take all that we give Him, fill us with Himself and by the miracle that only He can do, change us into the sweetest wine.
Prayer
Our Father who is in Heaven, thank you for showing us through Your Word, the miracles You can work in our lives when we respond in love. Please turn our pale watery hearts into new hearts. With the Holy Spirit guiding us, may our influence be like new wine. In Yeshua, we pray this. Amen.
Image credit: Painting of Wedding at Cana by Adam van Noort
