Come to the feast of life!

Now there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons (John 2:6 N.S.R.V.)

Now let's just consider this for the moment—six jars each holding twenty or thirty gallons, that’s about 90 to 135 litres for the metricated among you. But let’s just take the mean, the average, which is twenty-five gallons or about 113 litres—multiply that by 6 and you get 150 gallons or 675 litres of water. And the story talks about this water becoming wine. That's 150 gallons or 675 litres of wine. Now if you say that each person could drink a litre of wine—that’s about 4 cups each, but remember they were used to drinking wine in ancient Israel, although they’d already drunk some we’re told. Anyway, supposing that that each person has 1 litre or 4 cups of wine—that’s enough wine for 675 people. But they've already been drinking, so why would they want a litre. How about half a litre or 2 cups? That's 1350 people. And what if we only allocate two of our normal size wine glasses to each guest, that's about 300 millilitres or a very large cup per person? Then there’s enough wine for 2250 people. That's an incredible amount of wine and that's some party that Jesus has got going at a simple wedding in Cana of Galilee! It seems to indicate that there is something more than meets the eye or the ear to this story of Jesus turning water into wine.

It's a strange tale—the story of the wedding at Cana. At first glance, it's a cute story about a bit of a marvel at a village wedding—a kind of fancy party trick, if you like—turning water into wine. There is a certain element of realism in the story: a bit of detail about the physical environment, the number of stone jars and their holding capacity; a bit of colourful characterization drawn in, the steward makes a comment about keeping the best wine till last, a portrait of Mary is painted in a little. Yet the story also has an unreal character about it too: the amount of wine, the setting itself—a wedding. It's hardly the place to pick to make a big splash with your opening gambit in ministry. The celebrant, the local prophet or the newly recognised rabbi are very definitely not the centre of attention at a wedding.

And yet, the story is very obviously considered by the writer of John as having some significance in the story of Jesus' life and work. There could hardly be a more bold statement appended to the story to indicate this than the affirmation made that “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him” (John 2:11 N.S.R.V.). And it is the first of the signs of which John speaks; and the first ministry activity by Jesus following John’s prologue, the recognition of Jesus by John the Baptist and the calling of the first disciples complete with the promise that those disciples will see “great things” (John 1:50 NRSV). The story of Jesus turning water into wine is a very definitely a special story in the Gospel of John and, by the way, the story is only found in that Gospel. It is a special story because it is the very first of the signs of Jesus.

Now John's really into signs or semeia in the Greek: signs of the inbreaking of God's realm and not just of its inbreaking but of its very presence in and through the life and ministry of Jesus. And sometimes with actions of Jesus particularly denoted by John as signs, you get a bit of a clue as to what the underlying meaning of the story really is, but the story of turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana doesn't have many clues that are obvious to us listening to it 2000 years later. We have to go digging about in what we know about ancient Jewish and Christian understandings of religion and religious symbols to discover just why the Gospel of John places such importance on this simple tale. So let’s do a little excavation.

Firstly, we have a wedding. Now as we have already heard today in the reading from Isaiah, the wedding imagery was already firmly established in the Jewish tradition alongside of the promise of land and prosperity for the people. The symbol of a marriage was a symbol of God's promises fulfilled—the fulfillment of God’s intention in the history of creation. In the book of Revelation in the New Testament, we also hear about the "marriage-supper of the Lamb". So the setting very clearly is linked with notions of messianic arrival, with the coming of the Messiah, the one would bring about the fulfilment of God's promises.

Next we have water turned to wine. Ancient Jewish historian, Philo of Alexandria, comments on the story of Melchizedek, a priest, who brought forth bread and wine for Abraham in Genesis (Gen. 14:18). Philo recalls a story of Israel being refused bread and water in the wilderness by their neighbours and then he asserts "but Melchizedek shall bring forth wine instead of water... for he is the priest-logos". (Remember that logos means “word” and the “word” in this connection is the activity of God.) The function of bringing forth wine instead of water belongs to one who is both priest and divine word or wisdom. And clearly a story which has Jesus turning water into wine firmly sets him as priest and mediator, divine word and wisdom—the one who brings forth God's gifts of grace, joy, virtue, wisdom, and all that characterizes what Philo and the ancient Jews saw as the deep realities of the spiritual life. Interestingly, in the story of the wedding at Cana, there is also the allusion to the overturning or the renewing of the law by Jesus since it is from jars of water used for Jewish rites of purification that Jesus is said to have made water into wine.

Finally, we have the timing of the story, the 3rd day. The 3rd day is an ancient Christian symbol for the revelation of Christ in all glory through resurrection on the 3rd day.

So we have a story of a sign which is clearly laid out to indicate that Jesus was the one who came to bring in the new realm of God, superseding the old. The bringing in of that realm is characterised by a depth of spirituality and by the image of celebration—a wedding feast, a party, a festival of a new covenantal relationship made within the community. And, according to the Gospel of John, it was and is some party!!

It is some party because if the coming of Christ could mean that type of celebration of promises fulfilled for the writer of the Gospel around the close of the first century, it has the potential to mean that type of celebration for us today, at the beginning of the twentieth-first century. Jesus' coming, according to the Gospel of John, is marked by celebration, revelation and a depth of spirituality brought about by a renewal of the old into the new. That means a willingess to enter into the new, as Jesus entered into a new phase in his life, prompted by his mother. That means a willingness to be part of the celebration as Jesus was part of the wedding in Cana of Galilee. That means a willingness to see the depth of God's presence in the everyday ordinariness of life, as Jesus is seen to do in the story of turning water into wine. And it means bringing forth our very best for the celebration of God’s realm.

And when you think about the imagery of a wedding is a very apt symbol for all that. For certainly, a wedding is a celebration of the ordinariness of life, of two people choosing to be in relationship and to work at caring for one another—the new emerging from the old; a new relationship and pattern of relating being formally cemented; a new covenant made. A move from one family centre, one orientation, to another being formally acknowledged. And, hopefully, a willingness to acknowledge the depth of the reality of what such a commitment to relationship means.

It is indeed a miracle, the turning of the water to wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, but not because of the astonishing transformation of water into wine, nor because of the astounding quantity of wine depicted. Rather, the story points beyond itself to the reality of the coming of Christ into the world in celebration and the revelation of God’s marvellous realm in the very person of Jesus of Nazareth. The reality of the Christ-event is one that is worth a party and it deserves and indeed precipitates some party: a party big enough to satisfy the whole of humanity. And while such a party might need an enormous amount of wine, it only needed one actor and that was the person of Christ.