Larry Davies in his book, Sowing Seeds of Faith in a World Gone Bonkers, tells about a wedding he performed once on a wooden boat dock over a beautiful pond in Amelia county, Virginia. To his surprise, on the night before the wedding the bride (we’ll call her Pamela) called to ask him to read a special set of marriage vows to her new husband after the formal ceremony was through. She would give him a copy of the vows just before the service started.
The next morning, the groom (we’ll call him Paul) also pulled Davies aside and handed him a set of vows to be read to his new wife. This was going to be interesting.
The people were in place and the simple ceremony began without a hitch. Then, after the formal ceremony was over and as he was instructed, Pastor Davies pulled out the additional set of vows written by the bride for her new husband. “Paul,” the vows began,
“. . . do you agree to cook steak and potatoes on Friday?
“. . . do you agree to cut the grass and take out the trash?
“. . . do you agree to keep the truck and the car clean?
“. . . do you agree to have my coffee ready when I awake?
“. . . do you agree to take me shopping once a week without complaining?”
Davies’ next instructions were to have the bride take the groom by the hand, look into his eyes and repeat the vows the groom had written for her:
“I, Pamela, agree to lovingly serve you breakfast in bed every Saturday morning and to learn how to bake homemade pies and cobblers. I will also never insist that you go shopping with me for more than one hour at a time.”
Afterwards, Davies commented: “They don’t need a minister. They need a lawyer to work out this agreement.” A proper ending, he decided would have been for him to push both the bride and the groom in the pond and declare them both insane, but he resisted the impulse.
Then, as he had a chance to reflect on this unusual ceremony, he decided he admired a couple who could laugh in the midst of such a serious commitment. “If they can hold on to this ability to joke and poke fun at each other, there is hope for the survival of their marriage,” he wrote. “Maybe this same lesson can apply to each of us.” (1)
Reading these absurd vows reminds me of the three men who were sitting together bragging about how they had given duties to their new wives. The first man had married a [Baptist] woman and had told her that she was going to do the dishes and house cleaning. It took a couple days, but on the third day he came home to a clean house and dishes washed and put away.
The second man had married a [Presbyterian] woman. He had given his wife orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes, and the cooking. The first day he didn’t see any results, but the next day he saw it was better. By the third day, he saw his house was clean, the dishes were done, and there was a huge dinner on the table.
The third man had married a [your denomination] woman. He told her that her duties were to keep the house cleaned, dishes washed, lawn mowed, laundry washed and hot meals on the table for every meal. He said the first day he didn’t see anything, the second day he didn’t see anything, but by the third day some of the swelling had gone down and he could see a little out of his left eye, enough to fix himself a bite to eat and load the dishwasher. (2) We laugh to keep from crying, don’t we?
Jesus’ first miracle was performed at a wedding. You know the story. A wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother Mary was there, as well as Jesus and his disciples. But something happened that cast a pall on things. They ran out of wine. This was most embarrassing for the family hosting the wedding.
Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”
“Dear woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied, “My time 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.”
It seems like a frivolous use of Jesus power, really water to wine. It’s been the subject of a host of low-brow humor. Like the Baptist preacher who was caught with a load of moonshine whiskey. He claimed he was just hauling water. When confronted with the fact that it was whisky rather than water, he exclaimed, “It’s a miracle. Our blessed Lord has done it again.”
And from a superficial stand point, the story deserves such treatment. With a world before him to save and Jesus spent his time changing water to wine so that the bridegroom would not be embarrassed?
But think about it for a moment and you will see that this miracle is quite consonant with the character of Christ.
First of all, in this miracle we see his concern for the young couple. Or at least for the bridegroom’s parents. Jesus cares about people. Someone on the groom’s side of the family was obviously responsible for the wine. Whoever it was would be deeply humiliated if they ran out. But everyone would be affected. Who wants to see a bride disappointed on her wedding day? So, when Mary asked Jesus to intervene, we should not be surprised that even though he expressed reluctance since “his time had not yet come,” he ultimately did intervene.
It is interesting that he was at first reluctant. Evidently miracles are not to be taken lightly. We do that, don’t we? We often take miracles lightly. We use the term quite loosely. A football team, a considerable underdog, pulls out a victory at the last moment. It’s exciting. What do we call it? A miracle as if God really cares who wins a football game.
I think we even need to be careful when we are talking about acts of healing. Someone has a terrible illness. Incredibly they are cured. What do we call it? A miracle, to be sure. And maybe we are right. But physicians know that some people, a tiny number, will survive almost any disease. We don’t know why. Some of these are deserving. Many are not. But there are many, many more deserving people who succumb to these same diseases. To say that God singled out a few for healing but not others is very problematic. Jesus cares about everyone who is sick, everyone who is humiliated, everyone who is hurting both those who recover and those who do not.
True miracles, that is actual Divine intervention in the natural order of things are very, very rare. And they always serve one function. They are to build faith in Jesus’ followers. Note that is what happens here. At the end of this story, Luke tells us, “This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.” Miracles are, and should be, rare. Still, it is evident that Jesus cared about the people in this wedding.
Note also that this miracle indicates the abundant nature of God’s grace. The master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from. 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.” Jesus took what was plain and vapid and turned it into something vastly superior.
Nearly one hundred years ago, there was an American inventor named Louis Enricht who announced that he had discovered a cheap additive that would turn ordinary tap water into automotive fuel. At the time World War I was raging in Europe and gasoline was enormously expensive. Enricht claimed that his new additive would bring the per‑gallon cost down to a single penny. That certainly got everyone’s attention.
Enricht even gave a demonstration to a crowd of reporters. He had the reporters check that his jug was full of ordinary tap water, then poured in a small amount of greenish liquid, stirred it up, and invited everyone to test this miraculous mixture in their own vehicles. They did and it worked! Enricht’s demonstrations were so convincing that even the world‑famous automaker Henry Ford offered him millions to buy the rights for his additive. And no wonder. We’re still looking for such a cure to our energy ills today.
Actually, Enricht had merely discovered that if you add a very cheap chemical called acetone to water it will run an engine for a while. Then it will destroy it. But before anyone found that out, Enricht had managed to convince not only Henry Ford, but several other famous American businessmen who should have known better, to give him millions of dollars for his worthless invention. (3)
Enricht was a scam artist. His invention looked convincing, but ultimately it destroyed the engine it was suppose power. The power of Christ, on the other hand, took that which was inferior ordinary well water and made it rich and full and delightful.
Anything Christ touches is going to be improved by that touch. The water was not only going to be transformed to wine. It would be the best wine possible. In this he was but reflecting the nature of God. God is a giving God. The God who has given us a beautiful and a bountiful world does so because that is God’s nature.
Writer Kurt Bruner tells of watching a television Christmas special years ago called The Homecoming. Set during the Great Depression, this film inspired a weekly television series about the Walton family that many of you will remember. “Throughout the story, young John‑Boy Walton finds himself unable to contain his passion for writing. Periodically retrieving a hidden paper tablet, John‑Boy feverishly writes down the ideas and thoughts trapped inside his head that scream to be expressed on the page. Though too embarrassed by his compulsion to tell anyone, he can’t stop. As he finally admits to his concerned mother, he feels as if he will go crazy if he doesn’t write. John‑Boy is a writer. He has to write.”
Kurt Bruner goes on to say, “God is love. Therefore, he has to love. He can no more keep this love to himself than John‑Boy could keep his ideas off the tablet page. It was a deep yearning to express his love to share his heart with another person that drove God to create [humankind]. He didn’t make us so that we would love him but so that he could love us. We were not made to be a race of servants but to be the object of God’s affection.” (4)
The brilliant writer C. S. Lewis says that when Jesus changed the water to wine, he simply short‑circuited something that happens regularly in nature over a long period of time so that it happened in an instant. We can easily see this with the miracle of the fishes and the loaves. “Wheat multiplies in the fields,” said Lewis, “and it makes possible a continuing supply of bread as it is ground and baked. Fish multiply in the sea, and that process of nature keeps a plentiful supply of fish available all the time for the fish markets of the world. Though it included human effort and human preparation, Lewis suggests that by the creative power of the Father at work in him, our Lord short‑circuited that whole process and wrote in small letters instantly what is already written in large letters across the whole panorama of nature.” (5)
The story of Christ turning the water to wine, far from being frivolous, gives us insight into the love and generosity of God. The Creator of heaven and earth is a loving, generous, grace-filled God who desires to provide His children with blessings untold. God does not seek to simply provide the barest essentials for our existence. God has more blessings for us than we can possibly imagine. In this miracle we see Christ’s concern for a young couple. We also see the abundant nature of God’s grace.
Finally, this miracle is a metaphor for what can happen in a person’s life when he or she invites Christ into his or her heart. Christ can take a sin-filled heart and turn it into one in which the glory of God is revealed.
It is said that the writer Leo Tolstoy experienced that kind of transformation. He told about it in a book titled, My Conversion. Tolstoy wrote, “[When] faith came to me; I believed in Jesus Christ, and all my life suddenly changed. I ceased to desire that which previously I had desired, and on the other hand, I took to desiring what I had never desired before. That which formerly used to appear good in my eyes appeared evil and that which used to appear evil appeared good.” Before his conversion, Tolstoy had acquired fame and fortune through his great writings. But he was unsatisfied.
“I fought duels,” he wrote. “I gambled, I wasted my substance wrung from the sweat of peasants and deceived men. Lying, robbery, adultery of all kinds, drunkenness was my life.” His conversion, one of the most dramatic of modern times, gave his life a new purpose, a new meaning and, he affirmed, an abiding satisfaction. (6)
All of us remember the story of the old alcoholic who, when asked about Jesus’ miracle of turning the water into wine replied, “I don’t know about that, but I do know that in my house he changed whiskey into furniture.” Many millions of people over the centuries have experienced that kind of transformation at the hand of Christ. In this miracle we see Christ’s concern for a young couple. We also see the abundant nature of God’s grace. Finally, this miracle is a metaphor for what can happen in a person’s life when he or she invites Christ into his or her heart. Christ can a take sin-filled heart and turn it into one in which the glory of God is revealed. Wouldn’t you like to experience his life-changing touch in your life today?
1. Amelia Court House, VA: ABM Enterprises, Inc., 1996, pp. 75-76.
2. Sent to me by a friend. Original source unknown.
3. Andreas Schroeder, Scams, True Stories from the Edge (Buffalo. NY: Annick Press Ltd., 2004), p. 1.
4. The Divine Drama (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2001), pp. 58‑59.
5. Ray Stedman, http://www.pbc.org/dp/stedman/john/3846.html.
6. William E. Thorn, Catch the Little Foxes That Spoil the Vine (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1980).