The Wedding of Cana

At his first sign, Jesus makes 600 lit­res of the best wine for a wed­ding par­ty in Cana, which has run out of wine. No heal­ing, no rai­sing of the dead, no mul­ti­pli­ca­ti­on of bread – no, but wine in quan­ti­ty. What does this mean? And why does Christ do this as the first sign?

Wedding – coming together – bearing fruit

«Thus God crea­ted man in his own image, in the image of God he crea­ted them, male and fema­le he crea­ted them. And God bles­sed them and com­man­ded them, say­ing, «Be fruitful and mul­ti­ply» ». (Gen 1:27–28 NLB).

Beco­ming fruitful from a com­mu­ni­ty of life. That is the mis­si­on of every human being. Not ever­yo­ne has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to live this natu­ral­ly. But every human being is cal­led to bear «spi­ri­tu­al» fruit out of a com­mu­ni­ty of life with God. Christ puts this in con­cre­te terms in the New Tes­ta­ment. He wants to be the bri­de­g­room and seeks a com­mu­ni­ty of belie­vers as his bri­de (his church). From this com­mu­ni­ty he wants to bring forth fruit. «I am the vine; you are the bran­ches. He who abides in me and I in him will bear much fruit. For apart from me you can do not­hing. (John 15:5 NLB).

What Christ wants to work in us through His Spi­rit is a fruit of the Spi­rit. The fruit is descri­bed as fol­lows: «If, on the other hand, the Holy Spi­rit is in con­trol of our lives, he will cau­se quite dif­fe­rent fruit to grow in us: Love, joy, peace, pati­ence, kind­ness, good­ness, faithful­ness, gent­le­ness and self-con­trol». (Gala­ti­ans 5:22–23 NLB).

Grape becomes wine – wine stands for joy

The spe­cial thing about this sign in Cana, howe­ver, is not the the­me of fruit, but wine. Wine in the Bible stands for cheerful­ness and joy. Wine comes from a trans­for­ma­ti­on of the juice of crus­hed gra­pes. Through a fer­men­ta­ti­on pro­cess, the sugar of the gra­pes beco­mes alco­hol – spi­rit. Howe­ver, the Bible does not call us to beco­me moist and joyful from the spi­rit (alco­hol) – but to beco­me fil­led with the Holy Spi­rit (Spi­ri­tus sanc­tus) and to find joy in disci­ple­ship. «Do not get drunk on wine; other­wi­se you will ruin your life. Ins­tead, let the Holy Spi­rit fill you». (Ephe­si­ans, 5:18 NLB).

When Christ can bear fruit in our lives through his Spi­rit, it brings us joy. That is his goal. So the mira­cle of Cana is about the ten­si­on bet­ween natu­ral joy and divi­ne joy in depen­dence on Christ.

The Wedding of Cana – how to find real joy

«The day after next, Jesus» mother was at a wed­ding cele­bra­ti­on in Cana, a vil­la­ge in Gali­lee. Jesus and his disci­ples were also invi­ted to the cele­bra­ti­on. During the feast the wine ran out». (John 2:1–3 NLB).

[…]The­re were six stone water jars in the house, which were used for the pre­scri­bed puri­fi­ca­ti­on acts of the Jews and each held about a hundred lit­res. Jesus said to the ser­vants: «Fill the jars with water». When they had fil­led the jars to the brim, he said, «Draw from them and take it to the mas­ter of cere­mo­nies.» They fol­lo­wed his ins­truc­tion. The mas­ter of cere­mo­nies tas­ted of the water, which was now wine. Not kno­wing whe­re the wine came from – for only the ser­vants who had drawn it knew – he sent for the groom. «Actual­ly, a host pours the bet­ter wine first,» he said. «Later, when ever­yo­ne is drunk and they no lon­ger mind, he fet­ches the les­ser qua­li­ty. You, on the other hand, have kept back the best wine until now!»  (John 2:6–10 NLB).

1. it’s a wedding – but the wine is running out

When Christ comes to this wed­ding, the wine just runs out – or figu­ra­tively: the joy goes away. Even peo­p­le who do not live with God enter many com­mu­ni­ties (get mar­ried), bring life fruits and have a cer­tain amount of fun. But it’s like an addic­tion, it always takes more. That’s why so many peo­p­le have to dis­tract them­sel­ves or get high on some­thing, becau­se it’s hard for them to bear life. The per­son who lives wit­hout God lacks las­ting bliss, real, deep, las­ting joy with peace. Thus, this wed­ding par­ty that is run­ning out of wine is an image of today’s time with run­ning out of joy.

2. empty water jugs are filled

At this wed­ding, the­re are six emp­ty water jugs with a capa­ci­ty of 600 L. They should have been fil­led so that ever­yo­ne could clean them­sel­ves befo­re the meal. But they are emp­ty. The wed­ding par­ty thus lived a reli­gious requi­re­ment wit­hout con­tent. Here, too, a par­al­lel can be drawn with today. Many peo­p­le are reli­gious (water jars), but the jars are emp­ty, they stand around meanin­g­less – it is only reli­gi­on – wit­hout con­tent. The water jars are the­re, but no puri­fi­ca­ti­on happens.

Puri­fi­ca­ti­on crea­tes a link to the the­me of holi­ne­ss: Holi­ne­ss means – being pure, being sepa­ra­ted – clean, no dirt. God is holy in his love. No dirt-crumbs of sel­fi­sh­ness. This wed­ding par­ty is Cana is not pure, though water jars would have been the­re. Ever­yo­ne par­ta­kes of the wed­ding feast unwa­shed. But what do the­se stone jars, this cle­an­sing the­me have to do with our wed­ding par­ty, with the the­me of joy? Jesus shows us in his action the con­nec­tion bet­ween puri­fi­ca­ti­on, fruit and joy:

He has the six water jars fil­led to the brim with water (600 lit­res) by the ser­vants. Our socie­ty, every sin­gle per­son is also unho­ly, unclean. We all need puri­fi­ca­ti­on: Basi­cal­ly for our life – but also regu­lar­ly for our walk – other­wi­se we can­not have fel­low­ship with God. Jesus Christ crea­ted this puri­fi­ca­ti­on – com­ple­te­ly – for all peo­p­le. Basi­cal­ly, by dying on the cross and taking our guilt upon hims­elf. Ever­yo­ne who ent­rusts his life to Christ is saved and «washed»: «[…] he made us bles­sed – not for the works we would have done in righ­teous­ness, but accor­ding to his mer­cy – through the bath of rege­ne­ra­ti­on and rene­wal in the Holy Spi­rit». (Titus 3:5 LUT17).

But his cle­an­sing also appli­es to dai­ly trans­gres­si­ons – things we did wrong or did not do but should have done: «But if we con­fess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to for­gi­ve us and to cle­an­se us from all evil» (1 John 1:9 NLB). This dai­ly puri­fi­ca­ti­on is neces­sa­ry. Jesus repli­ed: «Whoe­ver has bathed does not need to wash – except for the feet – to be com­ple­te­ly clean» (John 13:12 NLB).

3. the water – or the wine – must be ladled/passed on

Now the mira­cle hap­pens: by pas­sing on the puri­fy­ing water, the water beco­mes wine of joy. The cle­an­sing through Jesus rede­ems me and brings me joy. But the cle­an­sing through Jesus» sacri­fice also brings joy to other peo­p­le. Let us just pay atten­ti­on to the ser­vants for a moment: Ser­vants have to fill the jars, ser­vants have to give the water that beco­mes wine when it is drawn. Accor­ding to Paul, we are the ser­vants of God. We have the task of fil­ling the water jars with water. We must under­stand for our­sel­ves the importance of puri­fi­ca­ti­on and thus the holi­ne­ss of God (His puri­ty) for us. Then we have the mis­si­on to pass on this puri­fi­ca­ti­on pos­si­bi­li­ty and can then expe­ri­ence what this puri­fi­ca­ti­on trig­gers – name­ly joy.

4. the wine of Jesus – his joy – is better than the joy of the world

Befo­re the wine is pas­sed on to the wed­ding, the­re is a qua­li­ty check by the «food mas­ter». Trans­fer­red: The peo­p­le around us check what we «eat», what we «drink» – respec­tively what joy we have in life.

The wine impar­ted by Christ through the ser­vants is of a bet­ter qua­li­ty than the wine of the Bri­de­g­room until now. The joy that Christ wants to give us is bet­ter than the «joys of this world». Jesus show­ing us the dif­fe­rence bet­ween natu­ral joy and his joy at his first mira­cle explains how important it is to Jesus that we expe­ri­ence real joy – in abun­dance (600 lit­res for a wed­ding par­ty of a small vil­la­ge). This abun­dance is also enough for others

But this mira­cle also shows us the way. We may think that the holi­ne­ss of God and his call for us to live holy lives is a life of strugg­le and joy. Jesus, in his first mira­cle, show­ed us exact­ly the oppo­si­te. If we live as fol­lo­wers of Christ, it will bring us joy, a joy that is per­cei­ved from the out­side. A joy that is abundant.

Possible questions for the small group 

1. «Thus God crea­ted man in his own image, in the image of God he crea­ted them, male and fema­le he crea­ted them. And God bles­sed them, and char­ged them, say­ing, Be fruitful, and mul­ti­ply.» (Gen 1:27–28 NLB).

• • Whe­re and how do you belie­ve it is your task to bear fruit?

2 «If, on the other hand, the Holy Spi­rit is in con­trol of our lives, he will cau­se com­ple­te­ly dif­fe­rent fruit to grow in us: Love, joy, peace, pati­ence, kind­ness, good­ness, faithful­ness, gent­le­ness and self-con­trol». (Gala­ti­ans 5:22–23 NLB).

1. • What can such fruit con­sist of? The abo­ve ver­se gives ans­wers, is the­re any other fruit of the Spirit?
   • What fruits do you see in your body?

3. «I am the vine; you are the bran­ches. He who abides in me and I in him will bear much fruit. For apart from me you can do not­hing». (John 15:5 NLB).

1. • If your life is/seems fruit­less at the moment – what could you do about it?

4. Christ crea­tes a gre­at deal of wine/joy of high qua­li­ty in this first sign/miracle:

• • How much joy do you have in your life?
  • If you lack joy, how could joy come back in your life?
  • Do you also have an «emp­ty wine jar» syn­dron – or do you need some­thing fil­led up some­whe­re, do you need cleaning?