Water Into Wine
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
January 18, 2004
Isaiah 62:1-5; John 2:1-11
I. INTRODUCTION
If there’s one thing most doctors agree on it’s that each of us ought to drink eight glasses of water a day. That’s 64 ounces of water every day. They recommend this to keep the body hydrated, to keep weight off, and to avoid a whole host of other ills.
Somewhat more controversial is the advice to drink a glass of wine every day. Many believe that there is something in the wine that reduces the risk of stroke by something like 32%. But even so, people are less likely to be enthusiastic about recommending a glass of wine because wine is a fairly different drink from water. Water is a nice safe drink. Good for you. Drink lots of it. Wine on the other hand—drink too much of that and you can run into problems. It’s got the potential to make you drunk. It can cause you to lose control.
II. TEXT
And so we encounter Jesus at a wedding in Cana of Galilee and water and wine are both involved. It is three days since John the Baptist declared his “the Lamb of God who takes a way the sins of the world.” It is very early in his ministry. They run out of wine at the wedding and Jesus’ mother says to him, “They have no wine.” His response is curious:
“Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.”
It seems like a rebuke, but his Mary simply turns to the servants and says, “Do whatever he tells you.”
He tells them to fill the jars of water to the brim. When they take some out of the jars, it has turned into wine. And not just any wine—good wine. The steward is amazed that they have kept the good wine for the end. After this we are told:
“Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”
III. WATER AND WINE—THE ORDINARY AND THE EXTRAORDINARY
An interesting thing about the Gospel of John is that it contains no “miracles.” The wondrous acts Jesus performs in John’s Gospel are never called ‘miracles’ but “signs.” That is, they are not wondrous deeds of power but are meant to show the reader who Jesus is.
Jesus’ first sign: he turns water into wine. He turns the ordinary into the extraordinary. It is the pattern that will mark Jesus’ career. Turning water into wine, sickness into health, death into life.
There is a reason that this story is part of the cycle of stories in Epiphany. Epiphany means manifestation or revelation and this ‘sign’ is another part of Jesus divine manifestation, another way in which Jesus reveals himself to us.
IV. TRUSTING IN CHRIST
We are told that Jesus performed the sign of turning water into wine and that his disciples believed in him. So, Jesus performs a pretty remarkable feat—he turns water into wine. I mean, we say it so much, does it really sink in? He turned ordinary water—hydrogen and oxygen—into a complex solution of organic molecules and sugars. How does that happen? That’s a remarkable feat, no less strange than turning lead into gold. No wonder the disciples believed in him after that. That’s a pretty impressive bending of the laws of physics and the conservation of matter.
But what’s fascinating about this passage, is that Mary already believed. She comes to Jesus and says simply: “They have no wine.” She is not simply telling him the status of the catering. She is expecting him to do something. Even when he rebukes here by saying it’s not his hour, she simply turns to the servants and tells them “Do whatever he tells you.” The implication: Mary is expecting Jesus to do something. He has given her no indication and yet she knows he’ll do something. She trusts that he will.
She knows who he is—she knows that he is in the world to transform the world. She trusts in Jesus’ ability to turn water into wine—to transform the world itself.
Do we do that? Do we trust in Christ to transform our world? Do we trust in God to turn water into wine in our lives?
V. MARTIN
This weekend we celebrate the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King was murdered in 1968 six months before I was born—his life never overlapped with mine. But fortunately his legacy did. Because while I grew up in a world without Martin Luther King, I cannot say that I grew up in a world that had not been touched by him.
Martin Luther King did not begin the Civil Rights Movement. In fact, his entry into it was as a result of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. It was his involvement in that struggle that propelled him to the front of the Civil Rights movement, where he became one of its greatest prophets.
There is an old cliché about people who look at a glass half filled with water: the pessimists see it as half-empty. The optimists see it as half-full. I think Martin Luther King saw the glass as full of wine.
Dr. King did not involve himself in the struggle for civil rights because he was a sociology major in college. He didn’t involve himself because he was a talented speaker. He didn’t even involve himself because he was black. He involved himself because he was a Christian.
Dr. King trusted in the power of God to transform the world as he found it into the world as it ought to be. So convinced of this that he gave everything of himself, ultimately including his life, to be a part of that transformation. Martin, like Mary, knew what Christ was capable of. He knew that Christ could take the water of oppression and Jim Crow segregation and could turn it into the wine of racial equality and tolerance. He knew that Christ could take the stagnant waters of racism and turn it into the wine of a common humanity. And for that reason we celebrate his life.
VI. CONCLUSION
It’s easy for us to get into spiritual ruts, to look at the glass as either half empty or half full. And to argue with each other over which one it is. A Christians we are called to see the glass as a glass of wine, reflecting the potential of our world and the power of Christ to transform it.
As Christians we do not settle for the ordinary. We are not content with the water of our lives. We are not content with the world as we find it. We remember the promise of the world as it ought to be, as God is calling it to be.
Christ is at work in our world, transforming it into the kingdom of God. Will we trust him to transform our lives? Will we be like the disciples, longing for a sign—or will we trust that Christ will take the bland, ordinary water of our lives and transform it into sweet, extraordinary wine?
