Good Wine

“Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.  (John 2:10-11)

I has a strange upbringing.  My Dad was in the military and we lived all over the world though always called South Alabama/Florida panhandle as home.  When he retired I was just starting high school and we ended up in a small town in Alabama.

I can remember when I was real young, my father would come home from work and then head off to his second job as a bartender.  When we lived in Germany, we lived as the Germans and there was usually wine or beer at evening meals.  We visited many a winery as a family over the years and never had difficulty with alcohol in the home. Then the move to a dry county in the middle of the Bible belt where iced tea was the beverage of choice.

For me it was real disconnect.  I had been raised in a home where tolerance of alcohol and moderation were taught and modeled, only to find myself smack in the middle of a culture where intolerance was the norm.  

The church was disconnected too.  At communion, we spoke of the bread and wine of the Last Supper, but always used grape juice.  I once attended a study at a local Baptist church where the pastor explained with great detail that all mention of wine in the New Testament was actually a reference to grape juice.  

Being a precocious youth, I asked the pastor to explain John 2 and why Jesus would turn water into “grape juice.”  I was especially interested in that part where wedding guests were getting drunk on the good stuff at most weddings, was this wedding different?  I never got an answer that day because we conveniently ran out of time. Over the years, I have never really gotten what I would call a good answer to my question.

Skirt the facts all you want, the reference to wine in John 2 really about wine, and really about a wedding party.  The church might use grape juice at communion for many reasons, but it is not because Jesus turned the water into Welch’s.

Here are a few of my insights on the Wedding at Cana:

Jesus was not an ascetic- Jesus lived fully in his culture, and was fully engaged in life.  There are certainly reasons for abstinence and self-denial, and there are appropriate times for it; Jesus, on the whole,  gives us an example of being fully engaged in the community.

Kingdom life is supposed to be a feast/party- The first miracle at a wedding was just a precursor of all that was to follow.  Jesus spent much of his ministry with feasts and meals.  The model Jesus gave us for being followers was a meal.  He called us to remember him in the bread and the wine.  As we say most Sundays at my church, “Therefore let us keep the feast.”

Jesus is about “good wine“- Wine as a symbol is significant.  It is about transformation and growth.  Wine is about taking ordinary elements and making them something else, something spectacular, something you would bring to a party.

If we let Jesus have his way with us, he will turn us into something extraordinary as well. He fully intends to share with us a heavenly banquet.