19 January 2025 Epiphany 2

Isaiah 62.1-5    Psalm 36.5-10    1 Corinthians 12.1-11   John 2.1-11

I must admit, Mary’s response when Jesus dismisses her fears at the lack of wine always tickles me.  Jesus basically says, ‘yeah, so what, that is no concern of mine, or yours’, and Mary immediately (or so we are told) turns to the servants and tells them, ‘do whatever he tells you’.  In other words, Mary is not specifically telling Jesus he needs to do something about it, but she is definitely implying she expects him to do something.  But I wonder what Mary thought Jesus could do about the situation anyway.  What in his past, that we have not been privy to, makes Mary think that Jesus could do something about a lack of wine.  And what do we make of Jesus’ comment that his ‘hour’ has not yet come.  Hour for what.  As he approaches the cross, he does say that ‘now is the time’, but this wedding is at the beginning of his ministry, in fact as this is the first ‘miracle’ or ‘sign’ that John gives us, we could easily think that Jesus had not yet even started his ministry, he was simply there for a ‘social occasion’.

Weddings in the first century were not like weddings in the 21st century.  For starters, the celebration lasts days.  And one of the important parts of that celebration is the wine.  Wine was associated with blessing, joy, goodness.  To run out of wine would have felt like a withdrawal of that blessing, it could even be interpreted as a curse.  So, the wedding is possibly in the second, or third, day, the guests are enjoying themselves, but now the servants, having realised their supply of wine is quickly diminishing, are scrambling around trying to work out what to do next and where they can quickly ‘find’ wine to keep the guests happy.  Mary clearly notices this activity, hence her quiet, surreptitious comment to Jesus.

We are told the water jars hold around 20 or 30 gallons, they are empty, it is a wedding, no need for ritual cleansing, so Jesus gets the servants to fill them, all 6 or them.  So we are looking at somewhere in the vicinity of 120-180 gallons of water, that gets turned into wine.  So when Jesus gets the servants to fill the washing basins with water, he is not just ‘covering up’ the shortage of wine, he is providing more wine – and therefore blessing – than they could possibly consume.  And it is not just ‘any’ wine; as the steward says, it is the best of the best.  Jesus creates abundance for this celebration.  Wine upon wine, blessing upon blessing, joy upon joy, and grace upon grace.

And this taps into John’s Prologue, the poetic introduction of his telling of the Jesus’ story.  He writes “from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace”.  We don’t just receive grace, but grace upon grace, an abundance of grace.

The God that Jesus reveals is not a stern and stingy God, but a God of lavish liberality, generosity and extravagance.  This God is like the manager who pays the workers a full days pay for only one hour of work.  This is the God who asks Jonah is he is angry because God is generous to the pagan Ninevites.  This God is the father who welcomes an errant son home with ring and robe and party.  In turning water into wine, Jesus offers us excess for our emptiness.

And when we imitate the character of God, we are called to do it with the same extravagant generosity toward others – like Mary who anointed the feet of Jesus with expensive perfume even though some complained that it was a waste of money.

The miracles of Jesus provoked controversy, division, disbelief and sometimes authentic faith.  We are told that the disciples who witnessed this miracle ‘believed in him’, I wonder how many others did.  What about the servants who filled the pots with water and then drew out what appeared to be water, yet was declared the crème de la crème  of wine.

We all live with times of emptiness, or lacking, and we all live with times of excess.  We might suffer shortfalls in our finances, our health, or patience, our compassion or hope, and these shortfalls could threaten our plans.  And sometimes we have ‘glory’ revealed.  Sometimes obvious glory, sometimes ‘hidden’ or ‘downplayed’ glory like in this story.  Yet the glory of Christ is revealed in love, in service, in community and in grace.  John does not have a transfiguration story, but Jesus’ glory is seen all through his ministry and it is especially revealed as he is glorified in his death and resurrection.  There, the wine overflows for us too.