water into wine

It seems like I'm taking Garth's name in vain a lot.

He and I were discussing the matter of Christ our Lord turning water into wine, and Garth mentioned that it seemed likely to him that the miracle that Jesus effected was not to turn water into wine, but instead to move it.  To move wine that was somewhere else to where the water was, and then to move the water to that location.

It's an interesting thesis, and since Garth knows slightly more about physics than I do, I'm prepared to believe the possibility of the thing. But if the concept of the great switcheroo is true, then the question remains, what happens to the water?

The traditional understanding of the miracle would tell us that it just vanishes, that it is replaced as though through a conjurer's trick, with wine.  But whichever way you slice it, whichever way you think about how these things work, it's worth considering the nature of the wine, both good and bad. For you see, in the story of the Wedding at Cana, something happens, which is that a wedding is getting started, and everything seems fine.  Everything seems fine until the party begins to run out of wine.  All of a sudden, the burgeoning party that seemed so promising now only seemed to promise to grind to a halt, as any good party would without some dutch libations.  So, the folks putting the party on began to realize that their party was going to run out of good times, and they had nothing left to offer.  Doubtlessly, they'd already served all the wine they could, and so they had to serve their guests with something amounting to nothing at all.  This is troublesome, and would not only reflect badly on them as hosts, it would get the marriage off on the wrong foot.  So Mary goes to Jesus, and says to him 'they have run out of wine,' and Jesus, after an initial persuasion, goes to assist.  But his assistance is the stuff of legend. In his assistance, Jesus does the impossible, and serves the people at the wedding wine where there was no wine before.  So where's the water?  Where's the bad wine?  What happens to that?

Well, it's an interesting question, because the water disappears, and the party continues, and Jesus serves the best wine after everyone was convinced that it was all gone, and all opportunities were gone as well.  And this is what happens with us in our lives, too, which is that we have a way of thinking about our lives, our trajectory, and how it is all leading to collapse eventually.  We figure that we're on the road to death, and that nothing can change that.  Death is inevitable, but so is gradual cooling.  The gradual cooldown of the universe, in which everything gets cold and eventually dead.  There is no new energy, and so the only state of things is to get worse.

That's why this passage works so well as a wedding reading, and no, not just because there's a wedding in it, but because that's how people view the trajectory of marriages.  I remember the day that I was married, my wife and I stopped for a milkshake at a local Calgary eatery, and while we were going through the drive thru, our obviously 'just married' car attracted attention, and some teenagers cried out 'you're making a huge mistake!'

I shrugged that off at the time, but it's obviously stuck with me.  Why would some random teenager, who knows nothing about my relationship, my wife, or our future together, be prepared to make a judgment based solely on the fact that we were married when we weren't before? Well, because the idea is that it's all downhill from here.  Diminishing returns style, you're always going to be feeling worse as time drags on. Your best day of your marriage will be the first day, and then after that, 'each day's a little better than the next.'  Sad, but that's the way we've been conditioned to think about, well, pretty much everything.  Possessions, relationships, hobbies, it's all at its absolute best the minute you start, and then after that, all you can do is chase that high. It's never going to be as good ever again.

And this law of diminishing returns dogs us and drags us down.  It pulls us aside from where we believe, sincerely, that we should be.  It calls into question everything we do, and leaves us dissatisfied with the way things are.  We look at our world, we look at our surroundings, and say to ourselves 'well, I guess this is as good as it gets. This is your life, good to the last drop.  Doesn't get any better than this.  This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time.'  Left with that reasoning, why wouldn't you join a particular club that I'm not allowed to talk about?  Life has nothing to offer, so you may as well rage, rage against the dying of the light.

But there's another option.  Another option that is just hinted at in Cana, where Jesus gives us a promise, a promise that is good not only for our relationships, but also every aspect of our lives.  What is it in our lives that is lacking?  What has gone cold? What is it in your life that you have give up on, what relationship have you lost hope in?  What segment of your life is tinged with regret, and pondering over the idea of 'too late,' or 'this is just the way things are?'  That's not the promise of the scriptures, though.  That's not the promise of the scriptures at all. That's not the promise that Jesus brings you, rather, he gives you the opposite.  He speaks these words to you.

Behold, I make all things new.

We as Christians tend to limit this to the resurrection, that Jesus can bring everyone back from the dead.  But I ask you, which is harder?  To reanimate dead tissue and to resume cellular respiration, or to put a slightly bruised relationship back together?  So why do we want to limit God?

Why do we want to limit God. We think it's strange when Jesus initially resists his mother's plea for help, saying 'woman, what does this have to do with me?' but that's the same statement that we make as well.  When we are in flagging relationships, or when we are pressed against the wall of complete collapse, we look at the possibility of involving Christ our savior, and say 'what does this have to do with him?'  Sure, my relationship is failing, or my faith is falling apart, or I haven't spoken to my sister in years, but heck, what does that have to do with Jesus?

If his response to his mother gives you pause for concern and comment, if you've read through the Gospels and said to yourself 'he should help!  That's totally in his wheelhouse,' then I ask the same question to you, why would you look at anything you have going on, and say to yourself 'gosh, what does that have to do with Jesus?'  Good question.  And the answer is the aforementioned quote - he makes all things new.  That's his job, which is to restore, to rejuvenate, to make fresh and new and pure and, well, into the good wine that you thought you'd run out of years ago.  How does all this happen? 

I promised that I'd come back to the relocation of the water, and here's where it comes in.  I'm not sure about the water, but I do know about the bad wine.  The wine that Jesus makes for those in Cana is good wine, better than any of them have ever had before.  It's the best of all wine, to be sure, and can't be overstated.  But the bad wine that everyone was expecting, the wine that you can only eat after everyone's had enough to drank already, well, that shows up, you know.  It shows up at the cross, where the real good wine is served.  Lots of folks have no problem with Jesus being a good moral teacher, or a fine example for us all, or someone for us to look up to, and if that's your view of Christ, then you'll come to the cross at calvary, and figure that there, the suffering Lord, that's when we have a bit of a problem with the great human teacher.  When he's on the cross, nailed to it and dying, when he's being lanced through with a spear, it seems like we're going to have to drink the bitter and the sour.  It seems like it's all going to be vinegar for those of us in our faith.  The Christians, the followers of Christ, have had their best wine, and now they're going to have nothing but vinegar.  But who drinks the vinegar?  Christ does.  He takes the vinegar for us.  On the cross, the one who changed water into the best wine that any of them had ever had, he's immobile, isolated, can't quench his own thirst, can't move to scratch an itch or wipe his brow.  That Christ is the one who is thirsty, and asks for a drink, and drinks the vinegar.  And then he bows his head, and gives up his spirit.

And at that moment, the best wine was served; not to him, but to us.  The wine that transcends death, the wine that makes all things new, the wine that broke death and restored us to life and communion with God.  That wine was served at that moment, and continues to be served in Holy Communion, where the body and blood of Christ are offered for us.  If you need a reminder for all five of your senses that Jesus can make all things new, come to the altar, take his body and his blood, and realize that in there, he is serving you the best wine now.