St. Luke's Episcopal Church
Cleveland, Tennessee

Second Sunday of Epiphany
January 17, 2010
The Reverend Deacon Art Bass

The “Good Wine” at Cana

I don't watch a lot of television, but when I do, I often find myself viewing one of the PBS stations. It's not that I am trying to educate or edify myself, but for a long time now, I have been a big fan of British comedy.

“Keeping Up Appearances,” “Are You Being Served,” and of course, “The Vicar of Dibley.” I have probably seen each episode at least a dozen times, but I keep watching.

If you are at all familiar with British comedy, you probably are aware of an actor and comedian named Rowan Atkinson. He is best known for the sitcoms, “The Blackadder” and “Mr. Bean,” but in the early 1980's, he became one of the lead actors in a live production called “Not the Nine O'Clock News.” It was a sort of British “Saturday Night Live.”

On this live series, Atkinson often did skits in which he portrayed an Anglican clergyman, and in that character, one of his best known skits was his reading of the gospel story of the wedding at Cana.

As he begins, it sounds like an authentic reading from the King James Version of the story, but then the reading takes some strange turns.

When he reads the part about the steward not knowing from where the wine came, but that the servants did, he begins to put words into the mouths of the servants, as they tell Jesus such things as “You're pretty good. Do you do children's parties?” It gets more irreverent from there, and considering where I am, I don't think I'm going to quote further from the skit.

Now obviously Jesus didn't change water into wine at Cana to establish himself as a magician or entertainer, which is the comic implication of the skit. But for me, the skit raises some interesting questions about the real gospel account.

Why did Jesus change the water into wine at the wedding in Cana? It was not like restoring sight to the blind or helping the lame to walk. Why did he do it?

And perhaps more importantly, a second question: Why did John include this story in his gospel? He is the only gospel writer who did so.

We had a wedding here at St. Luke's just yesterday. Many of you were here. Isaac Doty, our youth minister was married to Christy Johnson. It was a beautiful ceremony with a very enjoyable reception in the parish hall afterward. But as is typical in our culture, the entire event only lasted for a few hours.

Weddings were different in Jesus' time, especially in small towns like Cana of Galilee. The celebrations were community events, lasting from three days to a week. During this time, the bride and groom and their families were expected to play host to the entire town. So when the wine ran out, it was not like running short at a reception as we know today.

Had there been no more wine at the wedding in Cana, it would have been a serious disgrace, one that would have continued to haunt the lives of the bridal couple for years to come.

So when Mary asked her son, Jesus, to help, the need for that help was much more compelling than we might think from the context of our own culture.

Also, Jesus did not make a public display. The fact that a miracle had taken place was only known to Mary, the servants, and Jesus' disciples.

In John's gospel this story takes place just after Jesus has called his disciples, and John makes it clear that they were there with Jesus at the wedding.

When Jesus had called Nathaniel, whom John describes just before telling about the wedding in today's reading, Jesus knew everything about him, even though they had never met. And he made a promise to Nathaniel, as a representative of all the disciples, that if you follow me, “you will see greater things than these.”

The miracle at Cana was the first of these “greater things.” The gospel says that because Jesus had thus revealed his glory, at Cana, the disciples not only followed Jesus, but they “believed in him.”

So perhaps this offers some explanation of why Jesus chose to work the miracle of water into wine, but why did John report it in his gospel, and why was he the only gospel writer to do so?

To answer these questions, I think we have to look at some other events in the life of Jesus and at how these events are addressed in the gospels.

All the gospels tell about the last supper Jesus had with the disciples just before his arrest. The synoptic writers, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, focus on how at that supper, Jesus blessed bread and wine, identifying it with his body and blood. John does not tell that story. Instead, John tells of Jesus washing the disciples feet and instructing them about servanthood and the need to love one another.

All the gospels, John included, tell how Jesus fed the five thousand from just five loaves of bread and two fish. From the earliest of Christian times to the present, the fish has been a symbol for Christ. We've all seen the bumper stickers. Fish and bread together symbolically identify the bread with Christ. Moreover, in John's gospel, the feeding of the five thousand is followed by the famous bread of life discourse. So John identifies the Eucharistic bread with the body of Christ in the story of the miraculous feeding, rather than at the last supper.

But what of the Eucharistic wine?

In the Episcopal Church, we have a custom, a tradition, when preparing the altar at the Eucharist, to add a small amount of water to all the wine. Liturgical historians believe this is a very ancient practice that can be traced all the way back to the Johanine Community, the community of John, where it originated. In John's gospel, when Jesus' crucified body was pierced by the soldier, both blood and water poured from the wound.

Now, back to Cana. Like the feeding of the five thousand, where Jesus created an abundance of bread, at the wedding feast, he created an abundance of wine from the water. Also, after being transformed by Jesus the water did not become just ordinary wine. It became special. It became “good wine”

We don't know if the other gospel writers knew about the story of the wedding at Cana. Perhaps they did. Perhaps they didn't. But they talked about wine in a Eucharistic context in their last supper narratives. John did not, and I think the Cana wedding story is how he made up for this.

If we connect John's story about water and wine at Cana with his story about water and blood at the Crucifixion, and I think John means for us to do exactly that, then the story of the wedding is not just about Jesus making wine by a mere word of command. It is much, much more than that. It becomes instead a story about Jesus' life and death producing for us something special, an abundance of “good wine”, the symbol of an abundance of grace in a never ending celebration of life. The wedding at Cana becomes a symbol of the wedding between Christ and his church

The “good wine”, from this wedding, which only Jesus can give, is very extraordinary indeed, for it nourishes everlasting life and it imparts never failing grace to all who partake and believe.