When the Wine Runs Out - Reflecting on the Character of God

 If you were God and you’d come to earth to show people what God was like, what would you do first?

 

As a campus minister I used to spend hours every week initiating conversations about life with God with college students.  This question was one of my favorites.  It created a safe space for students to exercise their theological imagination without pressure to be sophisticated or nuanced.  I also appreciated the surprise when I told them that, according to the Gospel of John, this scenario played out, but that Jesus’ first move was to make 168 gallons of wine for a party.   

 

There is something wonderfully non-intuitive about the first of the seven “signs” of Jesus in John’s Gospel.  In this first sign Jesus transforms water into wine at a wedding, covering the bridegroom’s (and his family’s) shame.  John ends this story by saying that this sign caused his disciples to believe in him, revealing his glory. 

It is a story rich with symbolism and allusion we may not see at first.

- An abundance of wine evokes the messianic banquet of Isaiah 25:6. 

- Allusions to time or hour look forward to Jesus’ crucifixion, where this first sign is inverted. Here Jesus receives water and makes wine. There Jesus receives sour wine, and water, along with blood, flow from his side. 

- The language of glory evokes the promise of Isaiah 40:5, but with a strange twist. Those who "see his glory" are those who ‘do whatever he tells them’ and those who 'believe in his name'. 

 

What do all these symbols and allusions mean?  College students uninstructed theological imaginations are closer than you’d think.  After asking the question above, “If you were God…” hundreds of times, the most common response was, “I’d cure cancer, disease, poverty, AIDS, or some other disastrous condition plaguing humanity.”  The second most common response was, “I’d get rid of all the bad people.” 

 

John’s gospel actually affirms this impulse although with a little more precision.  John’s symbolic language for a time when diseases are healed, wars ceased, nations and families reconciled, and social harmony is the messianic banquet.  By creating an abundance of wine, Jesus is not only solving a social dilemma he’s invoking a vision of healing, harmony, and hope imprinted on the human soul.  

 

Getting rid of bad people is a bit more complicated.  As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote, 

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”  

The direct references to Jesus’ crucifixion, where this sign will be inverted, is John’s solution to Solzhenitsyn’s dilemma.  In the mystery of the crucifixion human evil is exposed, condemned, and overcome through Jesus’ submitting to torture and death on behalf of those he loves.  This is an ultimate act of restoring, rather than simply removing, the bad apples.  

 

This sign is designed to show us God’s glory in the generous, self-giving, compassionate, and yet sill partially hidden life of Jesus.  Though this sign we are invited to shake our heads in appreciative wonder at the generosity of God revealed in Jesus.  And we are invited to trust in Jesus’ way.  

 

Where do you feel like you’ve run out of wine?  

 

What one simple way you could practice the way of Jesus this week?  

 

 

 

 

 

Jason Gaboury