When the Wine Ran Out

A few days after Jesus told Nathanael, "I saw you under the fig tree," there was a wedding in Cana, the town in Galilee where Nathanael lived. Jesus was invited, and so were his new followers. His mother, Mary, was there too.

(A wedding back then was not one afternoon with cake. The eating and singing and dancing could go on for seven days, and the groom's family had to feed every guest the entire time.)

Somewhere in the middle of all that dancing, a servant tipped the last wine jar over a cup, and out came one drip.

The wine was gone. The guests didn't know yet, but soon they would, and the bride and groom would be embarrassed in front of everyone they knew.

Mary found her son. "They have no more wine," she whispered.

"Dear woman, why do you bring this to me?" Jesus said. "My hour has not come yet."

(Calling your mother "woman" sounds rude to us, but in those days it was a polite way to speak, a bit like saying "ma'am.")

Mary did not argue. She went straight to the servants. "Do whatever he tells you," she said.

Near the door stood six big stone jars. People used the water in them to wash before they ate, the way their teachers taught. Each jar held twenty or thirty gallons, far more than a grown man could lift.

"Fill the jars with water," Jesus told the servants.

So they did. Off to the well and back, off to the well and back, slosh, slosh, bucket after bucket, until all six jars were full to the very top. (That is dozens and dozens of buckets. The servants did not need any help falling asleep that night.)

"Now dip some out," said Jesus, "and take it to the man in charge of the feast."

The servant who carried that cup knew exactly what was in it. He had poured it himself. Water.

The man in charge took a sip. He blinked. He took another sip. Somewhere between the jar and the cup, the water had turned into wine, rich and red, better than anything he had poured all week. Then he hurried over to the groom.

"What are you doing?" he said. "Everybody serves the good wine first! Then, when the guests have had plenty, out comes the cheap stuff. But you have kept the best wine until now!"

The groom had no idea what he meant. The man in charge had no idea where the wine had come from. But the servants knew, and they looked at each other over the tops of those jars with very wide eyes.

This was the first sign Jesus did. It showed his glory, the Bible says, which means it let people see a little of who he really was. And his followers believed in him.

Even six jars of wine get drunk up sooner or later, and then the jars go back to holding washing water. One wedding, one town, one family spared from embarrassment. Cana had been given a taste.

But God's prophets had promised far more than a taste. Isaiah said that one day God would spread a feast on his mountain for every nation, with the finest wine, and wipe the tears from every face, and swallow up death forever.

The guest standing beside those stone jars had come to throw that feast. His hour was still ahead: the cross, where he would die for his people, and the third day, when he would rise again. Soon John the Baptist would call him the Bridegroom. And at Cana, the first time Jesus showed his glory, he did what he will do at the very end. He poured the best wine at the end.