Weddings are proclamations of the gospel. They are either faithful or unfaithful proclamations of the gospel, but they are proclamations of the gospel. They can take the gospel seriously and proclaim it with dignity, or they can be turned into a trivial ceremony of self-expression. In every wedding, nonetheless, there is a proclamation of the gospel. This is so because marriage is ultimately the story of Christ Jesus and his bride, the church.
Weddings begin and end the Scriptures. The world begins with a wedding on the sixth day of the first week, and, in Revelation 21-22, the bride is adorned for the bridegroom at the end of history. God gave marriage to man as a gift to reflect the marriage of Christ and his church and to participate in the mission of Christ and his church. It is no wonder, then, that Jesus begins his ministry of signs at a wedding (Jn 2:1-11). Jesus quietly surprises us at the wedding in Cana as he shows himself to be the true Bridegroom.
The bridegroom at the wedding in Cana committed a shameful cultural faux pas for a wedding feast: he ran out of wine. Granted, he had to provide wine and food for a week-long feast, but he knew that going in. He didn’t fulfill his responsibility.
The mother of Jesus (interestingly, John never calls her by her name, Mary) reports the situation to her firstborn son. Judging from Jesus’ response, she expects Jesus to do something about it. Since he hasn’t performed any signs up to this point in his life, she may not be expecting him to create wine, but she is obviously expecting something.
Jesus’ response both honors and rebukes her at the same time. When he calls her “Woman” after being called her son, he acknowledges her as the woman promised in Genesis 3:15. He is the seed of the woman who comes to crush the serpent’s head and save his mother. But he also has a mild rebuke when he says, “What does your concern have to do with me?” Her relationship with him as his mother doesn’t give her any special privilege to dictate his mission. Whatever he does, it will not be because of his mother’s concern about family shame or anything like that. He will do what he does because it fits his Father’s mission for him.
Jesus uses the opportunity to enact a parable. The original bridegroom failed. He will do what the first bridegroom failed to do.
Transforming water into wine is not a magic trick to impress. Jesus is revealing his glory (Jn 2:11). He is revealing who he is and what he came to do. Because of the failure of the original bridegroom, the bride is left unclean and, therefore, in a state of death. She needs purification, but the old purification rites aren’t sufficient.
Jesus has six stone waterpots used for purification filled up with water. Rock-water is nothing new to Jews. Water came from a rock in the wilderness to give them life. The same was true at the Tabernacle and Temple. Water was taken from the bronze (rock) laver to cleanse them and cause them to pass from death to life. But that old water, while adequate for the time, was insufficient for a once-for-all cleansing.
Jesus transforms the old water into wine. This wine is the cup he will introduce at the institution of the Supper. This cup is the new covenant in his blood, shed for the remission of sins. His blood provides the bride with what she needs. By this wine-blood, she will be cleansed from her sins and given the resurrected life of her Bridegroom.
