Water Into Wine

Water into Wine

Jesus’ first miracle: water into wine. Of course, turning water into wine is common, especially here in the Okanagan Valley. The trick is to be able to turn water into wine without grapes, without yeast and without the passage of time.

Jesus turned water into wine without grapes, without yeast and without any passage of time. That is the miracle. His first miracle. All those rumors about little boy Jesus turning little clay birds into real birds are wrong. This story in John 2 is our Lord’s first miracle.

I want to say two things about the Water into Wine miracle. 1. What the Bible says about Wine; and 2. What the future Holds for the Follower of Jesus Christ. The first point has to do with our behaviour and the second point has to do with our destiny.

The Bible and Wine

It needs to be said that in the New Testament there is only one word for wine. It is used, for example, by Saint Paul in Ephesians 5:18: Be not drunk with wine. It is the same word used by John here in our Gospel story to describe the Beverage Jesus made by the Power of His Word. Wine is a fermented beverage made from grapes, usually, and if drunk to excess makes one intoxicated. Jesus did not turn the water into Welch’s Grape Juice. He made real wine.

There are 247 references in Scripture to alcohol. Forty of those are negative. That is 16 % of the Bible’s teaching on alcoholic drinks in their various forms is of a negative nature. There are stories of people abusing alcohol, warnings of excess; verses like Proverbs 23:32: Wine bites like a serpent and stings like an adder. Your eyes will see strange things, and your mind utter perverse things. We all know about Noah and Lot getting drunk and how terrible that ended up.

Today we know that Alcohol is a carcinogen, that alcohol causes cancer. There is strong evidence that drinking alcohol increases people's risk of cancers of the breast, liver, mouth, throat, esophagus, and bowel. So that is the dark side to alcohol.

On the bright side, there are 145 positive references to drinking alcohol in the Scriptures. That is a whopping 59% of all the verses dealing with this subject. The Bible talks about the abundance of wine as a sign of God’s blessing; there is the text in Ecclesiastes that says: There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw is from God’s hand. And then there is that Psalm where David thanks God for wine.

So, 16% of the Bible references to wine are negative; 59% are positive and that leaves 25% as neutral references. It is clear that the Bible is in favor of wine but too much wine is an abomination. In other words, we need to be balanced. We need to live all of life in moderation.

We humans find it very difficult to live balanced lives. We want all or nothing, it seems. But the teaching of John 2 in part is that we need to live life in balance. Jesus turned water into wine, but He didn’t get drunk. Even when we take into account all of the ruined lives Broken homes; all the damaged bodies and destroyed marriages caused by alcohol the Bible still has much more positive things to say about wine than evil and what’s significant: Jesus chose to turn water into wine at a wedding as his first miracle.

As many of you we have a long Anglican tradition of serving wine at Holy Communion. But we also recognize that there are some in our congregation who come out of an alcoholic past or who come from a tradition that frowns on alcoholic consumption. So, we give people a choice when they come to the Table so as not to offend anyone. Worshippers can have wine or grape juice.

But let’s move onto Lesson # 2: What does the future holds for the follower of Jesus Christ. What is our destiny? What is up ahead? What might we expect in the next 20 – 30 to 100 years?

What’s Up Ahead for the Christian

Most of you know the story – right after Jesus turned the water into 700 bottles of vintage wine the servants took it to the Master of Ceremonies for a taste test. It’s like when you go to a restaurant today; you order wine, and the waiter pours a little wine into a glass and lets whoever is paying the bill taste test the wine. If it passes his scrutiny, then everyone gets their share.

So, the Master of Ceremonies takes the Jesus wine to his nose; lets the aroma pass his nostrils; takes a sip and is pleasantly surprised. His exact words are: Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best wine till now.