Most of us have been on a school bus at some point in our lives singing, 99 bottles of beer on the wall. Today we could be singing 999 bottles of wine at the feast. The amount of wine transformed from water in our gospel is simply overwhelming! The water for ritual cleansing was stored in amphoras, large clay jars holding between 20 to 30 gallons each. I did the math—6 jars x 30 = 180 gallons, 128 oz x 180 gallons = 23,040 oz, 24.75 oz to a normal wine bottle = 931 bottles. The jars were filled to the brim so we can round up to 999 bottles of wine! This extravagant, abundant and transformational wedding feast is a sign that points to what is called the feast of victory for our God, or our feast and celebration, or Eucharist, Holy Communion.
Wedding feasts and wine are both prevalent images throughout Scriptures. They point us to the overflowing plenty of God’s grace for God’s people. God is compared to a bridegroom for the bride—Israel in the Old Testament and the church in the New Testament. In our first reading, God’s love and delight is lavished on the beloved spouse. In Hosea and Joel sweet wine drips and flows down the mountains. Jeremiah and the Song of Songs use the same metaphors. In the book of Revelation God’s Kingdom is compared to the marriage feast of the Lamb. The church triumphant is seen as the bride, adorned for the bridegroom.
On the surface the wedding feast at Cana can seem strange. There’s that exchange between Jesus and his mother. The people are already drunk– what do they need with another 999 bottles of excellent wine? At face value it seems like a kind of frivolous action—Jesus saved the day at a wedding when the wine ran out.
We need to remember that we are in John’s gospel, though. This gospel is the choice for English majors. I can say that. I majored in English in college. We developed the skill of discovering the deeper, inner, hidden, secret meanings in any poem or novel. John’s gospel is richly layered and dense in deeper, inner, hidden, secret meanings. This gospel is structured in a completely different way from the other 3 gospels. They follow a mostly chronological or geographical order. John…not so much. John is the mystical, symbolic, poetic gospel, an English major’s dream.
John’s gospel is built around groups of 7. There are 7 I Am saying of Jesus. (We’re going to take a deep dive into those during Lent this year—I am the light of the world, the bread of life, the true vine, and so forth.) There are 7 feasts, 7 stories about water, only 7 named disciples. Jesus refers to himself simply as I AM, (echoing the great encounter between Moses and the burning bush where the name of God is given as I AM WHO I AM—Yahweh) guess how many times—you got it, 7! John’s gospel is like a master puzzle with many, many layered meanings.
Matthew, Mark and Luke include many dramatic events described in detail. John just has 7 events. He doesn’t call them miracles or wonders. He calls them signs, downplaying any miraculous characteristics. The signs function, well, like signs! They point to Jesus’ hour, his time, his identity. They point to the new relationship, the abundant life offered through Christ.
In chapter 20 verses 30-31 we read this:
“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life is his name.”
So, the wedding at Cana is the first sign. Let’s put an English major hat on and look at this. Foreshadowing is a writer’s technique that plants a seed early in the text about something that is going to happen later, a sort of hint that will be remembered later when it all makes sense. Our reading for today has a few of those.
It starts off with “On the third day there was a wedding.” John wrote about 60 years after Jesus rose–on the third day, the day of resurrection. A wedding feast was a tried and true metaphor in the Hebrew Scriptures for a God-given day of fulfilment and joy, a day long awaited by the believers as a time when God would restore all things, transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, a time of whole and good relationships. On the third day there was a wedding.
The next bit of foreshadowing comes with Jesus’ response to his mother. The whole scene is quite underplayed. He says to her, “Woman, what concern is that to me and to you?” It sounds kind of disrespectful to our ears. But Jesus addressed his mother from the cross using the same word. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he turned to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.
There’s a re-ordering of the relationship between Jesus and Mary in both instances. In Cana, Mary recognizes his authority and ability and tells the servants to do what he says. She points the attention away from everything else to him. She knows he is not just her son, he is for the whole world. From the cross, Jesus cares for his mother and for the disciple he loved, placing them in each other’s care.
Jesus takes the empty jars for ritual purification, has them filled to the brim, and transforms them into something brand new: an extravagant and abundant blessing, the best possible wine. Remember this is the poetic, symbolic gospel. By the time John was written, the early church had set aside the old rituals of Judaism- the ritual purity laws and the need for 30 gallon jars of water for example. They had created a new ritual involving bread and wine.
What is described in the other gospels as the last supper complete with the words of institution of holy communion, is quite different in John. That night of betrayal, what we have come to call Maundy Thursday, is all about the foot-washing in John. There is no mention of a cup or bread.
To find the roots of Holy Communion in John’s gospel we consider two passages. The first is today’s reading, where the empty jars of ritual washing are replaced with the best possible and most abundant wine. The ancient practices were transformed into new patterns. It’s another little hint that gets explained a few chapters later.
The second place we find the roots of communion is in Chapter 6, another one of the 7 signs, the feeding of the five thousand. Again, the themes of abundance and transformation take center stage. After the five loaves and two fish are multiplied to feed the multitudes John writes this: “When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”
The next Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. … Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day, for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” Again, the old story of manna is transformed and given new meaning in the new ritual.
The 999 bottles of wine at the feast is anything but trivial. John crafted a many layered gospel and paired the Wedding at Cana with the Feeding of the 5000. Both are signs of the community of believers. Both carry the themes of joy, new relationships shaped by the love of Christ, abundant life, and extravagant love.
Here in this community of faith we come from a range of different denominations and life experiences. Some of us were taught that the bread and cup of communion become the true body and blood of Christ. Some learned that the body and blood are present in, with, and under the bread and wine. Some see this meal as a symbolic memorial to Christ. For some people here Communion is a new thing or something only rarely experienced before.
There are at least 6 different viewpoints depicted in the New Testament. Paul and Jude both write about difficulties experienced in the early church over the practice. Today’s second lesson comes from Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth where in the preceding chapter he addressed the difficulties that arose because of their exclusive and divisive ways about their practice of the Lord’s Supper. They didn’t always get it right and neither do we.
We practice what is called an Open Table here. Anyone who wants to draw near to Christ is welcome at this table. There’s something quite wonderful about this community of faith. We don’t all believe the same things, exactly. And that’s ok. There are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit, and varieties of services, but the same Lord, there are varieties of activities but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
The most important thing to remember is that this meal is a sign—a sign of the abundant, extravagant transformation Jesus offers. The church offers grace upon grace, points like a sign to the love and joy of Christ that can overflow our cups, transforming all of life and our very beings. This is the Wedding Feast of the Risen Christ, not a solemn event but a joyous feast where Christ is host and guest and the very food itself. It is given not for ritual purification or outward cleansing but to fill us with abundant life.
Let us pray. O Christ, through signs of grace you reveal your glory to all the world. Open our eyes to your hidden and surprising wonders that we may believe with our minds and trust in our hearts that your love pours over all of life. Amen.