Preaching Paths 19 January 2025

Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary

To rightly interpret today’s text, attention to context, both cultural and literary, is essential. John 2:1-11 tells of a wedding at which Jesus, one of the guests, changes a large quantity of water into wine. If one works out the math, the supply can seem outrageously excessive—but only if we are thinking in terms of a typical, modern-day wedding lasting a few hours. Everything shifts when we take into account the cultural context of the event. First-century Jewish weddings were grand feasts lasting seven days. Thus reframed, Jesus’ gift of wine is astonishingly generous, but not inconceivable.

Mary’s concern about the lack of wine is best considered in light of the fact that wedding guests (who, in this case, include her son and his disciples) ordinarily brought the bridegroom gifts of wine for the occasion. It could be that Mary’s “prompt” in v 3, far from being the attempt of a pushy mother to micro-manage her exceptional son, is simply a suggestion that, in this awkward situation, such a gesture would be timely. However that may be, many interpreters nonetheless find Jesus’ exchange with his mother off-putting. Some protest that “woman” sounds disrespectful; yet, here again, context is illuminating. Jesus uses this respectful form of address in his exchange with a Canaanite woman whose daughter he heals (Mt 15) or his encounter with the bent-over woman whom he heals on a Sabbath (Lk 13). Jesus’ phrase, “How is that our concern?” (v 4) causes much scholarly consternation. But this idiom may simply express Jesus’ genuine hesitation to draw attention to himself, since the decisive “hour” for him to be “glorified” has not yet come. Ultimately, Jesus calmly, quietly supplies enough wine for days of celebration. It is an act fraught with meaning.

John identifies Jesus’ act of transforming water to wine as “the first of his ‘signs’” (v 11). Ultimately, John chs 1-12 will present seven such “signs.” Exactly what does this particular “sign” signify? OT prophetic texts offer clues. In the OT, the wedding banquet is a common eschatological symbol of the age of renewal to come. In Amos, Jeremiah, and Isaiah, a free-flowing abundance of wine (especially for the poor) signifies God’s restoration of God’s people (Amos 9:13-14, Jer 31:12, and Is 25:6, 55:1). To Jewish readers, Jesus’ gift of plentiful, exquisite wine at a village wedding is not simply an astonishing wonder; it is evidence that the age of God’s remaking of heaven and earth has begun.

John declares that Jesus’ disciples” believed in him “because of this unmistakable sign (v. 11).  They will witness six other revelatory signs, each revealing some facet of God’s restorative work.

What of us? What response does this first sign require of us? First, that we believe that Jesus is the agent of God for the re-creation of the world. Second, that like Mary, we shall recognize that the lacks and thirsts of our neighbors, particularly the poor, are divine concerns, and therefore our concerns.  And finally: that our individual and collective lives become living signs that God is steadily weaving newness in the world, sometimes as quietly and inconspicuously as water becoming wine.

In the power of the Spirit, God has made us agents of God’s ongoing work of restoration. It can be hard work. In a world drunk with greed and self-serving lies, there is bound to be resistance to acts of truth and grace. Yet, there shall surely be times when we feel the breath of the Spirit among us, remaking us and weaving a heaven and earth made new. And there shall surely be times when we share, especially with those the world considers of little account, the heady vintage of godly joy.