Wait and See

This event happens after Jesus’ baptism and after he recruited at least his first four disciples: Andrew, whom had been one of John the Baptist’s disciples, Andrew’s brother Simon, whom Jesus would give the name Peter, Philip, who was from the same home town as Simon and Andrew, Bethsaida, and Philip’s friend Nathanael.
The structure of the account of this miracle is similar to some other accounts of Jesus’ miracles: the expression of a need, Jesus’ reluctance or hesitation to respond to the request for help, and a further demonstration of faith followed by acts of obedience to God’s will and Jesus’ directions. The miracle is performed as a response to the request, the demonstration of faith, and the acts of obedience. This is similar to the account of Jesus healing the sick son of a royal official from Capernaum, which was in area of Galilee. This can be found in John chapter 4. I looked up Cana and Capernaum on one of the maps in my bible and found that they are about twenty miles apart. This royal official came to see Jesus during another visit to Cana. The man begged Jesus to heal his sick son and Jesus responded, “Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders you will never believe.” But the man persisted, begging, “Sir come down before my child dies.” Therefore Jesus replied, “You may go. Your son will live.” The account of that miracle states that from the very moment that Jesus uttered those words, the boy’s fever left him. That is recorded in John, in Mark and Matthew the account of Faith of the Syrophoenician Woman. She was a Greek woman and she had a daughter that was possessed by an evil spirit. She fell at Jesus feet and begged him to drive the demon out, but Jesus said, “First let the children eat all they want, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs. The woman persisted replying, “but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Jesus was impressed by her faith and because of it, he made the demon leave the daughter’s body.
This is probably a very familiar story from the gospel for most of us. Jesus is at Cana in Galilee with his mother Mary and his disciples. During the wedding banquet the party runs out of wine. This would be a very embarrassing and unfortunate problem to have. It would be like running out of punch, or soda pop, or coffee or all three at a present day wedding reception. The guests are celebrating the marriage with the bride and groom and having a grand meal, but they need something fitting to drink with it. It would be a very embarrassing miscalculation on the part of the bridegroom and his family to run out of wine.
Judging by the amount of water that Jesus turned into wine, enough to fill six 20 to 30 gallon stone water jars. This must have been a pretty big party. Jesus created somewhere between 120 and 180 gallons of wine. Just judging by that volume there must have been many guests at this banquet. From experience, I know that when something does not go right at a party people remember it and talk about it or joke about it at future gatherings. For example, in my family we always remembered and talked about the time that we were grilling out and some how the steaks got dumped in the dirt. We did not have anything else to eat, and it landed in clean sand so they were rinsed and served and we ate them. We always joked about the sand crunching and squeaking in our teeth, even though I do not think any of us really did get any sandy bites.
Mary wanted to save her friends from the embarrassment of not being properly prepared for this wedding banquet so she took action. She asked Jesus for help. This is something that she had in common with the royal official from Capernaum and the Syrophoenician woman. They needed help or they knew of a need for help and they took it to the Lord to ask for help. This is something we might need to be reminded of when we have problems.
When the wine began to run out at the wedding banquet, Mary did not have to say anything to Jesus about the problem. It was not her job to make sure that the party was well supplied. Apparently there was a water source nearby, the people could have gotten by with just water to drink, but Mary did take the step to present this problem to Jesus. She did not just try to work on her own to find a solution for this problem. When Jesus tested Mary’s faith by questioning whether this was the right time for him to act or the right place, Mary persisted in her faith. She did not give up just because she did not get the answer that she had hoped for right off the bat. She still told the servants to do whatever Jesus asked them to do. The servants that were there respected the faith Mary had in Jesus and therefore they were obedient to the instructions that Jesus gave them.
The next part of this story presents two more important points. The first is that the persistence of faith of one person can plant the seed of new faith in the hearts of others. The servant’s had drawn water from the stone jars and presented it to the steward of the banquet. When he tasted the water it had become wine. He did not know where this wine had come from, but the servants knew that this wine had been water just moments before when they were filling the jars. Those servants may have gained at least a seed of faith from witnessing this miracle. The scripture also says that Jesus glory was revealed through this miracle and the disciples put their faith in him.
The third point is that when the water was transformed into wine by Jesus the wine was better than the first wine that had been served at the banquet. The wine that the family had provided for the banquet was probably the best that they could afford, but it was not as good as the wine that Jesus had provided. If Mary had not stepped in or interceded on behalf of the groom and his family, they would have been left to their own devices. Whatever they could have provided as a drink for the rest of the banquet, it would not have been as good as the wine that was provided by Jesus.
These are important lessons for us to keep in our hearts and minds. It may be difficult when we are engulfed by our problems and trying to find a solution or a way out, to stop and take the time to turn to God and ask for help, but when we do God does hear us. When we ask God for direction and help he does listen. He may not respond as soon as we would like him to and he may not provide the solution that we had expected, but in his own time and in his own way, God does answer our prayers. His answer may be, “yes”, it may be “no”. His answer may also be wait and see what I can do for you.