We are all very familiar with the first miracle of Jesus. When he changed 6 large water jars of water into wine, that is 600lts of water which is 800 standard bottles of wine. WOW we say that is some party, and it challenges us in our ideas of generosity and hospitality, sobriety and just plain living life.
As always the interesting things are in the detail and I am just imagining the details here. There is a sense here that this all happened behind the scenes. The servants and Mary and Jesus were helping save the reputation of the family who were unaware there was any problem.
So when did the water turn into wine? The servants filled the jars up with water this was no small thing as they would have weighed around 110Kilos each. That is like two full size bags of cement, two people required to heave them around. But when did they notice that it was no longer water?
They went and filled them up with clean water from a spring and then carried them back to the banquet. They may have used a donkey and with six jars to fill there could have been a group of servants. When they returned with the jars, I think it was still water and Jesus was still involved. Jesus said take a cup of the water to the master of the banquet. Now I’m not too sure who the ‘master of the banquet’ is, but he obviously was not involved in the details of the purchase of wine. Nevertheless I guess it would be him who would be embarrassed if they ran out, embarrassed big-time. So imagine the first person to see the miracle was probably the servant who carried that cup. She or he ladled some water from the jar into a wine glass (or whatever was their equivalent) and took it to the VIP table. And while walking across the room the water became wine, and very good wine too.
I like to believe it this way because I think it consistent with my Jesus. The servant who would have been like me is thinking something like ‘this is not going to go well, I’m taking a glass of spring water in a wine glass, I hope he doesn’t hit me too hard’. But on the way across the room the miracle occurred. Instead of being hit round the head the servant is rewarded by being able to see the full enormity of what Jesus has just done.
I think for the rest of the event the servants were pouring out glasses of water and delivering glasses of the finest wine. They felt they were the celebrities who changed the water into wine by pouring it out. If they did not pour it out of the jar then it remained water, but when it was poured out then it became wine.
Our lives are like this when we pour them out in service to others or in worship or prayer then our water is transformed into something amazing. We are involved in the miracle because we have to pour it out and we get to see the miracles in detail.
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