What
do you get for the couple who have everything? These days that’s a lot easier
to answer than it used to be. We have online gift registries.
Where would you go to find a truly outrageous gift? The
answer, of course, is Nieman Marcus. A friend of mine has a saying, “If I die
in Walmart, drag my cold, dead corpse to Nieman Marcus!”
So, Kevin and Krystal, take note, here are some truly
outrageous gifts that you can get from Nieman’s.
- A $175,000 personalized library full of photography, art, and travel destinations from around the world. Personally, I don’t get that. Why would you want a room full of books that you didn’t pick out yourself?
- For only $1.5M you can get “his and hers” dancing fountains like the ones in front of the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas.
- A $75,000 “yurt”, you know, a Mongoloian tent, resembling Jeannie’s tent in the 60s TV show “I dream of Jeannie”, complete with carpets and a chandelier.
- A $395,000 Ferrari that goes from zero to 60 in 3.7 secs. Oh, and it includes customized luggage.
- For $30,000 you can get a walk on role in the musical “Annie.”
Do you suppose Mary, the mother of Jesus, was embarrassed
that she had not brought a gift to the wedding in Cana? Is that what motivated
her to ask Jesus to do something about the wine shortage?
The story in John 2 is mysterious.
Who were the couple getting married? Why did Mary ask Jesus
to do something about the shortage of wine? Also notice that the steward
compliments the bridegroom on the quality of the miraculous wine. Why
compliment him rather than Jesus, the real source of the wine?
This led Bishop John Spong to suggest that the wedding feast
was really for Jesus’ own wedding. I don’t find this persuasive b/c at the very
beginning of the story we are told that Jesus and his disciples were invited
guests. And anyway, I am absolutely certain that there is no way that the fact
that if Jesus had been married, there is no way it could have been concealed
for 2000 years.
There are some things you should know about John’s gospel
that will help make sense of this story.
First, John’s gospel is neatly divided into 2 parts: the
book of signs and the book of glory.
One of my favorite tricks for my New Testament students was, “How many miracles are
there in John’s gospel?” The answer is none. I don’t mean that Jesus did not
perform amazing deeds; what I mean is that John never uses the word “miracle;”
instead, he speaks of “signs,” and there are seven of them.
- water into wine
- healing the centurion’s son
- healing the paralytic at the pool of Bethsaida
- feeding the 5000
- walking on water
- healing the man blind from birth
- raising Lazarus
A second mysterious aspect of this story is Jesus’ cryptic
comment that his hour has not yet come.
The word “hour” or “time” pops up througout John’s gospel.
When Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, he
says, “The hour is coming and now is when you will worship God neither at
Samaria nor at the temple in Jerusalem.”
But in John 12, when some Greeks, that is Greek speaking
Jews, say that they wish to see Jesus, he says, “The hour has come for the Son
of Man to be glorified.”
In other words, at the very beginning of Jesus’ public
ministry, he tells his mother that his “time” or “hour” has not yet come.
According to John’s chronology, his hour is 2 yrs in the future. But for just a
moment the curtain is pulled back and we get a glimpse of things to come, a
preview of coming attractions, a vision of God’s glory embodied in Jesus.
Glory is another key theme in John’s gospel. In the first
chapter of John, the author tells us that in Jesus “the Word became flesh and
lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only
son, full of grace and truth.”
But what does the miracle or sign of water become wine tell
us about God’s glory?
It tells us that God’s purpose is to enhance and deepen our
joy, that God’s deepest desire for us is that our joy not only be full but
running over like the six jars full of rich wine.
Presbyterian minister and poet J. Barrie Shepherd writes:
"They have no wine,"
the mother said, and did not
realize she spoke for all of us
since then whose lives drink
of those stone cold jars of water,
never seem to taste the rich and ruby wine
made by her son that wedding day.
What happened to that transformation scene?
How could the kingdom broached at Cana
turn into a cross, our festal song
become one long funereal dirge?
Might there be a bridegroom yet, beyond
the graveyard, at whose feast the wine
flows freely and forever, blesses,
kisses every tasting lip with
sweet surprising laughter?
But that brings me back again to my original question, what
prompted Mary’s original request that Jesus do something about the shortage of
wine? Did she come to the wedding feast without a gift?
Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians reminds us that we
all have gifts: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit… To each
is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given
through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of
knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to
another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles,
to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various
kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are
activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just
as the Spirit chooses.”
A wedding is just a sprint, but a marriage is a marathon. I
imagine that a long marriage may begin to feel like a wedding party that has
run out of wine. The joy that was there in the beginning plays out, and the
wine of gladness becomes the water of drudgery and the commonplace.
What happens when she discovers that he snores? What happens
when he discovers that she can’t boil water to save her life? Paul reminds us
that no one of us has all the gifts, that the spiritual gifts are something
that we possess together as the body of Christ.
And John reminds us that even the water of the ordinary and
commonplace can once again be shot through with the glory of God when we
remember and realize that in and through Christ we have married into God’s
family.
