Clearing the Way

Sometimes I have trouble seeing the forest for the trees. Especially when it comes to "Bible stories" I've heard since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Especially when it comes to stories about things like wine and wedding banquets --not exactly part of my daily train of thought. So, I often pray for the Holy Spirit to show me what He wants me to notice in a passage, and to remove my know-it-all-ism (which is really that rebellious, self-indulgent idea I've read this stuff a thousand times and there couldn't possibly be anything new for me to glean). He mercifully --instead of zapping me into oblivion, which is closer to what I deserve --moves all those familiar facts to the side and grants me the privilege of the Word of Life, the truth that will free me in spite of myself. This morning, it was a glimpse into the significance of the wedding at Cana.

In John 2:1-12, God, through the Apostle John, tells us of Jesus' "first miracle" as He was beginning His public ministry. You may know the events in detail. Jesus attends a wedding with His mother and disciples. The banquet runs out of wine. Jesus' mother comes to Him and urges Him to do something. Jesus calls for water pots to be filled and transforms the water into wine of greater quality than what was previously served.

Here's where the trees parted for me this morning --verse 6 (Complete Jewish Bible):

Now six stone water-jars were standing there for the Jewish ceremonial washings,

These pots were used for ritual cleansing water, the water of cleansing under the Law, a temporary means of atonement; a means that, quite frankly, the religious teachers had adopted as being the end-all-to beat-all rather than a foreshadowing of what God would do. They had burdened the people with additional shoulds, and excluded people who, through no fault of their own were unclean and in need of compassion. They upheld the letter of God's Torah and despised the spirit of it. Jesus' first miracle, the beginning of His ministry checks that attitude: He takes the water of ceremony, a foreshadow, and transforms it into what would be --what is to us at our Communion tables today --a representation of the purification to come at the cross through His blood! Many Jews had put their faith in ablution as a means of acceptance, rather than faith in the work of God through the means given them. At a wedding on a Tuesday in Cana, Jesus shows them there is a better way; faith in Him and His future work at the cross, the remission of sin through His blood. Pots once standing prepared for cleansing in accordance with Torah now stood full of wine, representative of the blood that cleanses once for all!

And look at the words of the banquet master when he has tasted the wine; he seeks out the bridegroom and exclaims:

Everyone else serves the good wine first and the poorer wine after people have drunk freely. But you have kept the good wine until now!

The good wine! The Greek word translated good can mean "genuine, precious, approved." Not simply delicious, but of superior purity and quality. It had been kept back (or so he thought), through all the bottles of good but hardly the best wine, until the time the bridegroom had given the signal, until this moment.

The water always pointed to the blood. Through all the shadows, through all the symbols, until such a time as was appointed, the water served. But now, we place our faith in the genuine, the precious, the approved One who shed His blood for us, whose sacrifice we commemorate with the wine each time we celebrate the Lord's Supper; our thoughts and hearts turned toward the blood. The wedding at Cana, pointing forward, Law to grace; the Communion table pointing back, grace to faith. But lest we fall into the same trap as the teachers of Jesus' day, let us hold fast to the assurance the Communion table points forward as well, to another wedding, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, which all the members of the Body will attend; the Bride of Christ. We will partake in our Bridegroom fully, and shadows will be no more. We shall know as we are known, the superficial and semantic pulled back to reveal greater truth, deeper significance, the better wine of our Savior.