The Wedding Feast at Cana

In the calendar for the traditional Latin Mass yesterday was the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany and the Gospel reading was John 2: 1-11, the Wedding Feast at Cana. This passage is significant for many reasons and depicts the first miracle that Jesus performed in his public life: he turned the water into wine. 

The Jewish rite of purification was important to any devout Jew and it included a ceremonial washing of the hands. When the wine for the feast ran out Jesus bid the servants fill the wine pitchers with the water from the stone jars used for the purification rites. His mother had said to them “Do whatever he tells you.” They complied, but must have been confused. Why would Jesus want to pass off water as wine? Were the guests so drunk that they wouldn’t notice?

But then the steward told the bridegroom, “Every man serves the good wine first; and when men have drunk freely, then the poor wine; but you have kept the good wine until now.” Good wine? From the pitchers of water? How could this be? Perhaps one or two of the servants even sampled this “good wine” for themselves and found indeed that this was the smoothest, sweetest wine they had ever tasted. As they pondered this, they might have begun whispering among themselves that the man Jesus must have had something to do with this. But how could someone turn water into wine? Who is this man?

In the subsequent years as Jesus’ fame spread and news of other miracles reached their ears, would the servants remember their witnessing of the first miracle and Mary’s counsel to “do whatever he tells you?” Do we follow her advice in our daily lives?