On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and His disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim. Then He told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew.
Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.” What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which He revealed His glory; and His disciples believed in Him. John 2:1-11
“All through the Old Testament waters appear ‘now real, now symbolic, now gentle, now life-giving, now destructive and terrifying, now a trickle, now a torrent,’ In Cana we see it as a torrent – freely given and flowing over. Water in the Bible is always freely given – from the first book to the last.
In Genesis we read, “What all was Tohu-tohu (a mess) – waters were created and flowed freely. On the fifth day God said, ‘Let the waters abound with life’ and in Revelation we read, ‘Let him receive the water of life freely – who thirsts – come!’ The Garden of Eden had to abound in water.
‘The desert mind, thirsting for beauity, must be told that there was water to make it a paradise, a couple of trees and the four-branched rivers. Even when sin becomes prevalent, waters are still abundant, and the floodgates of heaven are opened, but now to punish man [in the Noah story].
Whether it is well water – or the rains sent by Yahweh – it is always in abundance – to show the greatness of His love. The floodwater covered the enemies of Israel as they tried to cross the Red Sea, until they sank into the depths like a stone: ‘Horse and chariot He cast into the sea’ (Exodus 15:1, 5).
When Moses struck the rock, waters gushed forth in abundance – a figure, too, of the waters that would gush forth from the side of Christ and become ‘waters of salvation,’ which Isaiah fortold we would draw with joy from the Savior’s fountains (Isaiah 12:3). The same superabundance is seen in the Gospels and in this miracle of Christ.”
S.R. Vandana in “Water – God’s Extravaganza: John 2:1-11” in Voices from the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World, ed. R.S. Sugirtharajah (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2006) 123.
I am enjoying this book with contributions from scholars from India and South Asia whilst I travel to this region. This reading seemed fitting as I crossed a lot of water, the Atlantic Ocean, last night.
Think about water in the biblical narrative. Vandana rightly recounts that it appears: ‘now real, now symbolic, now gentle, now life-giving, now destructive and terrifying, now a trickle, now a torrent.”
But it always appears freely from God and in superabundance. Ponder the significance of this: that God freely gives more than enough of the one thing everyone on earth needs to survive.
Consider also His miracle in Cana. Though His time had not yet come, Mary alerted Him to a need and He responded. Ponder how God shows up when we need Him, call to Him, and have no other hope.
Interestingly, He Himself will tell us to trust in Him and not money. When we hold on to money we tend to trust in it instead of Him. Let’s allow the superabundance of His provision of water to inform our generous sharing.
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