And his disciples believed in him
I remember a visiting preacher giving the sermon on The Wedding at Cana (the gospel reading for this Sunday which comes from John 2) at SMR a few years ago. He started with some maths. Each of the six stone jars held twenty to thirty gallons of liquid. There were six stone jars which (if we average the size of the jars to 25 gallons) equates to 150 gallons of liquid. That is the same as 700 litres which will take 750 standard size bottles to fill. We know it was 'good wine', so let's say (in today's money) that 'good wine' costs ... well that's where it gets subjective!
For some of us, 'good wine' is anything that has a taste we like; for some of us, 'good wine' comes at a price that some others of us would consider overpriced for something that's not going to last long .. especially when shared around at a wedding!
But whether that wine would cost us a few thousand pounds or - to quote the preacher that day - somewhere around a million and a half (he clearly had expensive taste!) the point of the miracle is ... well, what is the point?
We're often told that the point is either that Jesus is revealing himself to others as his mother knows him, or that we are encountering the overwhelming generosity of God, or even that the relationship between Jesus and Mary was just as human as any mother and son relationship.
As I read it today, I am caught by the final phrase ... Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
This narrative does offer us a glimpse of the 'signs' to come, as well as a glimpse of the unwarranted, awe-inspiring generosity of God that those 'signs' reveal. And yet it concludes that, having experienced all this, Jesus' disciples believed in him. Whilst it doesn't explicitly say that they didn't believe (or didn't quite believe) in him before this point, it's not hard to read that suggestion into the text. Prior to going to this wedding, noticing the wine running out, and then enjoying the superfluity of that superb fluid (let's not kid ourselves ... I'm sure Jesus' friends made good use of that 'good wine'!) ... prior to going to this wedding, I wonder how just how much they now believed in him as well as liked him, followed him and respected him.
The theme of 'seeing and believing' appears in other places in John's gospel: the woman of Samaria (John 4); the raising of Lazarus (John 11), at the empty tomb (John 20) and in Jesus' appearance to Thomas (John 20).
It is interesting to note that The Wedding at Cana is one of the first narrative episodes in John's gospel and the encounter between the risen Christ and Thomas is one of the last. In the earlier encounter, we read Jesus did this ... and his disciples believed in him; and in the latter Jesus says to Thomas Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.
Dan Tyndall
14 Jan 2022
