Start with a party

What’s the first thing to do when initiating a brand new social program? It seems like it should be some very careful planning that will get your ducks in a row before starting. Everything needs to run like clockwork. That’s an informed and good way to initiate a project. So, now that Jesus has chosen his helpers, the disciples, what did he do? The gospel harmony tells us that “two days” later he went to a marriage in Cana of Galilee! Makes me think that it isn’t a bad idea to stop shortly after you’ve started, relax, think it through. It also makes me wonder about how to start any task, especially intellectual. Don’t get so deeply involved so quickly that you forget that everything needs to be looked at from a balanced perspective. I think I’m “preaching” to myself.
       It must have been a good party because, of all things, the host ran out of wine. If a father in those days wanted to embarrass himself just let him throw a party for the marriage of his daughter’s and not plan enough wine. Jesus’ mother was sensitive to the situation and hurried over to her son Jesus to tell him of the problem; he always seemed to be able to come up with a workable answer. This time he answered with a somewhat enigmatic, “I don’t share your concerns; my time has not yet come.”
       Attempts to move this response of Jesus out of the shadows of uncertainty have largely failed. But Jesus didn’t leave it as it was. There was a problem and he would help them out with a miracle, but first I think he wanted them to perhaps think how the problem had come to be in the first case. To come up immediately with more “wine” would divert their attention to the superficial. When Mary’s younger sister would get married it would probably happen again. I admit that this probably never went through the mind of Jesus, but his waiting just a bit before helping, demonstrates the value of not rushing to a conclusion on anything.
       As the story of the marriage at Cana comes to a close Jesus indicates that the turning of water into wine was “the first of my miraculous signs” (John 2:11). This ought to put to rest all the claims in the extracanonical literature that Jesus regularly did miracles as he grew up. Many examples of Jesus the boy wonder-worker are found in pseudepigraphical gospels like the Gospel of Thomas.  One tells the story of Jesus miraculously rescuing some clothing that had been accidentally thrown into a vat of black dye. Jesus merely waved his hand and the clothing came out red, blue, and green, exactly as planned. Another has Jesus’ cheering up his father by taking a log that they had cut too short and, with Joseph on the other end of the log, stretching it to the right length. Interesting stories, but Jesus clearly said that the water-to-wine miracle in Cana was his first. You make the choice: Hearsay or biblically verified truth?