Uncomfortable (S1) - Day 22

March 5th, 2023

John 2:1-8
2 The next day there was a wedding celebration in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the celebration. 3 The wine supply ran out during the festivities, so Jesus’ mother told him, “They have no more wine.”4 “Dear woman, that’s not our problem,” Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.”5 But his mother told the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”6 Standing nearby were six stone water jars, used for Jewish ceremonial washing. Each could hold twenty to thirty gallons. 7 Jesus told the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” When the jars had been filled, 8 he said, “Now dip some out, and take it to the master of ceremonies.” So the servants followed his instructions.

This week we are talking about uncomfortable truths that we are called to believe in. They are uncomfortable because you have to decide whether or not you believe them to have happened and whether or not they are true.

We learn these truths from a very early age, and we are expected to think of them as true and real and help us to understand who God is and what God can do. We meet these stories when we are very young and we are expected to never have our understanding of them change over the span of our lives.

This is probably not too reasonable. We grow in our understanding of everything else in our lives, but we are not supposed to grow in our understanding of these stories of scripture? Why not? Do we do damage to who we believe God is if we re-evaluate our understanding of some of these uncomfortable truths?

For instance, what do we do with the supernatural that we find in scripture? Is it okay that it is there? Did it happen? Can we question it, or at least question the writer's understanding of it? Do we lose our faith if we question some of these stories?

And what do these stories tell us about God? Do they tell us of his love, of his power, of his holiness or his character? Are we brought closer to an understanding of divine love by them, or are we repelled by trying to understand them in a modern context? How do we do this work? And are we being somehow unfaithful to even engage in it?

So let's take a look at a story that seems relatively innocuous in the grand scheme of all of these supernatural happenings. It is the story of the wedding at Cana, and it is Jesus’ first miracle, apart from the incarnation.

We see Jesus at this party, and the wine runs out. His mother is pretty concerned about it. Jesus doesn’t really think that it is any of his business at the time. In fact, it feels like he is almost rude to his mother in saying that his time had not yet come, and therefore, he wasn’t going to do anything.

She insists, and therefore he asks the servants to go fill up the jugs with water. When they dip back into them, they are full of the best wine that was available.