John
2:1-11
Allow me to throw at you some facts
about water gathered from a random web site.[1]
1.
Roughly 70% of an adult’s body is made up of water, which is down
from the 80% or so when a baby is born.
2.
A healthy person can drink up to three gallons of water per day.
3.
Water dissolves more substances than any other liquid.
4.
Around 75% of the earth’s surface is covered by water.
5.
More fresh water is stored underground than on the surface of the
earth.
6.
The earth’s total amount of water is about 326 million cubic
miles, but only 0.03% of that is usable by humans.
7.
The U.S. uses about 346 billion gallons of fresh water every
day. The average American uses between
80 and 100 gallons daily.
In
other words, water is incredibly common, totally necessary, and (if we are
talking about clean, drinkable water) more precious than we realize. The people out west, where a years-long
drought is dragging on despite this year’s El Nino effect, could tell us about
that.
Now let me change gears quickly. Bear with me.
Another fact of life in our time is
that although biblical illiteracy is widespread (by which I mean that people are
by and large unaware of what is in the Bible and while they want a copy of the
book around, they don’t often open it) there are some parts of the Gospels that
people tend to pick up as cultural references even if they don’t actually read
them. The Christmas story is a good
example of that. A person who never goes
to church, even on Christmas, will still be able to give you details, like that
the baby Jesus was laid in a manger and that the wise men brought gifts of
gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Another
example of lingering awareness is that people who have never heard of “The
Sermon on the Mount” or “The Feeding of the Five Thousand” will still be aware
that Jesus changed water into wine.
There is something hopeful in that,
because that miracle embodies a promise and expresses an experience that God
holds out to everyone. It is a miracle
where the commonplace is made into something special. Something totally ordinary and unremarkable,
when touched by Jesus’ power, is turned into a blessing.
Imagine that you are part of the
couple that has just gotten married in Cana of Galilee; you have invited all
sorts of guests and they are having a good time, eating and drinking and singing
and dancing and doing all the things that suit a wedding (which is a
celebration of life), when the caterer comes up behind you and whispers that
the wine has run out. It’s like saying that
there are 100 guests but only 80 plates or that somebody in the kitchen dropped
the cake onto the floor. Not only is it a
problem for the guests who get left out, for you it is also a social
embarrassment of the sort that people tend not to forget. Twenty-five years later, at your silver
anniversary, somebody is sure to remark, “Well, at least this time they counted
better,” or, “They’ve finally learned to serve cupcakes.” Ha, ha, ha.
Jesus’ quiet intervention saved the
day. He didn’t do it by any particularly
public display of his power. In fact, he
was reluctant at first even to get involved.
“When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus
said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is
that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’” [John
2:3-4]
But
he did give in. He told the waiters,
“‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled
them up to the brim. He said to
them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it.” [John
2:7-8]
The chief steward tasted it, and was pleasantly
surprised.
“The steward called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the
good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk.
But you have kept the good wine until now.’” [John
2:9-10]
Quietly,
behind the scenes, Jesus had taken the ordinary and made it something
extraordinary, and not in any halfway measure.
So he continues to do to this day.
So much that is good but ordinary, when placed in Jesus’ hands becomes
ordinary but wonderful.
For one thing, there is the water of baptism. There is nothing unusual about the water in
the font. It’s just tap water. (That’s a good thing, too. One time somebody gave me a little bottle of
water from the Jordan River that she had brought back from a trip to Israel and
suggested that using it at her grandson’s baptism would add something special
for her, if not for him. That morning I
opened the bottle and got the most awful smell of sulfur. I felt badly about it, but I had to hand it
to her before the service and ask if she still wanted it put onto the baby’s
forehead. Thank goodness she said,
“Phew! No way!”) It’s better anyway to say that there is
nothing magical about any water, but that what matters is that in the moment
when we gather around water as God’s people, each of us claimed by the Holy
Spirit as a child of God, that we recognize how God, through the water, extends
and expresses that same welcome to that child.
I’m not being very original when I say that. In the sixteenth century Martin Luther quoted
what Augustine had said in the fifth century:
“When the Word of God is added to the element
or natural substance, it becomes a sacrament, that is, a holy, divine thing and
sign.”[2]
Yet even when water is not used
sacramentally, it can still express God’s love through God’s people. The United Methodist Committee on Relief has
a project that provides clean water for people in the Faisalabad District of
Pakistan. A man named Masih was one of
the people whose household received a hand-pump that brings water to their
house so that they don’t have to scrounge for it.
“‘Water is scarce in our area,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I
even have to beg for a few liters, particularly in summer. It takes a lot of
time. I am unable to manage the situation because I have to go early to work
and come home late at night. If I spend my time searching for water, I miss my
daily-wage work.’ …
‘I
am so happy now, …I can work for more hours and pay my debts quickly. I am also
relieved of my fears for my grown-up daughters, who sometimes had to go in the
night to the tap to get water.’
The
hand pump in Masih’s house has become a blessing for others in the neighborhood
too. They can get water from it anytime. Masih welcomes everyone with a smile.
…
‘I
have been blessed by God. The well under my house has water that is sweet and
drinkable. How could I keep this blessing from other people?’ he asked. ‘I know
the pain of having no water. It is my duty to help others and reduce their
sufferings.’”[3]
Again,
something simple as water can be something as wonderful as life itself.
Nor is it just water. So much of what is around us, the Lord
transforms into a vehicle for grace: a shared meal, a kind word, a corny joke,
the song that you whistle without thinking, all the everyday bits of life. If only we make it all available to him, he
can and will do wonders.
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