Simply Miracle

John 2:1-11

The simplicity of this miracle, how easily, how quietly this was done. He says simply, Fill the jars with water. And they filled them to the jars – not with starbucks coffee, but with 120 to 180 gallons of plain, pure water.

Then Jesus said, Now serve it out, and take it to the food servers of the feast. There was no prayer, no word of command, no shouting, no laying on of hands, no hocus-focus, nothing. He did not even touch the water. He did not even taste it afterward to see if it had happened. He simply said, take it to the governor of the feast. What a beautiful, simple!

Yet this happened overriding the natural process. The water did not become milk, nor did it change into Coke. What happened was something that happens also in nature. Water is being changed into wine in every vineyard. It needs a long process of growth, of gathering and crushing; it needs as well the work of men and the process of fermentation. But it is a natural process. This is characteristic of the miracles of Jesus.

This process showed that the miracle of Jesus is simply a kind of short-circuiting of a natural process, doing instantly something which in general takes a longer period of time. Jesus’ miracles as bringing into focus in understandable what God has already done or will do in such a out of this world to natural world as to be difficult for us to think of.

That is what Jesus is doing: He is overlapping the elements of time, of growth, gathering, crushing and fermenting. He takes water, an inorganic, non-living, without a word, without a gesture, without any laying on of hands, in simplicity, the water becomes wine, an organic liquid, a product of fermentation, belonging to real world. So demonstrated his marvelous ability to master the processes of nature.

Then John writes this first signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him (John 2:11). They believed that here was God’s Man, ruling over all the works of God’s hands, put in dominion and authority over the natural world and doing with it whatever he pleased, within the limits of natur. When the disciples saw it they believed more deeply in him than before.

They saw that here was One who could handle life. Here was One who could take a ordinary thing, nothing out of the common, simple water, and make of it wine, make it a source of joy.

Our Lord is able to take the dull, boring , common, ordinary events of any life and with his touch make them full of flavor, fragrance, strength and beauty to turn them into wine.

He will do this with any of us as we believe in him, faithfully walk with him, follow him, obey him and abide in Him. All glory to Jesus.