The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

The miracle at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee is not only unique to John, but in some ways an altogether unusual miracle, indeed more like a parable. I think it would be high on anyone’s list of favorite gospel stories. What is it that is so appealing about it? And why does John give it such prominence as the first of Jesus’ Signs?
The narrative itself is found only in John, but some of its themes are found elsewhere; the symbolism of the marriage feast and of Jesus as the bridegroom occurs in other gospels, and there are parables comparing the Kingdom of Heaven to a feast. There is an underlying sense that Israel has been waiting, hungering for food, and with Jesus and the Kingdom, it has arrived and all will be fed. Jesus elsewhere compares his message to new wine that will burst old wine skins; at Cana the new wine is almost overflowing from the old stone jars.
The conversion of water into wine, and such an absurdly abundant quantity of wine, also has some similarities with the feeding of the five thousand; again hunger and thirst are satisfied and more than satisfied as there are prodigious left-overs; twelve baskets full of bread and presumably several large jars of wine. The two miracles share a level of plausibility too. I mean that they are possibly easier to explain in empirical or rational terms- perhaps the wine delivery man couldn’t find the usual containers and used some handy stone jars instead or the five thousand just felt full having heard Jesus preach. You might also explain some of the healing miracles as just reversing a psychosomatic illness (although you would need to explain the extraordinary prevalence of such disorders in 1st century Palestine). On the other hand the superabundance of wine and bread remind us of the extraordinary power of God in Jesus; it wasn’t a case of a glass or two of wine or a couple of loaves of bread. I don’t, however, mean to explore the nature and mystery of miracles in this sermon; my point is that some miracles lend themselves more than others to a symbolic interpretation. There is something pretty odd and magical going on both in Cana and with the Five Thousand, but for John, at least, the importance of the Sign is only partly to demonstrate Jesus’ divine power as he magically contradicts or completes nature. More significant is the symbolism of the miracles; the way in which they allude to the past and illuminate what is happening now and explain what will happen. 
It is easy to get carried away seeing references to the Old Testament and internal references to John’s own Gospel; I think many are meant and would have been apparent to John’s intended readership, or audience; other references may be sub-conscious but perhaps most are impossibly obscure for all but a very few  modern readers. Nevertheless it is worth looking at some of them to help to answer my questions; why the story is so compelling, and what it’s purpose is in John Gospel- in other words in explaining or amplifying what John is telling us about Jesus.
It is often observed that the stone jars are said to be of the type used for ritual washing required by the Law; Jesus fills them up with wine; stone jars are not exactly the most convenient receptacles for wine, so we must assume that Jesus is making a point, that his wine is somehow replacing the washing water of the Law. There are possibly allusions to famous Old Testament famines and droughts as in the story of Joseph in Egypt or Elijah with the widow of Zarephath, with possible echoes of words used in those stories. Jesus is repeating the miracles of the prophets; responding to the needs of their people, but doing so with something stronger, almost literally more spirited than mere water and provided in abundance. We shouldn’t take this too far; after all the empty stone jars were for washing water, not drinking and wine is only up to point a antidote to drought, but the sense of Jesus doing something new and different is clear.
John’s interest in time and days is characteristic and there may be significance in the fact that the wedding in Cana is on the third day; the third day is used quite frequently in the Old Testament for events with a surprising outcome, presaging, as Christians see it the Resurrection. Perhaps equally significant is that this third day is also a sixth day, counting from the Baptism of Christ, and it was on the sixth day that God completed his creation, placing Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Allusions of this sort are little like doubles entendres; once you have seen a few, then every phrase and every reference takes on a second meaning. Whether there is really any significance to be attached to the numbering of the days is questionable, although if you decide it is not, then you need to explain why John is so keen to tell us on which day events happened. What is very clear is that in the previous chapter, in the famous start of his Gospel, John is deliberately echoing the beginning of the account of creation in very start of Genesis. We are told that Jesus as the Word was present with, indeed was, God at the beginning. And in John’s account of the resurrection there is an allusion, albeit vague, to the new creation, as the garden is a new Eden, and God as Jesus is mistaken by Mary for the gardener.  There is, then, some reason to see the miracle at Cana as symbolic of a new creation; a fresh start replacing ritual and rules with something much headier.
While there are no direct parallels for water turning into wine miracles in the Old Testament, in the way that almost all Jesus’ other miracles do have precedents as prophets healed the sick and restored the dead to life or magically multiplied the food supply.  For similar wine miracles you need to turn to Mesopotamian and Greek myth (which very likely originates further East) In Greek myth the Dionysian tradition has  stories of water turned to wine, and of vines growing spontaneously (an idea which might possibly be behind Jesus calling himself the Vine). I suspect it would be difficult to establish that any allusion to Dionysus in John was intentional. Nevertheless, I can’t help seeing parallels. Dionysus was a new God who invaded the realm of the traditional pantheon; challenging the conventional and shaking up society and the establishment, offering liberation, symbolized by the power of alcohol. You can see that in this he shares quite a bit with Jesus, and especially the sometimes capricious, sometimes dangerous and frightening power of the Holy Spirit. Like wine too, the Holy Spirit may be consoling and inspiring and sometimes make us wild. There is too a darker, bloodier side to Dionysus, and I do not push the comparison too far, save to note, rather obviously in this service, that the Christian tradition also associates wine with blood, the blood of sacrifice and redemption.
The myth of Dionysus certainly entered the Greek collective psyche and it seems to me still to strike chords with us, as it may perhaps have done with John’s followers and others reading his Gospel. It is perhaps the association with the Dionysian which is part of the appeal of the miracle hinted at when the steward of the feast remarks how contrary to convention it is to serve the best wine last. Although revolutionary, perhaps, because revolutionary, Dionysus is also a god of creation, bringing in, like Jesus a new world. It is in this sense that the miracle at Cana is so appropriate as the first of the John’s Signs. The first act of the God of Creation, now incarnate and part of creation, is to demonstrate the new order he is initiating. And what the miracle demonstrates is the wild and occasionally even violent power of the spirit; its unconventional and absurd abundance; its revolutionary novelty.
Bottles of French wine carry a health warning; “A consommer avec moderation”. The English version is “Enjoy responsibly” I think. It’s not a warning I have always observed. The story of the Wedding Feast at Cana is also a sort of health warning, but it says drink freely; this is the new wine of the coming Kingdom. Think again about what is really responsible.  Amen.