That’s A Lot Of Wine”

Originally Posted May 7, 2020

Most people have heard of the Wedding Feast of Cana. Apparently it was a pretty large wedding. At some point the wine runs out and Mary lets her son Jesus know there’s a problem. (John 2:1-11) When discussing this wedding, Archbishop Fulton Sheen suggested

“it was very likely that it was one of Mary’s relatives who was being married and therefore Mary and her relatives would be embarrassed if they appeared inhospitable by running out of wine, giving Mary a reason to ask Jesus to intercede.”

While Jesus doesn’t seem that keen about being asked (“woman, my hour has not yet come”, John 2:4), he nevertheless takes care of the problem. In essence he delivers 180 gallons of the “best wine this side of heaven”.

To elaborate a bit… 6 – 30 gallon jars = 180 gallons or 681 liters or 908 bottles or 76 cases of wine. That’s a lot of wine…. and it was better than the best wine served first that had run out. I bet there was a lot of comments and murmurings and w-o-o-o-s. It was the first public miracle of Jesus.

Beyond all that has been said about the miracle of the wine, I’ve often been curious about how Jesus participated at the wedding. What were his conversations like…what were they talking about… any “small talk”? Sometimes I think he only spoke about the things of heaven…his heavenly father, salvation, the scripture, Moses, Elijah, David. But, Jesus was human. I assume he partook in the normal conversations of the day… comments about the young couple getting married, the weather, the crops, his carpentry business, the Roman occupation. What were his comments like? By definition, they must have been true, measured, spoken with the correct emotion. Did Jesus laugh at any of the stories being told…did he tell any parables. I think if I was a “fly on the wall”, I would be watching him closely, seeing how he related to each person, how he gazed at each person. Remember, while he’s human and part of an earthly family, he’s also God.

What were the comments of the crowd as they left the wedding after a few glasses of that very special wine… “hey did you notice Mary’s son Jesus… he’s quite a man, very astute and wise beyond his years, and someone said he was involved in obtaining that incredibly delicious wine. I think he has a real future here in Galilee….. really, I don’t know…he didn’t seem that special to me”….