The Wedding Feast of Cana Is a Famous Story From the Bible
The wedding feast of Cana is one of the most famous stories in the Bible. It was the basis for many sermons and also many more loose and imaginative explanations. In fact, there are so many good misinterpretations of the text that I don’t know which one I like best.
Maybe the following: “In Kana, everyone had fun at the wedding party. There was a lot of music and dancing. It was a hot day. People became thirsty. There was a shortage of wine. Everyone became sad. But Jesus did not want that to happen. Instead, he wanted a celebration. No problem! Jesus turned water into wine, and the fun continued. ”
“After all,” the pastor concluded, “Jesus loves good fun.”
This is probably something most of us want to hear. It is good to think that the Lord blesses our human celebrations. We hope for a new, coming day when the Lamb’s wedding feast will never end. But despite the hope being so pleasant, it has nothing to do with this text! There is no hint in Cana that Jesus is a lover of entertainment. Maybe he shows Himself as more of a stern personality that has angered him by being called away from the table.
Another interesting explanation of the wedding feast of Cana story came from some biblical group.
The group was talking about the story of the wedding in Kana, and someone said, “I think this is a wonderful story. Jesus overcame his initial hesitation to do the right thing. Think about it: the bride and groom must have been terribly embarrassed. The party got out of hand. They had too few snacks. The roast was not thinly sliced enough. The worst thing was that the caterers ran out of Merlot and Traminer. It must have been not very good. But Jesus was there. He provided some wine, and everyone avoided a catastrophe that would have happened otherwise! ”
This is also a fascinating view of the wedding in Cana. However, Jesus, portrayed in this text, is not in the least concerned about saving people from social calamities. Etiquette doesn’t seem to interest him at all. Jesus took the six stone jugs commonly used in Jewish purification rites and made cupboards out of them for his new wine. Is Jesus concerned about social practices? I do not think so.
And another example. It happened at a wedding. The priest looked at the bride and groom and told them, “They are going to start a new life together. Sometimes this new life will fill you with joy and happiness. In other cases, you will feel like you have run out of wine. When these dry occasions inevitably come, remember the wedding in Cana. Turn to Jesus and ask Him to fill you with wine. He will always come to your aid whenever you ask him. “
“Where do we find the fullness of God’s glory? Not in the death rites or sublime traditions of organized religion, but in a concrete human person, Jesus of Nazareth.”
This interpretation is the most reassuring of all the interesting Bible interpretations I have heard. But still wrong. Jesus is at a party. The party runs out of wine. None of the wedding guests are trying to talk to Jesus. When Mary raises this question, Jesus essentially rejects her.
“They have no wine.” Jesus answered her, “Woman, what does this matter to us?”
She looks at him with a motherly look, one that only a son and a mother can share. He looked her in the eye and said, “My hour has not yet come. It’s not my time yet.” Does this sound like a warm and sensitive relationship? I do not think so. Jesus refuses his mother’s request. She backs away, and he makes wine.
It’s hard to deal with this story without it slipping out of our hands. We can’t reduce it. There is no easy use in our lives. So what’s going on? Is this a wedding story? I do not think so. This is the story of an unusual guest at a wedding, Jesus Christ. And we’ve already heard three tips for understanding this story.
The first thing of the wedding feast of Cana is this:
Jesus does not use the village feast as an opportunity to make people happy, but as an opportunity to reveal himself, to present himself as God. The writer says, “This was the first time Jesus revealed His majesty to God.” Interestingly, some people have completely overlooked this. Jesus stood before them with the power to turn water into wine. Those who really saw what happened could only comment on the quality of the wine.
“Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people get drunk, worse. but you have saved good wine so far.” Elder missed the point. But can you blame him? Jesus revealed the glory of God, not in high and holy places, but the midst of marriage. He did not reveal God’s presence in the respectful silence of the wedding taking place in the sanctuary but in the village festivities that followed immediately afterward. God approached between loud music, the buzzing of distant relatives, and a three-line cake with plastic figurines on top. It happened in such an ordinary place. And not where, by all logic, you would expect.
After all, this is the central theme of the Gospel of John. Where do we find the fullness of God’s glory? Not in the death rites or sublime traditions of organized religion, but in a concrete human person, Jesus of Nazareth. The Eternal Word became flesh. If we know this, it is more than just making people happy. Satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart.
This fact shows that we cannot know what rules Jesus Christ will break to reveal God’s presence and power.
This brings us to another hint about the meaning of the story. If the human Jesus reveals the eternal God, some established customs are broken. In Cana, Jesus used six giant stone jugs as vessels for new wine. These jugs were usually filled with water for cleansing rites and dirty Jewish hands’ ritual cleansing. Jesus is God, so he can break the rules and use these pitchers differently. It was disturbing for those who knew what he was doing, saying the least.
Imagine having a parish party. We would run out of dishes, but we would take a glass from the sacristy instead of glasses and ciboriums for salty snacks. Do you understand the picture? This isn’t comforting… like what Jesus did at the wedding in Cana.
This shows that we cannot know what rules Jesus Christ will break to reveal God’s presence and power.
All we can say with certainty is that the glory of God will not be reduced to traditions and rites. According to the fourth gospel of Jesus Christ, he is not interested in preserving outdated religious customs and established patterns. Instead, it is about bringing us into the presence of the eternal God.
If we read the Gospel of John, we get the clear impression that everything that happened in Cana can happen anywhere and anytime. With Jesus by his side, every day is the third day. If we have eyes to perceive, we see small miracles every day, essential transformations in our lives. They are no less far-reaching than what happened that day in Cana. When such a moment happens, the actual event is important, but nothing is as important as what happens to us in the middle of the event. The sign from heaven can redirect you, turn you around, encourage you to participate in God’s plan for the world, where every day is the third day, and Christ’s holy presence is with us.
Still, you may know how distracting this can be. One of the things is that if we want to become new creations in Christ, we must abandon old patterns, familiar ways, and comfortable habits. This is not easy. The action of Jesus Christ in our lives is always connected with creating something new: to start anew, establish new relationships, and live new beginnings. Changes can be disruptive. They require all the strength and courage. But if we can accept what God is doing, we can find that some of the best wine has been stored so far for us.
And if every day is the third day, we cannot know what the risen Christ could do among us when he comes in the wild, unpredictable grace of God.
All this leads us to the third hint, to this third insight into the story, namely, when new life comes when new wine is poured, it is the gift of Jesus Christ. He himself decides to donate a new wine. No one can force him to give it away, not even his mother. No one can tell him what to do. And when Jesus decides to act, he does so solely on his own initiative.
In the Gospel of John, no one can say what to do. It never works spontaneously. He is never surprised. He never improvises for a particular occasion. On the contrary, he always acts deliberately and thoughtfully, for he is the Lord. He came to show us what God is like.
As someone wrote:
“In the Gospel of John, Jesus does not speak or act in response to any claims of kinship, friendship, or even necessity, but on his own initiative when God’s will is revealed to him. It may seem like no compassion, but it’s about something more than just compassion. In the story of Cana and stories involving his brothers and friends, Jesus fulfills the need but does more. Only compassion can provide wine, but sovereign grace does more: it reveals God in what happens.”
On the third day, Jesus turned water into wine. On the third day, Jesus rose from the dead. And if every day is the third day, we cannot know what the risen Christ could do among us when he comes in the wild, unpredictable grace of God.
How to Find the Meaning of Life?
For 40 years, I was sure that there is no god, that He doesn’t exist, and I am used to living with that knowledge. I didn’t ask myself how to find the meaning of life in God. As the Apostle Paul said, I once thought that I was obliged to oppose vehemently anyone who thought and spoke differently. But, by some miracle, one day, I realized that there is a God and that he is in heaven … I got used to living in accordance with that knowledge. Later they taught us that God is close, always next to us, as if holding our hand. , just as he took the Israelites by the hand and brought out the lands of Egypt … And just as I got used to thinking, believing and living like that, it was revealed to me that God lives in me, in us … And not only that, even more: That we breathe with it, live with it, move and exist … He walks with our feet, works with our hands, looks with our eyes, feels with our heart … Perfectly one in one body … The same God who dwells in inaccessible light and which none of the people saw, the god who lives in eternity beyond space and time, appeared in the physical-material reality in the human body. When Paul and Barnabas manifested God with his works, when as sons of God they witnessed the visible manifestation of God’s glory that raised man lame from birth, then the people shouted: “Gods in human form have come down to us” … God can no longer be hidden…
Not just me but all people sometimes wonder how to find the meaning of life. In doing so, we ask ourselves many questions as:
How to find the meaning of life?
How to explain the origin of God?
How do we know that our faith is true faith?
Where do evil, suffering, and sin come from in this world?
Why do children starve and die?
How did the first life come about?
How did the first man come to be?
Which came first – the chicken or the egg?
How could humanity have come from Adam and Eve?
These are just some of the possible issues that would be worth considering. As is noticeable, many questions can be asked when considering faith. Faith is not something foreign to man, and it is neither alien nor alienating. Entering the mystery of faith, we enter the mystery – the mystery of life. If the answers do not appear when you are clicking on the questions, it does not mean that the answers do not exist. Many answers will soon be available on this site. So, there are more possibilities to look for answers. Yet one is decisive: Perseverance! A persistent man comes up with an answer. It is not important to know everything. It is important to want to ask, to want to seek. He who seeks is already on the path of faith, on the path of the meaning, spirit, and reason. For a reason, man is different from all other beings on earth. Let us not allow indifference to so many questions of life, questions of ourselves.
There are even more questions for intellectuals and seekers of truth and those who try to find the meaning of life:
Was the world created by evolution, or was it created by God?
Can the evolution hypothesis be linked to the seven-day creation report?
Is life the case or not? (Are we by chance in the world?)
Is there a destiny?
Is it a sin to believe horoscopes?
Does it matter what religion a person belongs to?
How to treat sects?
Is yoga acceptable to Christians?
Is reincarnation against the Christian faith?
Should I go to Mass?
Why celebrate Mass?
Is private prayer at home enough?